Project Islero

Development

Beginnings (1963–1966)

The idea of a Spanish atomic bomb was first envisioned by Agustín Muñoz Grandes. A hardline Falangist, Muñoz Grandes aspired to break from the previous atlanticism promoted during the 50s to make the country independent of both NATO and the United States. In 1963, he approached general director of the JEN, José María Otero de Navascués, about preparing a Spanish foray into atomic weaponry. This new project, christened after the bull which felled the famous bullfighter Manolete, would be helmed by Spanish Air Force general Guillermo Velarde, selected for possessing the scientific background and acumen necessary to conduct the project's research. Velarde was a major general and pilot in the Spanish Air Force, as well as president of the Nuclear Fusion Institute of the Polytechnic University of Madrid. He joined the Theoretical Physics Section of the Nuclear Energy Board, where he would remain as Director of Technology until 1981. He had studied Nuclear Energy at both Pennsylvania State University and the Argonne National Laboratory of the University of Chicago.

The work was divided into two phases: the atomic bomb project itself, and the construction of a nuclear reactor, the fuel of which would be extracted for plutonium in order to construct the bombs. While the reactors could be built with help from the French — General de Gaulle supported the idea of an atomic Spain – the matter of what material to use for the bombs themselves, as well as how to actually construct them, was one of consideration. The first results were a fiasco. The JEN specialists, all military, declared themselves incapable of knowing both the technical details for manufacturing the device and, above all, how to obtain the necessary plutonium.

Palomares incident

Their question was answered on 17 January 1966, when (in what would later be known as the Palomares incident) a B-52G bomber from the United States accidentally crashed while carrying four B28FI Mod 2 Y1 thermonuclear (hydrogen) bombs. Three were found on land near the small fishing village of Palomares in the municipality of Cuevas del Almanzora, Almería, Spain. The non-nuclear explosives in two of the weapons detonated upon impact with the ground, resulting in the contamination of a 0.77-square-mile (2 km²) area with radioactive plutonium. The fourth, which fell into the Mediterranean Sea, was recovered intact after a search lasting two and a half months. The Spanish state conducted secret research on the debris zones of the incident, with technicians led by Velarde finding remains of the bomb and the detonators in the area. This enabled to the project to use plutonium-239 — a boon due to its relative cheapness.

Setbacks (1966–1971)

Yet later that year, Franco held a meeting with Velarde in which he ordered to indefinitely postpone the physical, but not theoretical, development of the project due to fears that it would be impossible to keep a secret, and with the recent creation of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), publicity would lead to increased economic sanctions on Spain. He did, however, allow the research to go ahead, albeit detached from the Armed Forces. Franco also pledged not to sign an international agreement being negotiated at the time to prohibit the manufacture of nuclear weapons. Thus on 1 July 1968, when almost fifty countries signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), Spain did not number among them. Meanwhile, Spain began to embrace the power of the atom elsewhere. In Guadalajara, the construction of Spain's first nuclear power plant, the José Cabrera Nuclear Power Station, was underway, and JEN installed the first Spanish reactor with capacity to produce plutonium for bombs, Coral-I, able to operate with either plutonium-239 or with 90% enriched uranium (U-235), although with waste still containing almost as much fuel as is consumed. Nevertheless, in 1969, the first grams of Spanish plutonium – the only ones in the world not under IAEA authority – were obtained.

Resumption (1971–1977)

In 1971, at the insistence of Manuel Díez-Alegría, chief of the High General Staff, Velarde resumed Project Islero. The Centro Superior de Estudios de la Defensa Nacional (CESEDEN) would conduct a confidential report which concluded that "Spain could successfully implement the military nuclear option." The plutonium would be produced discreetly at the Vandellòs Nuclear Power Plant, with the Spanish Sahara as a planned test site. All together, the process would cost about 8.7 billion Spanish pesetas, or US$57 million. At the same time, Muñoz Grandes, José María Otero de Navascués and the General Director of JEN Antonio Colino entered into negotiations with de Gaulle's France to obtain a natural uranium graphite and gas-fired nuclear reactor for Spain. Obtaining enough plutonium to build the bomb (6 kilos), in a country whose subsoil contained the second largest natural uranium reserves in Europe, was no longer considered a dream with the help of the French, who themselves did not allow the IAEA to inspect their plants. Both General Charles De Gaulle and Georges Pompidou, his successor as President of France, were in favor of the project from the outset; the presence of an allied nuclear power on the continent was seen as a means of increasing French independence from both the United States and NATO. To this end, the Hispano Francesa de Energía Nuclear S.A. (HIFRENSA) was set up, and in 1972 the Vandellòs-I plant was inaugurated with an agreement between Luis Carrero Blanco and Charles De Gaulle.

