Did Israel steal bomb-grade uranium from the United States?

http://thebulletin.org/did-israel-steal-bomb-grade-uranium-united-states7056

by rosser • 12 years ago

100 60 12 years ago

rdtsc• 12 years ago

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• 12 years ago

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

uptown3• 12 years ago

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

D9u2• 12 years ago

  > just commit such a fucking big crime that...

Kill one man, and you're put in prison.

Kill a million and you're the Emperor.

sillysaurus32• 12 years ago

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?

funkyy2• 12 years ago

Almost. If nuclear war starts there will be regions that will be not nuked (neutral countries, territories not threatening either side and so on). Basically most of northern hemisphere would be destroyed. After the war clouds of extremely radioactive dust would kill most of the life, mutate rest (making for example most mammals unable to get pregnant). Southern hemisphere would be mostly untouched but the radioactive clouds and winds would take it tool for hundreds of years. Majority of life would die out (human race would most likely survive despite scary stories - it would just go back to what it was 100 years ago). Casualties would be counted in billions. Most flora and fauna would be destroyed. Dusts in atmosphere would make changes to the planet cooling it a bit. It would take hundreds of years for our civilization to get back to what it is now (but most northern part of globe would stay uninhabitable). The hope to restore humanity would be in hands of Australia, New Zealand, Argentina.

fosk• 12 years ago

In this scenario, how long would it take for the radioactivity to completely disappear and start re-inhabiting and re-populating the northern hemisphere?

leccine3• 12 years ago

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.

clef3• 12 years ago

I'm not too sure Australia would be unaffected, there are quite a few US bases / radar stations etc on Aussie soil...the Chinese/Russians may not like it if it came to a head..Antarctica and Greenland maybe?

mildtrepidation• 12 years ago

I'd have a hard time calling humanity surviving a win here. But then I am pretty good at the Fallout games (as long as you're talking about 1, 2, or Tactics), so maybe if I move to Australia I'll have a better chance in the post-nuclear wasteland. As long as I don't piss off Max, I guess.

bleair• 12 years ago

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

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.

dkjfieos• 12 years ago

Not sure, but I believe there are nuke-proof bunkers that could secure humanity if such an event were ever to occur.

clef3• 12 years ago

Deep deep underground with lots of canned food, diesel and light that can simulate sunlight... Think Zion in the matrix :)

billyhoffman• 12 years ago

General "Buck" Turgidson: Mr. President, we must not allow a mineshaft gap!"

President Merkin Muffley: [Turns to Strangelove] You mean people could actually stay down there for a hundred years?

Dr. Strangelove: It would not be difficult, Mein Führer. Nuclear reactors could - heh, I'm sorry, Mr. President - nuclear reactors could provide power almost indefinitely...

uptown3• 12 years ago

"Out of curiosity, are there enough nukes to theoretically remove all life? What about all mammals?"

You might want to watch this episode of VICE for their take of the conflict between India and Pakistan ... and the potential destruction of Earth from their nuke arsenals. It addresses that very question.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Nzm2CidMpM

Retric• 12 years ago

The last 30 seconds of that video mention it but there way off base. Humanity has done a lot of above ground nuclear testing and for the most part unless your vary close it's simply a slight increase in cancer risk.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9lquok4Pdk

jkestner• 12 years ago

It's amazing how fortunate it is that it's so hard to make the one weapon capable of destroying the world.

Well, the first several quadrillion iterations of Earth had easy-to-make nukes.

Havoc2• 12 years ago

>It's amazing how fortunate it is that it's so hard to make the one weapon capable of destroying the world.

I've concluded the opposite. It takes 386 gen tech to destroy the world.

Zigurd• 12 years ago

A few cobalt-clad h-bombs would make the planet uninhabitable for humans. Doomsday weapons are withing reach of, at least, the US and Russia, probably China, too.

ggreer• 12 years ago

This reminds me of a scene from Three Worlds Collide[1]:

"My lord," the Ship's Confessor said, "suppose the laws of physics in our universe had been such that the ancient Greeks could invent the equivalent of nuclear weapons from materials just lying around. Imagine the laws of physics had permitted a way to destroy whole countries with no more difficulty than mixing gunpowder. History would have looked quite different, would it not?"
Akon nodded, puzzled. "Well, yes," Akon said. "It would have been shorter."
"Aren't we lucky that physics didn't happen to turn out that way, my lord? That in our own time, the laws of physics don't permit cheap, irresistible superweapons?"
Akon furrowed his brow -
"But my lord," said the Ship's Confessor, "do we really know what we think we know? What different evidence would we see, if things were otherwise? After all - if you happened to be a physicist, and you happened to notice an easy way to wreak enormous destruction using off-the-shelf hardware - would you run out and tell you?"
"No," Akon said. A sinking feeling was dawning in the pit of his stomach. "You would try to conceal the discovery, and create a cover story that discouraged anyone else from looking there."

To answer your question about nukes: There are close to 20,000 nuclear weapons in existence. Over 2,000 of them have been detonated in the past 60 years, but most of those were underground. Detonating all nukes would certainly cause problems, but it wouldn't be the end of humanity.

1. http://robinhanson.typepad.com/files/three-worlds-collide.pd...

vxNsr• 12 years ago

SO I just read the whole thing, and... I don't get it: Who are the confessors in Ch 7-8?

United857• 12 years ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AUYCnzmDJY

I'd recommend you watch Threads (found the full version on Youtube), which is arguably the best serious look at a post-apocalyptic world.

TL;DR: Humanity wouldn't die out but it would certainly regress 1-2 centuries at least.

001sky• 12 years ago

Original Story, for context is summarized here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Apollo_Affair

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

MichaelAza• 12 years ago

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.

mcantelon2• 12 years ago

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

judk3• 12 years ago

"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)

D9u2• 12 years ago

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/11/25/milchan-...

It's also commonly known that Israel is one of the more active espionage opponents of the USA.

http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2013/01/13/israeli-spy...

Havoc2• 12 years ago

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?

clarky072• 12 years ago

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

logicallee• 12 years ago

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

micahgoulart2• 12 years ago

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• 12 years ago

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

dingaling2• 12 years ago

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...

micahgoulart2• 12 years ago

The declassification of documents, for one. For example in the US, usually 50 years is when you're finally able to get the majority of the contents of a classified document.

coherentpony• 12 years ago

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

davidw• 12 years ago

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

clarky072• 12 years ago

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

MichaelMoser123• 12 years ago

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.

codezero• 12 years ago

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.

emocakes• 12 years ago

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

Did Israel steal bomb-grade uranium from the United States?

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