With Friends Like This...

By Jane Hunter

Thirty years ago, during construction of their plant at Dimona, the Israelis placed Dr. Zalman Shapiro, a veteran of the Manhattan Project, in the uranium enrichment business. In 1965 federal authorities inspected Shapiro's NUMEC plant in Apollo, Pennsylvania, and discovered that more than 200 pounds of enriched uranium was missing. In 1967 the CIA determined that the uranium had gone to Israel.

A recent article in the Washington Post describes a similarly suspicious occurrence: Milco is a firm in Huntington Beach, California, 80 percent of whose business consisted of obtaining military equipment for Israel outside of its normal procurement channels. Like Shapiro, Milco's owner, Richard K. Smyth, did highly classified work for the US Defense Department.

Smyth was indicted in May 1985 on 30 felony charges related to the illegal export to Israel of 810 krytons. Krytons are electronic timing devices whose precision can increase the explosive power of nuclear weapons. Their export to non-signers of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, such as Israel, is prohibited under US law. After failing to get permission to export the krytons to Israel, Smyth ordered them for "domestic use," labeled them "electronic parts," and shipped them to Israel.

At the time of Smyth's indictment the US had received a special National Intelligence Estimate that Israel had built nuclear weapons bunkers in the Negev Desert. A report in Aerospace Daily said Israel had deployed nuclear-tipped Jerico II missiles in those bunkers. Israel insisted that it was not using the krytons for nuclear-related purposes, but it refused a request for a US inspection of its Dimona facility.

Smyth's Israel connection was Arnon Milchan, who recently told The Jerusalem Post that he had been the main Israeli channel for arms sales to South Africa. Smyth began his efforts to export the krytons in 1975, two years before Israel and South Africa tested a nuclear weapon, and his firm, Milco, also attempted to export fuel ingredients for missiles and slightly radioactive green salt" uranium to Israel.

The kryton case dropped from sight when Smyth jumped bail and vanished shortly before he was to appear in court. Rumors of his death, or murder, began to circulate. Now The Washington Post reports that a friend of Symth's has run into him in Israel.