Stealing the Atom Bomb: How Denial and Deception Armed Israel

by Roger J. Mattson

In the mid 1960s, hundreds of kilograms of highly enriched uranium went missing from a nuclear fuel manufacturing plant called NUMEC in Apollo, PA. From the time the Atomic Energy Commission first discovered that significant amounts of this atom-bomb-making material were missing, there was a concern that it went to Israel because of the connection between the plant’s owners and Israeli nuclear and intelligence officials. Because of the enormously high stakes involved, denial and deception have clouded the affair for half a century. Although the AEC, its successor agency the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the FBI, the CIA, the Congressional Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, the General Accounting Office, the National Security Council, the Defense Intelligence Agency, two committees of the U.S. House of Representatives and four presidential administrations purported to investigate what became of the uranium, they never found it. They all acknowledged that the material might have made its way to Israel, and some in high position were certain it went there, but, until recently, proof was veiled in secrecy. This book brings together for the first time recently discovered personal papers of the lead CIA agent, recently declassified files of NRC, GAO, FBI and CIA, and interviews of U.S. government investigators. The author is an engineer who led a 1977 NRC investigation of the affair that was thwarted by unwarranted secrecy and interagency bumbling. This book culminates years of research to get at the facts and set the record straight.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Israel, Science

572 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 20, 2016

About the author

Roger published “SPYWRITER: Richard Krebs' Astonishing Journey from German Communist Conspirator to American Combat Veteran” in early 2021. It is a biography of the German communist spy, Richard Krebs, alias Jan Valtin, who saw the light, abandoned his position in the Comintern, came to America as an illegal alien, wrote the best selling non-fiction book of 1941 “Out of the Night,” was awarded a Bronze Star in the battle for the Philippines, earned his American citizenship, and collaborated with elements of America’s Cold War intelligence apparatus.

Roger’s first literary work was “Stealing the Atom Bomb: How Denial and Deception Armed Israel,” published in 2016. Response to the book from nuclear cognoscenti and the general public has been good, as shown in the reviews found here and on Goodreads.com. Readers can learn a bit more about the Israeli bomb and the Apollo/NUMEC affair by going to the website of the National Security Archive where the most important source documents for this book are posted.

Mattson was born in Nebraska a month before the attack on Pearl Harbor. In the year of Sputnik 1, inspired by a math teacher, he opted for a career in engineering and earned a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan. He has worked in the nuclear safety field for more than 50 years.

Reviews

[John Piper · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dr. Mattson’s book is a remarkable threat analysis of a critical national asset. He has defeated the government redaction game, Freedom of Information Act constraints, and general stonewalling to produce a detailed account of missing nuclear weapons technology and bomb grade uranium. Further, he has evaluated the multiagency safeguards umbrella that is supposed to protect our key assets and found most spokes to be leaking. He has demonstrated that many safeguards programs were lacking physical and technical security, inventory and supply chain security, personnel surety, and even information security (a document could be classified but technology derived from that document could be unclassified). This book, covering a 17-year span, should prompt a discussion as to safeguards improvements, interagency cooperation, and, what else have the Israeli’s purloined (missile technology, jet fighter technology). Perhaps a root cause of all this is there was no apparent structured, studied, and disciplined risk management framework to proactively identify undesired scenarios.

[J.B. Rivard · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book describes the failure of the U. S. government to safeguard its nuclear bomb material during the 1960s. Most importantly, it details how government bureaucracies, from Presidents on down, by calculated disregard, autocratic guile or willful timidity, ignored, denied or concealed the loss of material essential to the production of nuclear bombs. Citizens should be horrified by the extent to which government agencies and personnel have for more than fifty years obstructed, masked, or simply denied, this theft.
Every citizen should know of these failures by the U.S. government.

[Dan Mac · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very detailed eye-opening account of the likely theft of uranium in the 1960s from a Pennsylvania plant for the purpose of developing Israel’s nuclear capability. The subsequent investigations are treated in depth. The troubling complicity of the United States government was well established by Mattson. A dense work with no fluff. The author was more than fair in dealing with a controversial topic. Highly recommended.

[Rex Bell · Rating 5 out of 5]

An exceptional book. The beauty of it was the detail and research accomplished by the author that takes the reader back to the events of the 1960's when nuclear non proliferation was the focus
of America and the world. Very well written.

[Carl H. Neu, Jr.]

The research and incredible detail in the book made it one of the very best reads I have ever enjoyed.
I look forward to his next book. It too will be a must read for any reader especially for history buffs like myself.

Roger Mattson's book is about history, but it is also "a can't put it down" that just compels the reader
to remain engrossed from cover to cover. I have reread it several times because it also has the attraction of a really good spy novel which in this case is the "real thing" not fiction.