Official government papers released by the British National Archives detail a deal to export 20 tons of heavy water for around $2.7 million. The ingredient was vital to plutonium production at the top secret Dimona nuclear reactor in Israel's Negev desert.

The British government did not place any " peaceful use only" condition on the sale of the heavy water. It would be somewhat overzealous for us to insist on safeguards," a civil servant explained.

Ministers in then Prime Minister Harold Macmillan's government were unaware of the deal, which was apparently conducted entirely by civil servants. It was also kept secret from the Americans.

In one of the documents Foreign Office official Donald Cape concluded: "On the whole I would prefer not to mention this to the Americans."

When questioned about his involvement by the BBC, Cape said he could remember nothing about the episode. Washington had previously refused Israeli requests to purchase heavy water without a guarantee it would be used for exclusively peaceful purposes.

The heavy water was surplus from a consignment bought by Britain from Norway. Though shipped to Israel from a British port, it was presented as a deal between Israel and Norway.

Robert McNamara, U.S. secretary of defense from 1961, said he was "astonished" by the cover-up.

"It is very surprising to me we were not told because we shared information about the nuclear bomb very closely with the British.," he told the BBC.

Former Conservative defense and foreign office minister Lord Gilmour said the revelations were "quite extraordinary." The civil servants involved must have known Israel intended to use the heavy water to develop a nuclear bomb, he added. They seemed to have no idea of the political or foreign policy implications of what they were doing, he said.

"They just seemed to be concerned with making a bit of money."

Experimentation with heavy water -- as opposed to light water -- is considered to be a sign of a military rather than a civilian nuclear program.

In February, a senior Foreign Office official said, in reference to Iran, that there was no reason for a country to engage in heavy water research unless it was aiming for a nuclear weapons program. Heavy water reactors produce byproducts which are used in military programs, he added.

Heavy water production reactors can be designed to turn uranium into bomb-usable plutonium without requiring enrichment facilities. Due to its potential for use in nuclear weapons programs, heavy water is subject to government control in several countries and safeguards by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog.

By the time Israel requested more heavy water in 1961, the existence of the Dimona reactor had been exposed by the media, as had Israel's probable weapons program.

With the issue fixed in public attention, the British Foreign Office refused a further sale, the documents reveal.

Sir Hugh Stephenson of the Foreign Office wrote: "I am quite sure we should not agree to this sale. The Israeli project is much too live an issue for us to get mixed up in it again."

Israel has never admitted nor denied having nuclear weapons, and has not publicly conducted any nuclear tests.

However it refuses to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, saying it will not do so as long as it feels threatened by other Middle Eastern countries such as Iran. The IAEA is therefore unable to inspect Israeli nuclear facilities or impose sanctions.

But few international experts question Israel's nuclear capabilities; the Jewish state is widely estimated to have as many as 200 nuclear warheads. In comparison, India and Pakistan are thought to have around 20 warheads each. Israel's nuclear program is arguably one of the most secretive in the world, a fact that contributes in no small way to its value as a deterrent.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres said in the late 1980s: "A certain amount of secrecy must be maintained in some fields. The suspicion and fog surrounding this question are constructive, because they strengthen our deterrent."

Israel began showing an interest in acquiring nuclear weapons shortly after its creation in 1948, as the ultimate deterrent after the horrors of the Holocaust. In 1952 it formed the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission, which began working closely with the Israeli military.

Construction of the Dimona facility began in the late 1950s as the result of a secret agreement with France, which provided assistance with reactor design and construction, according to Washington based website GlobalSecurity.org.

It was in 1958, the year that Britain's secret deal took place, that flights by U.S. U-2 spy planes confirmed Demon's construction.

U.S. inspectors visited Dimona several times during the 1960s, but while they reported that there was no scientific research or civilian nuclear power program justifying such a large reactor, they found no evidence of weapons-related activities.

However in 1968, a CIA report concluded Israel had begun to produce nuclear weapons. But it was not until 1986 that the international community was afforded a glimpse of the true extent of the Israeli program.

Mordechai Vanunu, who had worked as a technician at Dimona, gave the Times of London detailed information about Israel's nuclear program, on the basis of which analysts concluded Israel had up to 200 warheads. However before he could reveal more, he became the victim of a "honey trap" operation by Israeli intelligence service Mossad, and was imprisoned for 18 years as a traitor.

Israel's nuclear program is a source of much anger in the Arab world. The West's tolerance of its existence, contrasted with the denunciation of other suspected nuclear states such as Iran, Syria and pre-war Iraq as a threat to global security, is frequently held up as an example of double standards.

Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the IAEA, told Israel's Haaretz newspaper in 2003 its nuclear program was "a continued incentive for the region's countries to develop weapons of mass destruction to match the Israeli arsenal."

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