
Did Israel steal bomb-grade uranium from the United States? - rosser
http://thebulletin.org/did-israel-steal-bomb-grade-uranium-united-states7056
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rdtsc
> that the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), the NRC predecessor nuclear
> licensing agency, had previously convinced the FBI not to open a criminal
> investigation into the material’s disappearance.

That is just ridiculous. After the Soviet Union fell I remember all these
"experts" talking about the looming dirty bomb threat from stolen nuclear
materials from Russia, Ukraine and other such places.

Yet nothing has happened, it turns out they do have a pretty good handle on
it. And here is hundreds of kg of bomb grade uranium missing right from the
country with the supposed many nuclear "experts".

I don't even know what to say. I guess, if you commit a crime, just commit
such a fucking big crime that anyone would just be too embarrassed to admit
such a crime even been committed.

> And any disclosures about Israel’s bomb program would of course have
> threatened the Carter administration’s Middle East policies.

In my book, some state with bomb grade nuclear material would surely derail
any peace process, in pretty much any region. Look at the war in Iraq that was
launched over "WMDs" that we still haven't found. Or the embargoes and threats
again Iran over using centrifuges. Fuck they should have just stolen the damn
nuclear materials right from the DoE and be done with it. DoE would have been
too embarrassed to do anything about it. "Hey Bob, yeah we just found out
Iranian agents stole 300kg of bomb grade Uranium from our storage
facility...." <Bob, the head of DoE> "Yeah that is too embarrassing, we can't
let anyone know about this.

~~~
ams6110
I would not rule out the possibility that this "theft" story is a cover for
what really happened.

~~~
uptown
...that we gave it to them, willingly.

~~~
sillysaurus3
Would that be a bad thing? (I'm just curious, and have no agenda. I'm ignorant
in such matters.)

It seems like the proliferation of nukes has resulted in a more stable
worldwide society. It's too early to tell, but in a century or two we'll be
certain. Is it true that where there are nukes, war isn't?

~~~
icegreentea
Proliferation and stability are linked, but not a simple causal relationship.
For example, look at the Cuban Missile Crisis. It wasn't even 'proliferation'
just the addition of new attack vectors (namely, the much increased potential
of a decapitation first strike against the USG) that nearly sent everything
ablaze.

Basically, MAD only works when both sides are relatively symmetric. When you
have weird asymmetric situations, and inability to actual cause true mutual
destruction, especially when mixed in with certain ideological elements,
nuclear weapons can be anything but stabilizing. For example, an enemy that is
already willing to use suicide bombers, or trade civilian/innocent lives to
counteract the opponent's advantages may not be fully deterred by nuclear
weapons. Especially an enemy that happens to be a non-state actor.

You are of course correct - we do need the long view to actually tell. But I
strongly believe that simply proliferation of nuclear weapons, especially in
situations without guaranteed mutual destruction is likely not stabilizing.

~~~
dingaling
> For example, look at the Cuban Missile Crisis. It wasn't even
> 'proliferation' just the addition of new attack vectors (namely, the much
> increased potential of a decapitation first strike against the USG) that
> nearly sent everything ablaze.

Technically the new attack vectors were the installation of dual-key Jupiter
IRBMs in Italy and Turkey.

The Soviet shipment of IRBMs to Cuba was a natural response to that poor
decision.

The Jupiter missiles were all withdrawn, beginning in January 1963, as agreed
with the Soviets.

------
MichaelAza
I'm skeptical about this. It is widely known that Israels nuclear program was
assisted mainly by the French and the British, with some fissile material
arriving from Argentina and Belgium. At the time (1960s) Israel was ready to
produce weapons grade plutonium on an independent basis.

Saying Israel stole that uranium is saying they preferred to steal from a
super-power what they could already produce. Possible, but unlikely.

~~~
mcantelon
Israel has stolen other nuclear tech from the US, so it doesn't seem _that_
unlikely.

> Richard Kelly Smyth, the President of a company called MILCO, was indicted
> that same year for smuggling over 800 krytron switches (a component used in
> nuclear weapons) to Israel without the required US State Department
> Munitions Export License. Just before trial, and facing a possible 105 years
> in prison, Richard Kelly Smyth and his wife suddenly disappeared. Sixteen
> years later they were discovered and arrested while living as fugitives in
> Malaga, Spain, and extradited back to the United States where he was
> convicted in the case. The krytrons shipped by Smyth were sent to an Israeli
> company called Heli-Trading Ltd. owned by notable Israeli movie producer
> Arnon Milchan.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lekem](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lekem)

~~~
judk
"Stealing" is different from "smuggling". The switches weren't secret tech in
a govt lab, they were export-controlled private-sector tech-for-sale (similar
legal status as encryption software)

~~~
mcantelon
The dictionary definition of "stealing"
([http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/stealing](http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/stealing))
is "to take (the property of another or others) without permission or right".
Israel didn't have permission to take possession of the tech, so seems like
the word is applicable.

