In 1976, Vanunu applied for a job at the Negev Nuclear Research Center, an Israeli facility used to develop and manufacture nuclear weapons located in the Negev Desert south of Dimona. Most worldwide intelligence agencies estimate that Israel developed nuclear weapons as early as the 1960s, but the country has intentionally maintained a "nuclear ambiguity", neither acknowledging nor denying that it possesses nuclear weapons. Vanunu had heard from a friend of his brother Meir that well-paying jobs were being advertised by the facility.