On 15 December 1973, Velarde communicated to Lieutenant-General Manuel Díez-Alegría — who, as head of the High Command in the early 1970s, had encouraged him to pursue his investigations – and to his trusted confidant, Brigadier General Manuel Gutiérrez Mellado, that Spain had the capacity to manufacture three plutonium bombs a year. Díez-Alegría ordered him to put his findings in writing. However, the secrecy surrounding the Spanish nuclear program did not bode well with their American allies. The Spanish projects had aroused particular interest among the CIA, but with the ascension of Carrero Blanco to Prime Minister of Spain, this interest quickly turned to concern. Although a convinced Anti-Communist, Carrero Blanco had little inclination for the United States and even less for Israel, being in favor of a better understanding with the Arab World. Above all else, Carrero Blanco proposed to revise relations between Spain and the United States, demanding that the two nations be treated as equals, that Spain be supplied with advanced military technology, and that the United States enter into a commitment to defend Spain – all prerequisites for authorization to continue using military bases on Spanish territory. As well, according to some confidential reports declassified by the US Military Intelligence Service, Spain was storing plutonium to manufacture a nuclear bomb, diverting it from IAEA controls; something completely out of line for an American ally, an action on par with a rogue state. The CIA informed U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger that Project Islero would soon bear fruit, and with tensions between Spain and America on the rise due to the 1973 Oil Crisis and Yom Kippur War, a meeting was soon called with Carrero Blanco.

Kissinger's meeting

Four days after the Velarde report, Carrero Blanco met Kissinger, and told him that the Spanish government wanted the United States to pledge its support of Spain in the event of aggression. When Kissinger refused, Carrero Blanco showed him Velarde's report, which caused the Secretary of State much distress. Kissinger, although failing to acquire Spanish adhesion to the NPT, did convey a clear message: the confirmation of Franco's desire for military nuclear devices made a "tight control" necessary over these activities. That same day, Kissinger left Madrid in a hurry, and the next morning on 20 December 1973, Carrero Blanco was murdered. Involvement of the CIA in the attack has been suggested by certain scholars, with a potential motivation being the desire to remove Carrero Blanco and to put an end to the program.

Aftermath

Soon after, the project began to falter when Gregorio López-Bravo blocked its completion. The minister had spoken to Franco to convince him to put an end to it, arguing that the Americans would eventually get wind of the project and that this would cause Spain an endless series of problems. Muñoz Grandes, already very ill at the time, failed to convince Franco of his plans to use the atomic bomb and French alliance as a way to gain greater independence from the United States. Franco saw it as a costly operation involving a challenge to Washington, whose support he considered more important than having his own bomb or drawing closer to France. Franco put an end to the heated discussions by ordering a halt to the research and forbidding the military project to be set in motion, informing Velarde that "Spain could not support a new international blockade unleashed by the United States, and the benefits of having a small arsenal did not outweigh the damage".

Yet neither Carrero Blanco's death, nor the abrupt dismissal of Díez-Alegría on 13 June 1974, nor even Franco's death on 20 November 1975, would bring the project to a halt. Carrero Blanco's successor, Carlos Arias Navarro, wanted to give a new impetus to the Islero project, and indeed, even though it was struggling to develop – not least because of continued pressure from the United States and its President Jimmy Carter for Spain to sign the NPT — in 1976, the Spanish Foreign Minister, José María de Areilza, would declare that Spain would be able to manufacture the bomb "in seven or eight years if we set our minds to it. We do not want to be the last on the list." Even with the Spanish transition to democracy and arrival of President Adolfo Suárez and the Union of the Democratic Centre (UCD) in 1976, the project would continue on with internal support. Suárez, who advocated a policy of neutrality and friendship towards the Arab world to prevent problems in the Canary Islands, Ceuta, and Melilla, supported the idea of a Spanish atomic bomb as a final deterrent against any armed aggression. Tensions with the USA increased further in 1977, when it became public knowledge of the technological capabilities of the nuclear facilities planned for the Soria Nuclear Research Center (Centro de Investigación Nuclear de Soria, abbreviated to CINSO) in Cubo de la Solana. American investigators were alarmed to discover that the plant designed to convert uranium into plutonium could produce 140 kilos of plutonium per year, sufficient to manufacture 23 annual bombs.

End (1977–1987)

While internally the project was well underway, externally, American pressures continued to mount; during his four-year rule, President Jimmy Carter had launched a campaign against the states that had not signed the NPT. In addition, the already nervous United States became obsessed with the IAEA inspecting suspicious Spanish facilities: if this inspection was prevented, the US would freeze enriched uranium exports to Spain, which would mean the industrial halt of civilian nuclear power plants that were already operating. Thus, on 23 February 1981, the UCD-led Calvo-Sotelo Government agreed to subject the materials to inspection by the IAEA, the same day as the 1981 Spanish coup d'état attempt. However, this decision did not yet mean the definitive end of Project Islero, since the UCD still continued to lightly advocate it. On the other hand, the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) had already resolved to abandon the Spanish nuclear project and remain in NATO, in return for Spain's integration into the European Economic Community (EEC), and following the 1986 Spanish NATO membership referendum and subsequent general election, González began to finalize the end of Project Islero. On 13 October 1987, the Spanish representative to the UN, Fernando Morán of the PSOE-led González Government, signed the NPT, bringing an official end to the project.

Legacy

Today, Spain has more than enough capacity to develop an atomic bomb in a relatively short period of time, with studies conducted in 2004 revealing that Spain has sufficient technology and resources to develop a nuclear program capable of producing several bombs a year. Additionally, the advances made under Project Islero have continued to manifest in Spanish life, with 7 nuclear fission reactors operating in the country, utilizing uranium deposits to produce a fifth of the energy consumed in Spain, as well as a ENUSA nuclear fuel factory in Juzbado, Salamanca, and a low and medium activity radioactive waste storage center in El Cabril, Córdoba in the heart of the Sierra Morena.