CIA THINKS ISRAEL GOT URANIUM DIVERTED

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01315R000400060029-4
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 26, 2004
• Sequence Number: 29
• Publication Date: August 19, 1977
• Content Type: NSPR

X Z =17
-(3Y P_ ~t rF
Approved For Release f f RJflC?I: St`s I~tl? $Ff~1 , 8000400060029-4
19 AUGUST 1977
By John J. Flalka
Washington Star Staff Writei
A CIA spokesman has'told congres-
ianal investigators, that a probe by
he agency led investigators to be-
ieve that bomb-grade nuclear
materials were diverted from a U.S.
acility and sent to Israel.
According to three government
ources familiar with the CIA investi-
-ation, it started in Europe in the
mid-1960s when CIA operatives re-
:eived. information that. Israel had
obtained a sizable quantity of highly
enriched uranium. the same material
used in the bomb dropped on Hiro-
shima in 1945. - I
The CIA investigation eventually
came to focus on a company at
Apollo. Pa? 30 miles northeast of
Pittsburgh, which produced highly
enriched uranium'submarine fuel for
the U.S. Navy and also had ties with
a number of foreign governments, in -
-eluding a subsidiary owned i:1 part-
nership with the Israeli government.
The CIA investigation's conclusion
appears to conflict with repeated
statements by high officials of the
Energy Research and Development
.Administration' and the Nuclear,
Regulatory Commission that they'
have seen no evidence which would
.indicate than significant quantities of
bomb-grade nuclear materials were
ever stolen from a.U.S. facility.
THE SPECIFICS of the CIA probe
were first divulged to top' NRC offi-
cials in a secret conference held in
early 1976. One of the participants at
that conference was Kenneth R.
Chapman. then the head of NRC's
safeguards section. Chapman said'
last week the man who gave the !
briefing was Carl Duckett, then the
CIA's third-ranking official. Duckett,
who has since retired, could not be
reached for comment. -
Chapman said Duckett described
the probe as concentrating on the
operations of Zalman M. Shapiro,
founder and president of the Apollo
company, called Nuclear Materials
and Equipment Corp.
Chapman, in a taped interview,
told Barbara Newman of National
Public Radio, a 'It was my under
standing that they followed Mrs
ACCORDING TQ SOME sources a second FBI
probe focused on some of Shapiro's subordinates..
several of whom were experts_on the chemistry;,
The investigators reportedly concluded he wasn't.
` i "7 ~51GIXQJC. C C1 +gT~-rUrtr.
f . iA- -/ tJ S
Shapiro' C L''4 '
Accord
ence, the (* t/l
have bee
able to fii
tion in the ~S ilc
with thei' -
^
man told C -
NRC to t
and Spaces ALLL1LIa,Dn lHVaa- sac 4Vu.. as ,b as ,...-
for further comment an the subject. A secpetary in-.
his office said, he was on vacation.
THE EXISTENCE of the CIA probe has been at
closely held, secret and the evidence that would`
support its conclusions still resides under layers of
security classifications.
Asked for a comment, Gen, Edward R. Giller,
deputy assistant administrator for national se-
curity at ERDA and the agency's top intelligence
specialist, said: ,
"What I have said is that there is no conclusive-i
evidence that any materials have been diverted
from U.S. facilities, and I don't think there is any-i
one in the intelligence community that is prepared
to.challenge that."
Giller said he was aware that "some individu-
als" at the CIA may have reached a different con-
elusion. "They. have only looked at one piece of the
at the results-ef. both the foreign and domestic
probes of Apollo and made their judgments from.
them, he said. "I have reason to believe .1 know
everything," said Giller.
'-Giller acknowledged that because some parts of
the case are still regarded as top secret he may
have had to "dance a bit" in his explanations.
"One has to be very careful in the use of the Eng-
lish language because it has multiple meanings of
which we're all aware," he said. -
There are two House committees investigating
the incident at Apollo, which began in 1965 when
ERDA's predecessor, the Atomic Energy Commis-'
sion, discovered that 382 pounds of highly enriched.
uranium could not be accounted for at the plant-
After allowing that part of .the material may
have been wasted in various complex chemical
processes at the plant. the AEC investigators can-.
eluded that they had no explanation for the where-
FBI, the General Accounting Office,the-AEC and
Congress's Joint Committee on Atomic Energy.
According to sources within the FBI, the investiga-
tion focused on whether Shapiro, a former,AEC
Approved
Just how far the FBI probe went, however, is ques-
- --------------- -
!A 11 X'S 9SR-AEL .