The Gibson Island Atomic Lighthouse and Introduction to Merson Booth

In the years following the splitting of the atoms over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, scientists, government leaders and business men described a future where atoms would be split, at a slower pace, for fun and profit. 

Atomic Studebakers would whisk commuters to cities where the electricity was too cheap to meter. Flying cars, moving side walks, elevators to space, all powered by nuclear energy were the promise. While we are still waiting for our atomic powered flying cars, Gibson Island did manage to get the only Atomic Lighthouse in North America. 

"It's easy to grin, when your ship comes in,
and you've got the stock market beat..."

Members of the Gibson Island Yacht Squadron have no doubt appreciated the sight of the Lighthouse (officially the Baltimore Harbor Light) after a long sail from Newport or Bermuda, since the Gibson Island Yacht Club was created in the 1920s. The children and grand children of the original Club founders, such as the Eugene DuPonts, the Gifford Pinchots, and the Sifford Pearres (a relative of General Charles "Pearre" Cabell, and Dallas Mayor Earle Cabell)  probably radiated with pride when a nuclear light was installed in 1964, before being replaced a year later with conventional power.

We can only guess as to why the Gibson Island approaches were chosen to test the first and only nuclear powered lighthouse. Perhaps Gibson Island resident Merson Booth thought it was a good idea and was in the position to make it happen.

Merson Booth passed away in 2012 at the age of 88. He spent his entire career in the Nuclear industry. After graduating from the Naval Academy in 1946, Merson was assigned to work on the US Nuclear Weapons program in Los Alamos, NM.

In the 1950s, Admiral Hyman S. Rickover recruited Merson Booth "to participate in the early development of the Navy's first nuclear-powered vessels" according to his Washington Post Obituary.

In 1958, Merson resigned from the Navy and joined the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). He retired in 1972 as chief of systems at the age of 48. (The WAPO obituary does not make it clear if Merson just retired from the AEC and went to work somewhere else or retired permanently.)

Merson Booth Obituary - 12/2/2012 (Part 1)

Merson Booth Obituary - 12/2/2012 (Part 2)

How do you sneak 300 lbs. of Highly Enriched Uranium out the back door

We have another series of posts in progress where we present facts, opine and speculate on an incident called The Apollo Affair. The Wikidpedia summary is below.

The Apollo Affair was a 1965 incident in which a US company, Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC), in the Pittsburgh suburbs of Apollo and Parks Township, Pennsylvania was investigated for losing 200–600 pounds (91–272 kg) of highly enriched uranium, with suspicions that it had gone to Israel's nuclear weapons program. Full Wikipedia Article

Our posts are more focused on the possible financial mechanisms that could be used to launder the large sums of money that must have changed hands in order to move HEU from Pittsburgh to Israel. The Posts (so far) are here:

The Apollo Affair, Missing Uranium and Katy Perry (Part 1)
The Apollo Affair, Missing Uranium and Katy Perry (Part 2)
The Apollo Affair, Missing Uranium and Katy Perry (Part 3)
The Apollo Affair, Missing Uranium and Katy Perry (Part 4)

Our broader thesis, with respect to the Apollo Affair is that Zalman Shapiro, the President of NUMEC is not at the "tippy-top" of the conspiracy pyramid and that he must have had help from government agencies, and/or the Navy, and/or other Uranium industry companies to be able to pull off the caper. In short, the government agencies and other entities that were responsible for keeping tabs on weapons grade uranium had to have been persuaded to look the other way.

The AEC, where Merson Booth worked, was the primary agency that was mandated to keep track of all sorts of nuclear material, including the HEU at Apollo. They were also the primary agency in charge of investigating the loss of the HEU.

The "persuaders" would naturally be wealthy and powerful, so when we discovered that Merson Booth was a member of the Gibson Island Club, we figured we had a good lead.

Manhattans at the Gibson Island Club

Your finer and more exclusive Eastern Establishment clubs will usually have a "signature" cocktail that you must have at least one of before switching to your preferred cocktail. The Gibson Island Club probably has one. We don't know what it is, but for narrative purposes, we'll say its a "Manhattan" as in "Manhattan Project Cocktail."

How exactly Merson got involved with the Gibson Island Gang, we have no idea. Nevertheless, he would have been useful in the illicit weapons trade business the gang started back in World War 1. Maybe over Manhattan's, Merson mentioned he worked with Zalman Shapiro under Admiral Rickover's nuclear boat project.

That Merson worked for the AEC is also more than a curiosity and deserves a deeper dive in to the archives. In the meantime, Merson's involvement in a "Radiation Incident" is also worth a closer look.

• Radiation Incident, Westinghouse Testing Reactor, Waltz Mills, PA - April 18, 1960
• Investigation of Radiation Incident, May 27, 1960

The Radiation Incident

Merson Booth was a member of the AEC committee that investigated the radiation incident at Waltz Mills. We are still going through the documents that are linked above. In the meantime, our cynicism prevents us from dismissing the proximity of Waltz Mills, PA from Apollo PA, where the AEC would discover in 1965, that 300 lbs. of HEU was missing, and it was eventually discovered that the HEU ended up in the hands of the Israelis. 

Apollo PA to Waltz Mills PA, 25 miles as the crow flies. 40 Minute Drive

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The Apollo Affair, Missing Uranium and Katy Perry (Part 2)

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:

1. Pro-Israel American nuclear scientists founded NUMEC in 1956; then
2. Merged it with Apollo Industries in 1958; for the purposes of
3. Diverting Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU); for
4. The Israeli Nuclear Weapons program; and
5. 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

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.

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. 

The Apollo Affair, Missing Uranium and Katy Perry (Part 1)

The Apollo Affair, Missing Uranium and Katy Perry (Part 2)

The Apollo Affair, Missing Uranium and Katy Perry (Part 3)

The Apollo Affair, Missing Uranium and Katy Perry (Part 4)