ISRAELI SPY VISITED PLANT WHERE URANIUM VANISHED

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000201290001-0
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 10, 2012
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: June 17, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/10: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201290001-0
6
ARflCu A.-KAWD
*4 PAGE
WASHINGTON TIMES
17 June 1986
Israeli SjJ"y visited plant
where uranium vanished
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
Rafael Eitan, the Israeli named re-
cently as part of an espionage ring in the
United States, traveled in 1968 to a nu-
clear plant in Apollo, Pa., where large
amounts of weapons-grade uranium dis-
appeared and was allegedly diverted to
Israel, according to documents released
yesterday.
Mr. Eitan, a former chief of operations
for the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence
agency, was one of four Israelis who re-
ceived U.S. clearance to meet with of-
ficials at the NUMEC nuclear plant in
Apollo, Pa., on Sept. 10, 1968, according
to information in declassified FBI doc-
uments.
Tivo reports on that meeting, included
in thousands of pages of documents re-
leased recently under the Freedom of
Information Act, listed Mr. Eitan as a
chemist with the Ministry of Defense in
Israel.
Anthony Cordesman, a former Penta-
gon official now a professor at Geor-
getown University and director of an
Arlington, Va., defense "think tank," said
Mr. Eitan's participation in the 1968
meeting was "extremely hard evidence"
that he was operating with Israeli intelli-
gence in the United States.
At the time, Mr. Eitan was a member
of a select Israeli intelligence unit, tradi-
tionally associated with Ariel Sharon, a
leader in the hardline Israeli Likud party,
that actively sought information about
U.S. defense capabilities, Mr. Cordesman
said.
"There is no conceivable reason for
Eitan to have gone [to the Apollo plant]
but for the nuclear material:'
Mr. Eitan is a celebrated Israeli intel-
ligence agent who was a member of a
team that snatched Nazi war criminal
Adolf Eichmann off a Buenos Aires
street in 1960.
U.S. prosecutors earlier this month
said Mr. Eitan directed the Israeli opera-
tion that recruited Navy analyst Jona-
than Pollard, who pleaded guilty to sell-
ing secret American documents to Israel.
Pollard's wife, Anne Henderson-Pollard,
also pleaded guilty to lesser charges in
the espionage ring, which dated from at
least June 1984.
An FBI spokesman said the investiga-
tion was closed but could not comment
because the Pollard case is still pending.
Justice Department spokesmen also de-
clined immediate comment.
Since the Pollard episode began with
Pollard's arrest last November, straining
U.S.-Israeli relations, Mr. Eitan has been
given the post of chairman of a
government-owned chemical conglomer-
ate.
His participation in the so-called espi-
onage ring, as well as that of Aviem Sella,
an Israeli Air Force brigadier general
identified as Pollard's first "handler," has
er the ring was a "renegade" operation
as Israel has claimed and whether that
government has cooperated fully in the
U.S. investigation.
The small Apollo processing plant was
the subject of a decades-long U.S. inves-
tigation into the suspected diversion of
hundreds of pounds of enriched uranium
to Israel. Code-named "Divert;" the probe
was first launched in 1966 when the gov-
ernment found that 206 pounds of en-
riched uranium had vanished from the
plant without a trace.
di ants show that the FBI. the
CIA and the Atomic Energy Commission,
which has since been disestablished,
ppent 1 years trymg to discover what
happonart to t t~ a uranium investi aan
egations it was somehow 2114tsed to s-
rael b Zalman Shapiro. a Jewish scien-
tist who ea the Nuclear Materials
and Eauilnmeni Corp, i -ter inauiries also
examined whether U.S. officials may
have known about the diversion and let it
happen.
While Mr. Shapiro headed the nuclear
plant in Pennsylvania, 267 kilograms, or
587 pounds of uranium turned up miss-
ing.
Mr. Cordesman said, "There is no
question that material leaked from the
NUMEC plant was used in the original
Israel nuclear weapons:' By some well
-
re arded intelligence estimates, Israelis
said have at least 100 nuclear weapons.
Israel two nuclear plants, both
heavily guarded secret installations. The
biggest is near Dimona in the northern
part of the and Negev and was built in
1957 by France. The second is a small
experimental station at Nahal Sorek, on
the Mediterranean coast.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/10: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201290001-0