Item # 727292
June 09, 1981
THE NEW YORK TIMES, June 9, 1981
* Operation Opera - Israeli airstrike
* Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor - Baghdad
* Weapons of Mass Destruction not allowed
The front page has a banner headline: "ISRAELI JETS DESTROY IRAQI ATOMIC REACTOR; ATTACK CONDEMNED BY U.S. AND ARAB NATIONS" with related photo and map. (see images) Much more inside.
Complete 1st section only with all 38 pages, a little residue from a address label being removed, nice condition.
Background: The June 9, 1981 edition of The New York Times serves as a monumental piece of twentieth-century journalistic history, capturing the immediate global fallout of Operation Opera—Israel's audacious, preemptive airstrike that destroyed Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor just outside Baghdad. This front page is exceptionally significant because it documents a defining moment in modern warfare: the first successful preemptive strike against a state-sponsored nuclear program, establishing the "Begin Doctrine," which declared that Israel would not allow any regional adversary to acquire weapons of mass destruction. The banner headline and comprehensive coverage underscore a rare moment of severe diplomatic friction between the United States and Israel, as the Reagan administration joined Arab nations in officially condemning the raid and temporarily halting American fighter jet deliveries to its ally. Today, original, intact print copies of this specific edition are highly prized by historians, military archivists, and newspaper collectors; they represent a tangible, unedited archive of a geopolitical flashpoint that permanently reshaped Middle Eastern security dynamics and set a controversial precedent for international non-proliferation efforts.
* Operation Opera - Israeli airstrike
* Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor - Baghdad
* Weapons of Mass Destruction not allowed
The front page has a banner headline: "ISRAELI JETS DESTROY IRAQI ATOMIC REACTOR; ATTACK CONDEMNED BY U.S. AND ARAB NATIONS" with related photo and map. (see images) Much more inside.
Complete 1st section only with all 38 pages, a little residue from a address label being removed, nice condition.
Background: The June 9, 1981 edition of The New York Times serves as a monumental piece of twentieth-century journalistic history, capturing the immediate global fallout of Operation Opera—Israel's audacious, preemptive airstrike that destroyed Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor just outside Baghdad. This front page is exceptionally significant because it documents a defining moment in modern warfare: the first successful preemptive strike against a state-sponsored nuclear program, establishing the "Begin Doctrine," which declared that Israel would not allow any regional adversary to acquire weapons of mass destruction. The banner headline and comprehensive coverage underscore a rare moment of severe diplomatic friction between the United States and Israel, as the Reagan administration joined Arab nations in officially condemning the raid and temporarily halting American fighter jet deliveries to its ally. Today, original, intact print copies of this specific edition are highly prized by historians, military archivists, and newspaper collectors; they represent a tangible, unedited archive of a geopolitical flashpoint that permanently reshaped Middle Eastern security dynamics and set a controversial precedent for international non-proliferation efforts.
Category: The 20th Century
