10 ms·

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

100 points by rosser 13y ago

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
rdtsc 13y 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 13y ago
  I would not rule out the possibility that this "theft" story is a cover for what really happened.
  - uptown 13y ago
    ...that we gave it to them, willingly.
    - sillysaurus3 13y ago
      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 13y ago
        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 13y ago
        > 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.
- D9u 13y 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.
sillysaurus3 13y 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?
- funkyy 13y 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 13y 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?
    - funkyy 13y ago
      Its not that easy. Radioactive materials dont just disappear. It would take probably around ~100-200 years for humans to evolve to be partly immune to radioactivity (the same way we "evolved" to be partly immune to coal vapors and other toxic waste in our air) and reduce amount of sick/sterile people. Then humans would need to slowly remove or neutralize radioactive content - 200 years sounds right for humanity to find a way of doing this (as of now there is no mass way doing so - but I believe humanity would come out with solution if this would be the way for civilization to survive). The process probably would take ages - started with regions less contaminated (Islands etc) and moving onwards avoiding direct impact zones.
001sky 13y ago
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
MichaelAza 13y 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.
- mcantelon 13y 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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lekem
  - judk 13y 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)
    - mcantelon 13y ago
      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.
- D9u 13y ago
Havoc 13y 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?
- clarky07 13y ago
  Perhaps you should read the article. It's talking about an event in 1965
  - logicallee 13y ago
    Perhaps the title shouldn't be phrased like an off-hand interview question.
micahgoulart 13y 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 13y ago
  This happened nearly 50 years ago. How much more time would you like?
  - micahgoulart 13y 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.
  - dingaling 13y 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-stepped-back-from-the-brink.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/04/opinion/when-israel-steppe...
coherentpony 13y ago
Please, can we stop with the politics post? This is egregiously off-topic.
- davidw 13y 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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6120530
clarky07 13y ago
Unlikely they "stole" it. Likely they obtained it.
MichaelMoser123 13y 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 13y 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 13y ago
I hardly doubt they had to steal it. Their US puppets probably just gave it to them.

100 points by rosser 13y ago

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

rdtsc 13y 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 13y ago
I would not rule out the possibility that this "theft" story is a cover for what really happened.
- uptown 13y ago
  ...that we gave it to them, willingly.
  - sillysaurus3 13y ago
    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 13y ago
      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 13y ago
        > 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.
D9u 13y 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.

sillysaurus3 13y 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?

funkyy 13y 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 13y 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?
  - funkyy 13y ago
    Its not that easy. Radioactive materials dont just disappear. It would take probably around ~100-200 years for humans to evolve to be partly immune to radioactivity (the same way we "evolved" to be partly immune to coal vapors and other toxic waste in our air) and reduce amount of sick/sterile people. Then humans would need to slowly remove or neutralize radioactive content - 200 years sounds right for humanity to find a way of doing this (as of now there is no mass way doing so - but I believe humanity would come out with solution if this would be the way for civilization to survive). The process probably would take ages - started with regions less contaminated (Islands etc) and moving onwards avoiding direct impact zones.

001sky 13y ago

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

MichaelAza 13y 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.

mcantelon 13y 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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lekem
- judk 13y 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)
  - mcantelon 13y ago
    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.
D9u 13y ago

Havoc 13y 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?

clarky07 13y ago
Perhaps you should read the article. It's talking about an event in 1965
- logicallee 13y ago
  Perhaps the title shouldn't be phrased like an off-hand interview question.

micahgoulart 13y 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 13y ago
This happened nearly 50 years ago. How much more time would you like?
- micahgoulart 13y 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.
- dingaling 13y 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-stepped-back-from-the-brink.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/04/opinion/when-israel-steppe...

coherentpony 13y ago

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

davidw 13y 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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6120530

clarky07 13y ago

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

MichaelMoser123 13y 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 13y 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 13y ago

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