Reports that a cargo of uranium disappeared at sea nine years ago and supposedly ended up in Israel may be the subject of inquiries by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency learned today. Capital sources told the JTA that the committee, chaired by Sen. Daniel Inouye (D. Hawaii), is to request details from the U.S. Energy Research and Development Agency (ERDA) which, according to the sources, is the “concerned” government agency involved in such matters.
The matter also may arise in the Subcommittee on Energy, Nuclear Proliferation and Federal Services, chaired by Sen. John Glenn (D. Ohio) which is conducting hearings on other subjects. That panel is part of the Senate Government Operations Committee headed by Sen. Abraham Ribicoff (D. Conn.).
However, there appears to be a tendency both at the Capital and within the Administration to play down the alleged incident as being of slight significance since both the uranium cargo and the ship said to have carried it were European. Administration sources disclaimed any knowledge after the story broke over the weekend as did the Israel Embassy here. There was no reaction from Jerusalem.
The reports originated with American and European intelligence sources and were referred to by Paul L. Leventhal, former Counselor to the Senate Government Operations Committee, in an address to the international Conference for a Non-Nuclear Future in Salzburg, Austria last Friday.
SAYS INTERPRETATION IS INCORRECT
The story surfaced just as the Carter Administration was presenting legislation to Congress to tighten controls on nuclear material for export and shortly before a meeting on uranium controls in London this week to be attended by President Carter. But Administration officials denied speculation that it might have been a deliberate leak to bolster the Administration’s move to tighten controls.
White House Press Secretary Jody Powell, replying to a question from the JTA, said that interpretation “is Incorrect.” The JTA also asked energy chief James Schlesinger, a former Defense Secretary and former CIA Director, for details. He replied, “That’s news to me. This is the first time I heard of that.” State Department spokesman Hodding Carter claimed the U.S. was not involved in the reported shipment. He said the uranium cargo was a European Atomic Energy Commission (Euratom) shipment that contained no American material. He referred inquiries to Euratom officials.
CIA KNEW ABOUT INCIDENT
An unidentified CIA official was reported as saying that the CIA knew of the incident. “We know the ship vanished and that was the end of it for us” because “the ship was not American. The cargo was not American.”
According to the intelligence sources, the vessel, flying the West German flag, sailed from Antwerp in 1968 for Genoa, Italy with 20 tons of uranium are. It called at Rotterdam but never reached its destination. Leventhal told the Salzburg conference that the ship reappeared a few weeks later “with a new name, a new registry, a new crew and no uranium.”
According to Leventhal, “the intelligence sources of several nations investigated but eventually closed their files on the case, apparently without positively locating the hijacked uranium.” But “it is assumed, however, that the material was unloaded in Israel,” Leventhal said. “The shipment was under Euratom safeguards but the diversion was never publicly reported,” he added. Israel’s atomic energy department said Israel had no connection with the alleged disappearance of the uranium.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