------
001sky
Original Story, for context is summarized here:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Apollo_Affair](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Apollo_Affair)

This is from 1965, as for the "facts" YMMV

------
codezero
Consider this: there's no way the US could make an agreement to give/sell the
uranium directly to Israel.

They could however arrange a way for Israel to acquire the uranium, which, if
discovered, would place the blame on Israel rather than the US.

They could also take steps to prevent any investigation into that transfer.

There is precedent for this kind of illicit trade, so it's not entirely
unlikely that the reason nobody looked into it too deeply is because it was
meant to be stolen, and the US likely got something in return for the exchange
that was worth maintaining the cover for.

------
sillysaurus3
It's amazing how fortunate it is that it's so hard to make the one weapon
capable of destroying the world. Actually, I've always wondered if it was true
that humans really had figured out a method of destroying the world if
humanity goes insane. Out of curiosity, are there enough nukes to
theoretically remove all life? What about all mammals?

~~~
leccine
There are not enough nukes luckily. 80% of humanity would be wiped out but
remote places like Australia, Siberia and parts of Africa would be unaffected,
so in theory humanity could survive. The biggest problem is that potable water
would be a problem since you don't have any infrastructure left to clean it,
but of course those remote locations could fetch clean water if they are
lucky. In the last centuries we got child mortality rate really low, that
would probably go back to 40-50% like in the middle age. The life in the post
nuclear war world would be very difficult, you probably know what I mean if
you ever played with Fallout.

~~~
bleair
There is the theory that a "cobalt bomb" would be pretty effective in wiping
out humanity.

[http://www.rense.com/general40/dooms.htm](http://www.rense.com/general40/dooms.htm)

Cobalt's half-life, ability to be transported around the planet's atmosphere
as dust, and the the type of radiation that cobalit-60 produces makes for a
pretty good theoretical doomsday device.

~~~
leccine
You still can't hit 100% of Earth at once. Co-60 has longer half-time but you
still need to distribute it to everywhere and that is very difficult.

------
MichaelMoser123
I guess if it were true then the US could just have asked Israel to return the
Uranium; given that the US would have had many levers of influence to do so.

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clarky07
Unlikely they "stole" it. Likely they obtained it.

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emocakes
I hardly doubt they had to steal it. Their US puppets probably just gave it to
them.

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micahgoulart
Headline has a question mark? Pure speculation guaranteed.

This story needs more time to see if there's any truth in it. Commenting now
is a waste of time.

~~~
rosser
This happened nearly 50 years ago. How much more time would you like?

~~~
dingaling
Perhaps that's _not_ long enough!

It took 40 years to learn some aspect of the truth about Israel's alleged
nuclear alert of 1973. And that wasn't a particularly sensitive subject; no
other nations were involved to be embarrassed.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/04/opinion/when-israel-
steppe...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/04/opinion/when-israel-stepped-back-
from-the-brink.html?_r=0)

------
coherentpony
Please, can we stop with the politics post? This is egregiously off-topic.

~~~
davidw
This comment is 100% correct. There are plenty of sites on the internet to
discuss flame-baity topics like Israel, nuclear weapons and the associated
politics, and very few for hacking/startups. See:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6120530](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6120530)

------
Havoc
haha. Israel is traditionally allied to South Africa on atomic matters (see
Vela incident). They most certainly wouldn't do anything to jeopardize US-
Israeli relations though.

As for the specific claim...steal bomb grade uranium? haha. Anyone believing
that is surely insane. South Africa built 6+ of the things under full
international fkin embargo (!) ten plus years ago (!). And now people think
Israel (a powerful nation) needs to steal material from the most powerful &
well controlled nation? Honestly...who comes up with these articles?

Israel already has a nuke and if they don't (lol) then they can trivially
acquire one in 20 minutes flat. Think about it...South Africa built 6+ nukes
under full embargo ten plus years ago. Now surely Israel can do better...10
years later and no embargo. And yet people still seem to put Israel in the
"might have nukes column". Seriously?

~~~
clarky07
Perhaps you should read the article. It's talking about an event in 1965

~~~
logicallee
Perhaps the title shouldn't be phrased like an off-hand interview question.

