Israel will build its first atomic pile within the next four years, Dr. Walter Eytan, director general of the Israel Foreign Ministry and head of the Israel delegation to the International Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy, declared here today.
With an increasing population and a scarcity of energy resources Israel must find new sources of power, he emphasized. Israel cannot depend on outside fuel sources–as it is now doing in the case of oil imports from the Soviet Union and the British Common-wealth–because in the event of war such outside sources might be cut off and “the country’s life would be brought to a halt.”
“We must be independent and cannot rely on others. That is why we are making every effort to increase our own energy sources and we hope to have an atomic pile built within the next four years.” He said that the Israel Atomic Energy Commission, established in 1951, was chiefly concerned with research.
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