Stealing the Atom Bomb: How Denial and Deception Armed Israel

by Roger Mattson

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  A November 1968 memorandum recorded insights gained through FBI wiretaps of Shapiro’s phone conversations, including contacts with Israeli intelligence agents.348

  This memorandum sets forth excellent results we have obtained from our telephone surveillance on subject’s residence.

  We are investigating Shapiro to determine extent of his relations with Israeli Government. As head of Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation, Apollo, Pennsylvania, which processes uranium-235 for nuclear reactors, Shapiro has access to atomic energy material, which could be most helpful to the Israelis.

  We have developed live sources concerning Shapiro’s activities, but our most productive source is telephone installation on his residence. This source has indicated subject has been in contact on two occasions with Dr. Avraham Hermoni, Scientific Counselor, Israeli Embassy, Washington, D.C., an Israeli intelligence agent. Source has also disclosed contacts with a senior official of Israeli military intelligence, individuals associated with Israeli Atomic Energy Commission, and member of Israeli Internal Security Service [probably Avraham Bendor of Shin Bet]. In addition, source has alerted us to subject’s contemplated travel to Israel during latter part of November 1968, and has indicated he is considering settling permanently in that country and, if necessary, would fight for Israel. We have learned much concerning subject’s travels and financial condition from this source.

  Future investigation will endeavor to identify additional Israeli contacts of subject and reasons therefore.

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  15 RAFAEL is the Hebrew acronym for Weapons Development Authority, Israel’s national center for weapons development. RAFAEL handled delivery systems and bombs for the fissile material supplied by Dimona.

  16 Before becoming a director at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Cordesman served as director of intelligence assessment in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He also served in the State Department, on NATO International Staff, as director of policy and planning for resource applications in the Energy Department and as a security assistant to Senator John McCain.

  17 In 1980, Leventhal was co-director of the U.S. Senate’s investigation of the accident at Three Mile Island. We formed a respectful relationship.

  Chapter 9

  Divided Loyally (1969)

  The FBI used physical and electronic surveillance to follow and report on Shapiro’s activities through the remainder of 1968 and into 1969. The Bureau also relied on unnamed informants with advance knowledge of Shapiro’s travel plans. For example, agents were in position and able to shadow Shapiro when he attended a meeting of the American Nuclear Society in Washington, DC in November 1968. FBI surveillance also revealed that Shapiro met Israeli citizens several times, including scientific attaches from the Israeli embassy.349

  Hoover’s agreement to provide and sustain in-depth surveillance of Shapiro after Helms’ request in April 1968 was unusual because it diverted manpower from criminal cases and it was unlikely to lead to prosecution of Shapiro. In addition, it was unusual for Hoover to ask the Attorney General to authorize tapping Shapiro’s phones. In that same period, FBI refused to tap the phones of suspected Soviet spies named by CIA because the Agency had insufficient evidence for a warrant. Apparently, neither of these concerns impeded FBI’s surveillance of Shapiro.350

  In November 1968, a confidential source told FBI that at the time of the Westinghouse Astronuclear contract in 1965 Shapiro was involved in the development and manufacture of food irradiators for Israel.351 The source advised,

  Had U-235 or any other nuclear material been available for shipment to Israel, it would have been a simple matter of placing the material in these food irradiator units in large quantities and shipped to Israel with no questions asked. Source said these food irradiators were legal shipments and with a notice printed on the side of the container indicating that the contents contained radioactive material, no one would have opened or examined them or had reason to question their contents.

  In January 1969, FBI agents told Director Hoover that Shapiro had written to AEC Chairman Seaborg on October 8, 1968 to ask questions about licensing criteria for plutonium-powered generators of the type purportedly discussed with the LAKAM representatives in September 1968. Seaborg’s November 20 reply to Shapiro (addressed to “Dear Zal”) described the conditions that AEC would impose on such exports and the availability of the plutonium-238 isotope for such an application.352 In their January memorandum, the FBI agents updated Hoover on the possibility of shipping purloined uranium to Israel in a NUMEC container for a food irradiator. The confidential source had provided his FBI contact with a four-page document describing the packaging that NUMEC used for the irradiators. FBI also learned through its telephone surveillance that while Shapiro was in Washington, DC on September 30, 1968, he spoke with Hermoni and Biegun and said, “Although there were problems, both were anxious to move ahead.” It is unclear from the context of these FBI documents whether Shapiro and the intelligence operatives were discussing plutonium generators or some other project. The documents are clear that Shapiro departed for Israel via El Al Airlines from New York’s Kennedy airport on November 28 and returned on December 12. Upon his return, the wiretap revealed that Shapiro spoke with several people about business opportunities he had discussed while in Israel, the most promising of which was to create a research laboratory modeled after Battelle’s Pacific Northwest Laboratory (PNL) in Washington State. At the time, PNL served the Hanford Works, one of two sites producing plutonium for the U.S. nuclear weapons program.

