US Weapons-Grade Uranium Diverted to Israel: Secret NUMEC Investigation Files Now Online - IRmep

WASHINGTON, May 8, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The following is being released by the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy:

Declassified files from long-running investigations of the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC) over alleged illegal diversions of US government-owned weapons-grade uranium to Israel are now available online at http://www.IRmep.org/ila/numec

The 733 pages of information obtained under the Freedom of Information Act for the new book Divert! NUMEC, Zalman Shapiro and the diversion of US weapons-grade uranium into the Israeli nuclear weapons program include:

A 1980 FBI interview of an eyewitness (PDF) of NUMEC executives stuffing U-235 canisters into sealed equipment shipped to Israel.

CIA Director of Operations Carl Duckett's 1978 testimony about NUMEC (PDF) before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Atomic Energy Commissioner Glenn T. Seaborg's reaction (PDF) to news that traces of Portsmouth U-235 of the type supplied to NUMEC had been picked up in Israel.

NUMEC corporate correspondence (PDF) with the AEC claiming that undercover Israeli intelligence agents Rafael Eitan and Ephraim Beigun visiting NUMEC in 1968 were merely energy scientists.

National Security Advisor Zbigniew Bresinski's 1979 order (PDF) that Senator John Glenn not be given direct access to a top secret memorandum about "missing material from the NUMEC plant in Apollo, PA."

Deputy Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti's confidential letter (PDF) to President Jimmy Carter to "establish a plan for coordinated interagency action to detect and investigate the theft or diversion of nuclear material in the future."

A 1978 congressional interview transcript (PDF) with NUMEC President Dr. Zalman Shapiro.

National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger's 1969 strategy document (PDF) about how the US should respond to Israel's clandestine nuclear weapons program.  "There is circumstantial evidence that some fissionable material available for Israel's weapons development was illegally obtained from the United States by about 1965." 

FBI wiretap (PDF) of a 1969 toxic spill at NUMEC caused by improper storage. 

According to a 2001 Department of Energy report, NUMEC lost 269 kilograms of highly enriched uranium between 1957 and 1968—the highest in the US and enough for dozens of atomic weapons.  The former NUMEC factory site is currently undergoing a toxic cleanup the US Army Corps of Engineers estimates could cost taxpayers between $250-$500 million. The newly published book Divert! (available in paperback and Kindle) presents additional evidence that NUMEC—unable to complete US government contracts or protect workers and the environment—was originally established as a nuclear smuggling front.

SOURCE Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy