uranium missing from NUMEC’s Apollo plant sparked the curiosity of
the FBI, the CIA, Congress, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC)
and its successor the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the John-
son, Nixon, Ford, and Carter administrations. NUMEC paid almost
$930,000 in fines to the AEC for the lost uranium. However, some re-
ports have suggested that much of the missing uranium was recovered
from floors and ventilation ducts when the facility was eventually de-
commissioned.
In 1967 Atlantic Richfield Co. purchased NUMEC, which in 1971
it sold to Babcock and Wilcox. Even years later Shapiro refused to
talk about the allegations and the numerous federal investigations of
himself and his upstart nuclear fuel company.NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROGRAM.In 1948, soon after its estab-
lishment as a state, Israel began to examine the nuclear option. In
1949 Science Corps C, a special unit of the Israel Defense Force’s
Science Corps, began a two-year geological survey of the Negev
Desert to discover uranium reserves. Although no significant sources
were found, recoverable amounts were located in phosphate deposits.
Israeli and French research institutes worked closely together. Be-
fore World War II, France had been a leader in nuclear physics re-
search, but subsequently it lagged far behind the United States, the So-
viet Union, and the United Kingdom. Israel and France were at a
similar level of expertise, so nuclear technology in both countries de-
veloped in close alignment in the early 1950s. For example, Israeli sci-
entists were involved in the construction of the (military) G-1 pluto-
nium production reactor and the UP-1 reprocessing plant at Marcoule.
In the 1950s and early 1960s, France was Israel’s major arms supplier,
and as instability spread in the French North African colonies, Israel
provided valuable intelligence obtained from those countries.
The Israeli Atomic Energy Commission was established in 1952.
By then Science Corps C had succeeded in perfecting the process to
extract uranium found in the Negev. It was also able to produce heavy
water for a research reactor. Israel decided on the use of heavy water
for cooling and of natural uranium as fuel. Normal light water would
require enriched uranium, and that was too difficult to obtain. Heavy-
water reactors with natural uranium fuel could produce plutonium ex-
tremely efficiently.216 • NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROGRAM06-102 (03) H-P.qxd 3/24/06 7:25 AM Page 216