  On January 20, the FBI’s special agent in charge (SAC) of the Pittsburgh office reported to Hoover that during a recent trip to Israel Shapiro discussed business ventures similar to a chemical facility being built there by Allied Chemical Company. “It appears that if subject [Shapiro] can raise a million dollars or so within the next few years, he would not hesitate to move to Israel and establish some business in that country. This information is attributed to [redacted].”353 The Nuclear Services Division of Allied Chemical built a plant in Metropolis, Illinois to convert yellowcake to uranium hexafluoride, the feedstock for making natural uranium dioxide reactor fuel at the Apollo plant of NUMEC.

  On January 24, the Pittsburgh SAC again wrote to Hoover to address whether there should be an interview of Shapiro.

  Subject maintains an intimate and respected relationship with officials of the Israeli Government. . . . [Subject] discussed technical requirements of Israel with Israeli officials and intelligence personnel. . . . [Subject] has requested known acquaintances who are at least sympathetic to Israel to provide data on a variety of technical matters of interest to the Israeli Government.

  The SAC went on to say, “Concerning the question of subject having diverted U-235 to Israel, that has not been resolved. The relatively few individuals interviewed in this matter, including former employees, revealed their suspicions of subject’s activities, but produced no concrete information of value in this regard.” The SAC noted the Israeli technical intelligence network being run in the U.S. by Hermoni and opined there were probably others. He noted that Shapiro and others involved in the case are very active and highly regarded in various Jewish organizations, “which exert some influence in this country.” He also noted Shapiro, “has expressed no allegiance to the United States but has stated he would fight for Israel and is believed to be seriously contemplating migrating to Israel within the next several years.” Finally, the SAC got to his bottom line:354

  An interview with subject and/or others could conceivably cause some embarrassment to the Bureau and/or the new Administration. It is felt that disclosure by the subject, David Lowenthal and others of an investigation by the Bureau could be interpreted by the Israeli Government as being inimical to cordial relations between the Governments at a critical time.

  The FBI seemed more interested in catching or at least thwarting a possible spy than finding out what happened to the missing uranium. The
Bureau was also sensitive to potential pushback from Israel.

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  Richard Nixon was inaugurated as president on January 20, 1969. Chief Justice Earl Warren administered the oath of office while Pat Nixon held the Bible open to Isaiah 2:4. “They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks.” Nixon’s election gave Hoover a chance to get one up on CIA because he and Nixon had known each other for years and had been together socially at least a hundred times. “Shit, Hoover was my crony,” Nixon was later heard to say when his infamous tapes became public. Nixon had no such ties with Helms. The White House soon directed Helms to report to National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger rather than directly to the president.355

  Just days before Nixon took office, NBC News reported that Israel either had an atomic bomb or would soon have one.356 Three weeks after Nixon became president, Hoover wrote to newly appointed Attorney General John Mitchell to describe FBI’s “intensive investigation” of Shapiro that had been underway since May 1968.357 The letter was a little over two pages and was mostly redacted before release by the FBI.

  That same day, Hoover sent a memorandum to his senior managers describing a phone call from Attorney General Mitchell advising that President Nixon had two items he wished FBI to address.358 The second of the two was “atomic espionage that the President is quite interested in. . . . The Attorney General said he thought the President was talking about another country involving some American Nationals going back and forth. The Attorney General said he thought it was commonly referred to as the Shapiro Case (Mordecai Shapiro).” Hoover told Mitchell that a memorandum would be prepared to address the president’s interest in the case.

  It appears that either President Nixon was worried about nuclear espionage or he was fishing for how much the Bureau knew about Shapiro. In either case, he made it a priority in his first month in the White House.

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  Seymour Hersh reported a different view of Nixon’s interest in nuclear proliferation than is implied by FBI’s response to Nixon’s inquiries about NUMEC. “Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger approached inauguration day on January 20, 1969, convinced that Israel’s nuclear ambitions were justified and understandable. Once in office they went a step further: They endorsed Israel’s nuclear ambitions.” Hersh noted that Nixon and Kissinger opposed the spread of nuclear weapons in public while in private they encouraged Germany, Israel and Japan to get the bomb. Hersh quoted Morton Halperin, Kissinger’s aide, who said, “Henry believed that it was good to spread nuclear weapons around the world.”359

  Reed and Stillman also described Nixon’s duplicity on nuclear weapons. As a presidential candidate, he opposed the NPT. As president, he sent the treaty to the Senate for ratification. After ratification, he issued a secret decision memorandum on national security telling federal authorities to refrain from supporting the treaty, i.e., they should not urge other nations to sign it. Kissinger and Nixon apparently felt that most regional powers would develop nuclear weapons, that it was useless to try to stop them, and that American interests would be served because the U.S. would not have to supply a nuclear umbrella to protect them all.360

  Not all senior officials in the Nixon Administration encouraged the development of nuclear weapons by Israel. Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird later wrote to Secretary of State Rogers, National Security Advisor Kissinger and DCI Helms expressing his conviction that the introduction of nuclear weapons into the Middle East was “not in the United States’ interests and should, if at all possible be stopped.”361 Laird was particularly concerned with export licenses issued for two CDC-6400 and one IBM-360/65 mainframe computers to be shipped to Israel. He said David Packard, the cofounder of Hewlett-Packard who was then serving as Deputy Secretary of Defense, had a similar concern. The computers cited by Laird were then being used in the United States to design nuclear weapons and their delivery systems.

