Appeal Request

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 06116650
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: March 9, 2023
• Document Release Date: November 8, 2021
• Case Number: F-2015-01336
• Publication Date: October 22, 2013

IRmep
Calvert Station
P.O. Box 32041
Washington, DC 20001
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Mth://vawilimep.org
int.@innoii 1111
Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
Thursday, September 19, 2013
Agency Release Panel
Michele Meeks, Information and Privacy Coordinator
Central Intelligence Agency
Washington, D.C. 20505
lnstit
for Research Middle Eastern Policy
Reference: F-2010-01210 CIA records "relating to uranium diversion from he Nuclear
Equipment Corporation (NUMEC) to Israel."
Dear Michele Meeks,
On August 28, 2013 the CIA denied in entirety the release of material on the above-referenced FOIA request of
May 13, 2010. (Attached) We appeal to the Agency Release Panel to reconsider this denial and release in full
all requested records, including the Carter administration Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation
(NUMEC) files.
The CIA Information Act of 1984, cited in the Agency's September 10, 2010 FOIA confirmation letter
(Attached), provided guidance over the review for release of relevant CIA files. As an outside public-interest
nonprofit, it is impossible for us to know whether the majority of the CIA's thousands of files about NUMEC are
considered to be "operational" or not We believe they probably should not be since the diversion was not a
CIA operation, according to officials who spoke publicly about the matter.
Carl Duckett, the executive director for CIA operations, revealed that CIA Director Richard Helms wrote a
classified letter to Attorney General Ramsey Clark telling him that highly enriched uranium "processed at
Apollo might have ended up at Dimona" and requested that the FBI investigate NUMEC and its officials, many
who had strong ties to Israel. Helms also informed President Lyndon Johnson about Israel's nuclear weapons
program, to which LBJ famously responded, "Don't tell anyone else, even [Secretary of State] Dean Rusk and
[Defense Secretary] Robert McNamara."' CIA Tel Aviv Station Chief John Hadden called the NUMEC incident
an "Israeli operation from the beginning." These and other comments by CIA officials imply that while the
diversion of weapons-grade uranium from Apollo to Dimona was indeed an operation, it was not a clandestine
CIA operation authorized by a presidential finding, and is therefore probably unworthy of the decades of
agency refusals to researchers seeking file release.
However, even if CIA considers NUMEC files to be "operational files," under Sec. 702 "Decennial review of
exempted operational files" the CIA would have had to have conducted ten-year reviews for removal of
exemptions for release of NUMEC files. In particular, under subsection (b) CIA would have had to consider the
historical value and ongoing heavy public interest in the subject matter.
The NUMEC affair has been of intense public interest since the first press accounts of massive NUMEC
uranium losses were reported by the New York Times on September 17, 1966. A lingering question is whether
the ramshackle NUMEC facilities and operations that polluted the Kiski Valley, currently requiring a U.S. Army
MeTiennan, lom "Inquiry into the Testimony of the Executive Director for Operations" Volume III, Interviews, February 1978. The CIA's Can Duckett briefed NRC
commissioners in 1976. In 1978, Toni MeTieman of NRC investigated the 1977 Congressional testimony o RC's Executive Director for Operations Lee Gossia to
see if Gossick bed to Congress about whether officials thought there was evidence of a diversion. The 1978 report of Mel iemants investigation contains recollections
by NRC people who attended the Duckett briefing in 1676. There is also a four page summary of an interview with Duckett. Nearly all of what Duckett said or what
others recalled he said was redacted from the public version of Mcliernan's report that was eventually released to the public. However, one page (number 3.) of the four
pages suinmarizing Ducketls interview summary was inadvertently released to the Natural Resources Defense Council when the report was first made public.
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Corps of Engineers cleanup costing up to half a billion taxpayer dollars, were the result of its core mission as a
budget smuggling operation. Many such operations were established across the United States in the 1940s to
illegally obtain and smuggle conventional weapons. One key figure in the NUMEC scheme, David Lowenthal,
was just such a smuggler for Israel. Even in 2013, civil suits over accidental death and injury compensation
continue to be filed in Pennsylvania district courts by victims of NUMEC. However, aside from the public
remarks of Carl Duckett and John Hadden affirming an illegal diversion, the CIA has never fully divulged its
findings about NUMEC to the American public.
It is now known that the CIA generated a vast amount of data about NUMEC which could reveal a great deal
about the functions of government and fill important gaps in the historical record�which is the primary purpose
of the Freedom of Information Act According to a Carter Administration memo obtained from the National
Archives this year dated April 25, 1979, the Internal Security Section of the Justice Department completed a
review of "thousands of CIA documents" about the NUMEC diversion. (Attached). Although Congress was to
have received the review to take warranted action, apparently such an accountability moment never occurred.
According to a previously released October 6, 1978 memo from John H. Stein, Acting Deputy Director for
Operations which accompanied the August 28, 2013 FOIA denial to us, the CIA believed intelligence sources
and methods might have been compromised if CIA material submitted for a 1978 GAO report2 were combined
with information already in the public domain. Further, the CIA felt it could not declassify their report 'because
of the need to have a coordinated Executive Branch position and our desire to protect a sensitive and valuable
liaison equity."
The Executive branch is demonstrably reticent to release classified files about Israel's nuclear weapons
arsenal in observance of the Nixon-Kissinger Meir policy of "strategic ambiguity." However, no educated
person inside or outside the Middle East any longer believes Israel doesn't have a nuclear arsenal. There is
an abundance of public domain information about clandestine nuclear weapons funding through nonprofit
corporations, yellowcake and technology transfers that helped build the arsenal�often against the wishes of
the countries from which such resources were extracted. Perhaps the Stein memo is saying that the U.S. was
once so reliant on Israel as an intelligence liaison it would have been counter-productive to let the public know
that Israel's agents stole sensitive military material. However, the Cold War is now over. Furthermore, the
Obama administration's 2009 executive order on Freedom of Information calls for a new "presumption" of
openness, and prohibits retaining material for decades that is "embarrassing" or casts a harsh light on
decisions made under such circumstances. Excempting 30+ year-old records under (b)(1) contradicts Obama
guidelines that "nothing should remain classified forever" and new automatic 25-year declassification targets.
As you may know, the ISCAP panel, which has an established record declassifying tightly held intelligence
files, is currently reviewing a number of NUMEC-related files for release, including the 1978 GAO report. CIA
is no longer the sole decision point for release of sensitive records about NUMEC. We believe it would be best
for compliance with the spirit of FOIA, the reputation of the CIA, and the benefit of the American public, if all of
the CIA's NUMEC-related material were released immediately.
Sincerely,
(b)(6)
brant h. Smith
Director of Research
Attachments.
Jar Diversion i.n the US Years of Contradiction and Confusion, GAO, partially declassified and released in 2010
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