
In the 1960s, hundreds of pounds of uranium went missing in Pennsylvania - aburan28
http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/03/23/what-lies-beneath-numec-apollo-zalman-shapiro/
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aburan28
Here is what the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has to say about the NUMEC
affair: "Time for real transparency. It's fair to ask, in view of the other
losses in the US nuclear weapons complex, why the CIA and others singled out
NUMEC for grave suspicion as the source for Israeli bomb-grade uranium. In
brief, the reasons are these: NUMEC's unexplained losses were a significantly
larger proportion of its throughput of highly enriched uranium than was the
case for other firms that dealt with nuclear materials. Sloppy accounting and
lax security made the plant easy to rob without detection. NUMEC had
commercial relationships with Israel’s defense and nuclear establishments and
regularly made sizeable nuclear shipments to Israel, which at that time were
not checked by the AEC. NUMEC’s owners and executives had extremely close ties
to Israel, including to high Israeli intelligence and nuclear officials.
Israel had strong motives to obtain the highly enriched uranium before it was
producing enough plutonium for weapons. High-level Israeli intelligence
operatives visited the NUMEC plant. Israeli intelligence organizations were
used to running logistically complicated, risky operations to support nuclear
weapons development, and it would have been very much out of character for
them to pass up an opportunity like this. On top of all this, records show the
CIA believed its 1968 environmental sample taken in Israel evidenced an
enrichment level unique to Portsmouth."

[http://thebulletin.org/did-israel-steal-bomb-grade-
uranium-u...](http://thebulletin.org/did-israel-steal-bomb-grade-uranium-
united-states7056)

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rdtsc
TL;DR: It probably ended up in Israel at the Dimona reactor.

That was bought for "peaceful purposes" in the 1950s from France.

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Animats
It's reasonably well known that Israel got enriched uranium from somebody
(Israel never built a gaseous diffusion plant; those are huge, consume vast
amounts of power, and can't be hidden), but whether it was the US, France, or
South Africa is still an open question.[1]

[1] [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2006/04...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2006/04/28/AR2006042801326.html)

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Hydraulix989
I grew up a short drive away from Apollo. I can see a family member's house in
the "cover photo." Really glad I got out of there.

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anovikov
Anyway, natural uranium is no way a hard-to-get asset for a state-level actor.
It is found nearly everywhere - although most of the ores are too low
concentration for profitable production - but given the market price of
uranium is under $100 a pound it is no problem to spend an order of magnitude
more to get a few tons for a reactor to produce bomb plutonium.

~~~
aburan28
This was weapons grade uranium, U235. Not to mention that plutonium was also
found at this site

[http://www.npolicy.org/article_file/Revisiting_the_NUMEC.pdf](http://www.npolicy.org/article_file/Revisiting_the_NUMEC.pdf)

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graycat
Right. Yet again mention that old fact of history.

And IIRC, it wasn't just natural uranium that was "missing".

And what happened to that material? Three guesses, and the first two don't
count. If you have to ask, you won't really understand it!

Maybe this time mention that history to update ISIS. No doubt Assad and the
Iranians know, and so did Saddam.

~~~
graycat
Some people are slow on the uptake and failing to understand the history and
playing politics with me. Look, I'm not objecting to the _supply chain_ and
_materials requirements planning_. Fine with me.

And my suggestion, I thought clear enough, was that the purpose of the article
was likely just to remind some people with desires for big time fireworks
about the old _accounting_ lapses.

I'm not the only one: Notice the crucial, relevant line in _The Sum of All
Fears_ \-- this _accounting_ has been known for a long time.

In particular some of the recent threats are against not just _US interests_
but against the US itself, indeed, where I live. So, sure I like the purpose
of the article.

~~~
ars
You are being downmodded not for your opinion but for using a ton of words to
say nothing whatsoever.

~~~
selimthegrim
in a verbose and roundabout way, he is stating that <insert Arab terrorists
here> could pilfer this and use it for a non-state actor bomb

~~~
graycat
No. Not even close. Way, way off.

Gads, no one here knows the story.

Hint: What country in the Mideast is widely believed to have some nuke bombs
and has had for many years?

Hint: There's only one.

Hint: Considering how long, say, Iran has been working on concentrating
uranium, just how the heck did the first country in the Mideast get the
critical materials?

Hint: As in the movie _The Sum of All Fears_ \-- I thought that enough people
has seen that movie to _get it_.

Solution: Some years ago, some _accounting errors_ in or near Pennsylvania --
that's the usual story.

Understand now, or is this still too vague?

Again, my guess at the purpose of the OP now is to point out again to _other_
countries and any terrorists that they better not _mess with_ the Mideast
country that has long had nuke bombs.

Now, let's be totally clear: At no point did I say that long ago Israel got
some chunks of nuke bomb material from some accounting errors from some place
in Pennsylvania and that those _errors_ were the source of Israel having nuke
bombs. I did not say that! But it has been said often enough before by others.

Too many words to understand this time?

~~~
ars
I still have no idea what you are trying, and failing, to say.

But I will reply to this line:

> Considering how long, say, Iran has been working on concentrating uranium,
> just how the heck did the first country in the Mideast get the critical
> materials?

I'm sure you've noticed that technologically Israel is light years ahead of
Iran, and on-par or even ahead of the US. They most certainly could have
purified the materials themself.

~~~
graycat
> They most certainly could have purified the materials themself.

Know how? Yes. Actually do it? Likely not -- starting with just common
uranium, it's a lot of work and a big installation to get to weapons grade
uranium or plutonium, and hiding that installation would not have been easy.

Easy or not, the old story was that Israel got the bomb materials, plutonium,
from the US _accounting error_ , deliberately done and covered up in the US.

My point in my post was to suggest that the OP, considering current and recent
events in the Mideast, was to remind enemies of Israel that Israel does have
nuke bombs and did get the plutonium from the US via an effort in
Pennsylvania. Again, that story is old -- I heard it long ago and saw it
essentially repeated in the movie _The Sum of All Fears_. That is, my comment
was to mention a possibly curious purpose to the OP. This conjecture about the
purpose of the OP can continue to stand whatever the truth was about how
Israel got, if they ever did, materials for nuke bombs.

Tough for me to believe that the highly technical HN audience had so much
difficulty with my post.

~~~
selimthegrim
Surely you're familiar with the story of Arnon Milchan, late of Hollywood?

