In Part 1, we addressed the spurious connections to Katy Perry by way of her early 20th Century Industrialist great uncle Charles M. Schwab. We also introduced Apollo Industries and the companies it was formed from in the late 1950s. In this posting we critique the existing research that has been published regarding the Apollo Affair.
Spies are Going to Spy
The Research and Literature about the Apollo Affair is now relatively extensive. Through de-classifications, FOIA requests and inquiry, numerous documents have been released over the pat 10 years that clarify the story, which can be summarized as:
The HEU definitely went out. How much, why, when, and how it left the NUMEC plant to eventually end up in Israel (likely the Dimona plant in the Negev Desert) is generally understood.
- Pro-Israel American nuclear scientists founded NUMEC in 1956; then
- Merged it with Apollo Industries in 1958; for the purposes of
- Diverting Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU); for
- The Israeli Nuclear Weapons program; and
- When it was discovered by the FBI, and/or Nuclear Industry Regulators/Military Intelligence, the CIA (or elements of the CIA) covered it up.
The conventional wisdom is that the Pro-Israeli Nuclear Scientists were working with Israeli spies (the Mossad) to facilitate the entire transaction and it looks like a lot of research has been devoted to proving that thesis.
In our view the effort to pin the Apollo Affair on the Mossad will hardly result in a "Eureka!" moment due to its obviousness. That Israeli intelligence would work to acquire nuclear weapon capabilities is hardly a surprise and pursuing that angle is counter-productive. Assigning blame to the Israeli's gets awfully close to touching the third rail and ending the discussion or halting furthering more research.
The more interesting and important question is "who in the United States government or industry sold the HEU to the Israelis?" That is, under the assumption that Israeli spies (the Mossad) were doing what spies do, acquiring the secrets of another country (the USA), who cares about the motivations and key players on the Israeli side?
Treasonous actions on the part of American Citizens is more interesting and relevant. (Full disclosure, I am pro-Zionist and like the idea of Israel being able to defend itself. Also, I am Catholic, have never been to Israel, and think the pursuit of Israeli spies while trying to get to the bottom of the Apollo Affair is mostly a distraction to the extent the "pursuers" (writers, researchers, historians) can be cut off with charges of being Anti-Semitic, Anti-Zionist, etc..)
US Nuclear Secrets for Sale
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| Apollo, PA |
As mentioned, there is plenty of information about how the HEU went out. Most of it seems to have disappeared from the NUMEC plant in Apollo, Pennsylvania (near Pittsburgh) between the time NUMEC merged with Apollo Industries in 1958, and 1965.
However the HEU left the plant, fake shipping documents, concealed in other shipments, diverted through other foreign ports, discovering how the money flowed in for the HEU from the ultimate Israeli "customers" would answer the more important question of, who the actual sellers were on the American side?
The "front" sellers on the American side were of course the officers and directors of NUMEC, including Zalman Shapiro, the original founder of NUMEC. It seems highly unlikely that Shapiro and the rest of the corporate officers were entirely in it for the money. That is, as an active and committed Zionist, it seems more likely Shapiro's primary motivation would be to help Israel defend itself (expand its borders, etc.), rather than make tons of money and sell out his home country, the USA, and probably eventually risk a visit to the electric chair.
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| Zalman Shapiro (1920-2016) Born: Canton, OH Johns Hopkins (BA '42/Phd '48) Died: Pittsburgh, PA |
Even if Shapiro and his corporate cohorts were not motivated by the money, it would not surprise us if some people were. On the American side, their had to be agencies and organizations that were willing to look the other way.
The fact that the CIA and the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and probably some components of the Military helped in the cover-up after the HEU was discovered missing implies their were some beneficiaries in those agencies and/or military branches. Looking at Shapiro slightly differently, if he was acting on his own, on behalf of Israel, and was pocketing millions of dollars for his sole benefit, then we doubt the FBI would have any qualms about arresting a member of "The Tribe" him, and eventually giving him the "Rosenberg" treatment.
How to Launder Millions of Dollars or Otherwise Conceal the Deal
The HEU definitely went out. How much, why, when, and how it left the NUMEC plant to eventually end up in Israel (likely the Dimona plant in the Negev Desert) is generally understood. Someone definitely got paid. The how much, why, when and how, concerning the money that the Israeli's used to purchase the HEU, is not generally understood and it hardly looks like those questions have been asked.
Briefly, money does not necessarily mean “cash.” A better word than money is “consideration.” How much and what was the “consideration” that Israel paid to purchase a few hundred pounds of HEU from the NUMEC plant near Pittsburgh, roughly between 1958 and 1965. Consideration could include actual cash, but also, publicly traded equity (common and preferred shares), private equity, private loans, bonds and notes issued by the corporation, bonds issued by the US Government and other third parties (sovereign bonds, other corporations), hard assets (a fleet of ships, gold bars) soft assets (royalties and rights) and virtually anything else that has value.
Some forms of consideration are easier to transfer as payment for “goods and services” than others. It is physically easier to transfer shares of publicly traded equity as payment than it is to transfer ownership of a fleet of ships, or physically deliver gold, or suitcases of cash. The same holds for publicly traded and registered bonds and some rights (options, futures and warrants.)
Moving publicly traded equity can still be done relatively anonymously. In the 1950s and 1960s, it would have been much easier. Today, computer’s allow regulators and brokerage compliance departments to monitor and flag suspicious transactions between the firm and a counter-party or directly between counter-parties. The lack of rules regarding insider sales, reporting and disclosure requirements for insiders, and a whole host of other laws, regulations and internal policies, made it much easier to move shares anonymously in those days, compared to today, and it is still done today.
In Part 3 of this series, we will take a closer look at the transaction mechanics involved in using public shares to move money (consideration) anonymously and the roll NUMEC’s predecessor companies could play in the process.
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