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  On February 12, 1969, Hoover wrote to a person whose name was later redacted, but probably Richard Helms, concerning the Shapiro case and saying, “The Bureau is giving consideration to further action in this case including preparation of a summary report on the subject’s activities [two lines redacted]. It would be appreciated if the above request is given expeditious attention.”362

  On February 14, just two days after telling Helms he was preparing a summary report, and only four days after promising the attorney general to get the information on Shapiro for the president, Hoover sent top-secret memoranda summarizing FBI’s investigations of Shapiro to Secretary of State Rogers, Attorney General Mitchell and National Security Advisor Kissinger.363 Hoover also sent the report to the Director of the Secret Service because it “concerns an individual who is believed to be covered by the agreement between the FBI and Secret Service concerning Presidential protection. . . .”364

  That same day, an assistant attorney general asked Hoover, on behalf of Mitchell, about Shapiro’s contacts with commissioners and staff of AEC.365 Hoover replied four days later that FBI had not developed any information of that sort. He added that the Bureau had advised AEC of the current interests of the president and the attorney general in such contacts (thereby warning the perpetrators, if there were any). He also told the assistant attorney general that the Bureau and AEC were interested in obtaining a decision from the Justice Department about possible prosecution of Shapiro.366

  The FBI staff summarized its investigation of Shapiro on February 18. The 56-page report noted the following facts in a one and a half-page summary:

  ○FBI’s 1965 investigation led to the Justice Department’s conclusion that Shapiro was not subject to registration under the Foreign Agents Registration Act;

  ○Shapiro currently holds an AEC Q clearance and an Air Force Secret clearance;

  ○Substandard security conditions at NUMEC were reported by employees and others;

  ○No logical explanation exists for large losses of nuclear materials at NUMEC;

  ○Shapiro met at his home with Hermoni and ten other men with special skills and knowledge in scientific and technical fields necessary for Israel;

  ○Shapiro had been in contact with Colonel Avraham Eylonie regarding uses and sales of plutonium-238 for foreign and domestic buyers;

  ○Shapiro and his wife attended dinner at Israeli embassy on November 26, 1968 with Israeli Defense Minister [Moshe Dayan];

  ○Shapiro visited Israel from November 28 to December 12, 1968;

  ○Members of Israeli Internal Security Service visited Shapiro at NUMEC plant;

  ○Shapiro was interested in pro-Israeli Zionist causes;

  ○Shapiro expressed belief that Israel’s cause was worth fighting for and he may settle there in a few years; and

  ○Shapiro’s close friend David Luzer Lowenthal [redacted] a frequent visitor to Israel.

  The body of the report recounted Shapiro’s education and employment from birth through 1968. It also listed Shapiro and NUMEC’s foreign business dealings. Several pages of the report were completely redacted when released in 2009 pursuant to an FOIA request. The report included brief biographies of the members of the NUMEC board of directors. In covering Shapiro’s foreign travels, the report noted that during the previous seven years he had visited Israel approximately three or four times a year. The FBI noted AEC’s report that Shapiro had visited numerous AEC facilities and “has had continuing access to sensitive data at those facilities since at least 1949.” The report included summaries of numerous FBI interviews with NUMEC employees, several of whom said they could not explain the missing uranium.

  The report contained the names, expertise and affiliations of the ten men who met on November 3, 1968 with Hermoni in Shapiro’s home. All but three of the names remained redacted in FBI’s response to the 2009 FOIA request. The report reviewed other salient information from the wiretaps on Shapiro’s home phone, including Shapiro’s potential opportunity to take over Allied Chemical Company’s stalled construction project in Israel
. Shapiro had said on October 23, 1968, “the main product of the facility, if it is constructed, would be 60-100 tons of uranium annually. . . .” Shapiro had also said he would meet with the Allied Chemical people in Israel during his November 1968 visit. The wiretaps also disclosed Shapiro’s interest in speaking to Moshe Dayan to discuss image intensifier tubes [used in night vision devices whose technology was in a state of change at that time]. In an ironic twist to Shapiro’s various statements about immigrating to Israel, the wiretaps captured his November 8, 1968 statement “that he is of more value to Israel if he continues to reside in the United States where Israel’s problems can be more readily resolved.”

  This FBI summary report did not tie Shapiro’s trip to Israel in November 1968 to the Plumbat uranium that arrived there at about the same time. Nor did it show any understanding of the significance of Shapiro’s visit to the Allied Chemical facility for converting yellowcake to uranium hexafluoride, a precursor for fuel manufacturing for Dimona. Nor did the agents question why Israel, with no plans to build nuclear power plants, would need 60 to 100 tons of uranium per year. The FBI should have known of these material and relevant factors.