Vela incident: Difference between revisions

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:"Although I was not directly involved in planning or carrying out the operation, I learned unofficially that the flash was produced by an Israeli-South African test, code-named ''Operation Phenix''. The explosion was clean and was not supposed to be detected. But they were not as smart as they thought, and the weather changed &ndash; so the Americans were able to pick it up."<ref>[http://web.archive.org/web/20050317011449/http://www.thebulletin.org/article.php?art_ofn=ja94albright#3 South Africa and the affordable bomb (David Albright)]</ref>
 
[:He subsequently admitted that no South African naval vessels had been involved, and that he had no first hand knowledge of a test.
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*On April 20, 1997, the Israeli daily newspaper ''[[Haaretz]]'', quoted South African Deputy Foreign Minister [[Aziz Pahad]] as confirming that the flash over the Indian Ocean was indeed from a South African nuclear test. Soon afterwards Pahad reported that he had been misquoted and that he was merely repeating the rumours that had been circulating for years.{{Fact|date=June 2008}}