Roger Mattson - Stealing The Atom Bomb: How Denial And Deception Armed Israel

STEALING THE ATOM BOMB

HOW DENIAL AND DECEPTION ARMED ISRAEL

Roger J. Mattson

Copyright @ 2016 by Roger J. Mattson

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Roger J. Mattson, .

Second edition

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Print ISBN: 978-1515083917

The document on the front cover is from FBI files.
The FBI redacted it before release.
It contains the names of the four Israeli spies who visited NUMEC on September 10, 1968,

What Readers Said About Stealing the Atom Bomb

Mattson was known at NRC for his direct manner and willingness to voice unvarnished opinions. He has done it again in this very interesting bookthe research is most impressive. J. Samuel Walker, former historian of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and author of Three Mile Island: A Nuclear Crisis in Historical Perspective.

As the possible spread of nuclear weapons continues to trouble the Middle East, this extensively documented book is a timely reminder that nuclear proliferation began there, in Israel, in the 1960s. Mattsons meticulous research spotlights the core question for Americans: why, in 2016, are U.S. intelligence agencies still trying to hide how Israel obtained U.S. Navy uranium to make its first bombs? Margaret Ryan, former editor (1986-2008) of Nucleonics Week.

What a painstaking book! It needed to be done and Mattson hit the right reason, which is the moral one. This is a mighty work about tragic legal and political failings that will inform curious people for generations. John Fialka, former reporter on intelligence, military and energy for the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Star.

This book is painstakingly researched and gracefully written. I am floored, really, at its portrait of my father; I can almost feel his ironic gratitude to the author. I see here the careful balance my father maintained, reckless forces all around, guided by his own principles. John Hadden, playwright, director, actor, teacher and author of Conversations with a Masked Man: My Father, the CIA, and Me.

Stealing the Atom Bomb is the definitive book about how and why a team of spies and their American associate diverted U.S. weapons-grade uranium into the Israeli nuclear weapons programand why the American government never did anything about it. Grant F. Smith, director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy and author of Divert!

No one has done a more thorough analysis of the disappearance of bomb-grade uranium from a U.S. plant in the 1960s, and the evidence points to an Israeli operation. Victor Gilinsky, former Commissioner of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

This is the most authoritative account of the 1960s diversion from the United States of highly enriched uranium that was used to accelerate Israels nuclear weapons program. In meticulous detail, citing hundreds of internal U.S. government documents, Mattson exposes the lies of senior U.S. and Israeli government officials in their efforts to cover up the diversion and protect the perpetrators; and he reveals how the CIA continues to needlessly classify 40 to 50 year old documents that could give U.S. citizens and federal authorities a full accounting of this shameful blotch on our governments conduct. Thomas B. Cochran, Ph.D.

This is a well written, important book. How did Israel become a nuclear weapons state and what roles, if any, did U.S. government agencies and political leaders play? Mattsons book provides a major resource to those seeking answers to these questions. William Dircks, former Executive Director for Operations, Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Writing this book required help. Primary among the helpers were Dr. Victor Gilinsky and the late Dr. Henry Myers who followed much of the same trail as I in the 1970s, and then helped to sort out the facts and commented on drafts en route to this final product. Grant Smith aided my work by commenting on drafts, persisting in appeals of the many document denials by CIA and FBI and researching the life of David Lowenthal, the origins of Apollo Industries and the reach of the Israel Lobby. The archivists and FOIA specialists at various libraries and government agencies were professional and helpful. Thanks also to friends and family who read drafts of the manuscript and made helpful comments. At the top of the list of contributors is Donna Mattson who was there from the investigations in the 1970s to the writing of this book, not just to encourage, empathize and edit, but also to help recall the facts of the case and the people of the AEC in the 1960s.

Previous accounts of the NUMEC affair include the book Divert by Grant F. Smith, an investigative reporter and author who heads the Institute for Research: Middle East Policy. Victor Gilinsky and I wrote two articles that were published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to describe the likely fate and the coverup of the missing uranium at Apollo. The reports of journalists David Burnham of the New York Times and John Fialka of the Washington Star tracked the story as it first unfolded in the public domain in the late 1970s. This account draws upon those earlier efforts, which are acknowledged with gratitude.

Much is owed to the reviewers of the manuscript for their wisdom and the course corrections they suggested. They included David Burnham, Thomas Cochran, Avner Cohen, William Dircks, John Fialka, Victor Gilinsky, John Hadden, Jack Newman, Margaret Ryan, Samuel Walker and Leonard Weiss. A special thanks to J. B. Rivard for the suggestions I heeded and the ones I did not.

The photos and graphics are in the public domain.

Mistakes that remain are mine.

Preface

In March 1976, General Brent Scowcroft, National Security Advisor to President Gerald Ford, hastily convened a meeting of the National Security Council staff. Scowcroft called the meeting to address the concern of Commissioner Marcus Rowden of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) that some younger members of the NRC staff were about to spill the beans about an American company called NUMEC. Rowdens alarm stemmed from a briefing of NRC officials by a high-ranking official of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that occurred just days before. The CIA official told NRC for the first time of CIAs conclusion of nearly a decade before that NUMEC was the source of highly enriched uranium that aided startup of Israels nuclear weapons program.

The NRC people were stunned to learn of CIAs conclusion, not least because NUMEC was one of their licensees. More importantly, the new information from CIA confirmed what a senior NRC staff member, James Conran, had been trying to tell his managers for months. He had stumbled on similar information about NUMEC in the files of the former Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). The Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA) inherited those files when AEC was abolished in 1975. The ERDA people were determined to keep the NUMEC files away from the NRC, which had also spun off from the old AEC. Because his NRC managers did not heed his concerns, Conran was about to go public and blow the whistle that his work was being impeded by an inappropriate claim that he had no need to know. Rowden asked for the NSC meeting to discuss how to contain the spread of what he secretly knew to be damning information about the relationship among NUMEC, Americas nuclear program and Israels nuclear program. The meeting led to nearly forty more years of official denial and obfuscation of the NUMEC affair, a situation that continues to this day.