[Editor’s Note: This article is a sequel to Monday’s post, “In the Last of the JFK Files, Israel's Nuclear Secrets Are Safe.”]
When former CIA counterintelligence chief James Angleton arrived to testify to the Senate Select Committee 49 years ago, he was a defeated but defiant man. Fired by CIA director William Colby six months earlier for running an illicit domestic spying operation, Angleton appeared on June 19, 1975 determined to defend himself, his methods and his intelligence accomplishments.
His interrogators wanted to know about a sensational forthcoming article by investigative reporter Tad Szulc alleging that Angleton and the CIA had actively assisted Israel’s successful drive to obtain nuclear weapons from the 1950s to September 1969, when Prime Minister Golda Meir privately told President Richard Nixon that Israel had built an atomic bomb.
Key details of Angleton’s story remain secret a half century later, as required by a U.S. policy that has been recently criticized by investigative reporter Seymour Hersh and three national security analysts writing in the Washington Post.
“It might be time for senior US officials to break the taboo and begin to talk about the capability of that arsenal and the implications of it being in Netanyahu’s hands,” Hersh wrote last week.
That taboo is visible in the latest version of Angleton’s testimony, released in December 2022, with key details omitted.
What Cannot Be Said
Under questioning of Chief Counsel Frederick A.O. Schwarz Jr., Angleton explained that he held two positions at the CIA from 1954 to 1973, counterintellligence chief and Israeli desk officer. Angleton’s duties related to Israel a half century ago are still censored under a CIA “Transparency Plan” approved by President Joe Biden last June.
But even with key details omitted, the outlines of the story are clear.
Angleton, who served in Rome during and after World War II, explained how he first came to know the militants who sought to establish a Jewish state in British-occupied Palestine. In October 1946, the Irgun, a Jewish terror organization, bombed the British Embassy in the Italian capital because the British had restricted Jewish immigration to Palestine since 1939.
Angleton recalled that, when he learned through his agents that the Irgun had blown up the embassy, injuring a couple of people, he faced a dilemma: whether to turn the militants over to the authorities, or let them go with the understanding they would be helpful to the United States.
“We came down on the side of releasing them,” he testified.
To be sure, Angleton was an equal opportunity recruiter. In 1946, he also shielded Eugen Dollman, a Nazi war criminal who served as a translator for Hitler and Mussolini, from Italian authorities after the war. Angleton thought Dollman might be useful to U.S. intelligence in the future. Whether they were Zionists or Nazis, Angleton’s spies enjoyed his protection for life.
“So you developed perhaps a friendly relationship with persons connected with the new state of Israel or the hoped-for state of Israel in the 1940s?" asked Schwarz.
“That is right,” said Angleton.
‘Need to Know’
Angleton explained the U.S.-Israeli intelligence relationship was consecrated by the first three directors of the CIA and an Israeli official whose name is still redacted, even though the official is long dead.
Angleton sought to make sure that CIA officials responsible for Arab countries did not learn of his Israeli relationships for reasons that remain secret.
When pressed if the CIA had aided Israel’s nuclear program as Szulc alleged in his Penthouse article, Angleton’s denial was an “absolute no.” CIA director John McCone had the “sharpest words” for the Israelis, Angleton claimed.
But what McCone said to the Israelis is also censored withheld from public view. The next fourteen lines of Angleton’s testimony are redacted. In other words, the evidence to support Angleton’s denial is secret, so his claim is unconfirmed.
The Evidence
The available evidence indicates that Angleton’s denial may be both narrowly accurate and entirely misleading. The CIA, as an institution, did not transfer nuclear material to the Israelis. The two leading scholars of the Israeli nuclear program, Roger Mattson and Avner Cohen, concluded independently that an Israeli intelligence team likely diverted highly enriched fissile material from a nuclear processing plant in the town of Apollo, Pa., that was owned by an ardent Zionist.
The FBI found evidence that the Israeli team had visited the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC) plant in September 1968 disguised as scientists interested in civilian uses of nuclear technology.
The last scientist listed, “chemist” Raphael Eitan, was, in fact, a master covert operations specialist who had made his name orchestrating the kidnapping of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in 1960.
CIA officer John Hadden, who served as Tel Aviv station chief under Angleton, visited the area around Israeli’s nuclear facility in the Negev desert, where he detected radioactive isotopes identical to those of the enriched uranium purloined from Pennsylvania.
The owner of the NUMEC plant, Zalman Shapiro, denied giving the Israelis nuclear material but he could never explain the visit of the disguised Israeli scientists to his company in 1968.
Whether Angleton actively or passively assisted the Israeli nuclear program is hard to discern from the heavily redacted record. What is certain is that U.S. government officials cannot talk about Israel’s nuclear arsenal today without risk of legal reprisal, even after Israeli officials spoke of using nuclear weapons in Gaza.
It’s reminder of a Washington truth: secrecy around ancient facts often serves a political purpose today.
Think regulatory capture.
I suspect that many who post here have ulterior motives. The question is not whether or not I'm paranoid, but whether I'm paranoid enough. I have nothing backwards as far as I can determine.
I'm sticking to my story until the bitter end.
If one goes to the IRmep site and locates all the material there in the Israellobby archives one will learn CIA continually intervened in FBI investigations of NUMEC, Shapiro and others suspected of being involved. CIA engaged in the same behavior of pushing their sources and methods bullshit to truncate investigations. Why?
I leave little to the imagination when I state facts referring to material I find. Almost totally material if encounter in open sourced venues. I qualify anything I write here that is my opinion.
I would rather ask the in-house brainiacs pointed questions based on observations I have of searches I have done and the information found in the process. An example for instance.
100th Congress, 2nd session - COMMITTEE PRINT - S. Prt 100-165
DRUGS LAW ENFORCEMENT AND FOREIGN POLICY. A REPORT PREPARED BY THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON TERRORISM, NARCOTICS, AND INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS - OF THE - COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS UNITED STATES SENATE. DECEMBER 1988
What I learned, possibly the most significant fact is that every time John Kerry's investigation got close to paying the big pay out CIA or DEA or both in unison refused to provide detailed pertinent information requested to aid the investigation. Full Stop Period !
Question to brainiacs : Now why would do this?
Answer: Because they can.
Question to brainiacs: Why would this behavior still be allowed?
Answer: Because at least a portion of DOJ is corrupted beyond reason. Qualifier: Maybe because they are being blackmailed?
Get your own copy of the "Kerry Report" and do your own research.
So I'm thinking one of CIA's methods is constructing an administrative procedure by which "Regulatory Capture" plays into protecting their secrets.
Look I'm a layman, so I could give one FF what others think. My point is CIA does this every time legitimate inquiries ordered by the U.S. Government arrive at the critical junction of the investigation.
Same with the NSA, DIA, FBI, The Unites States office of Homeland Security, get my drift.
The regulatory capture theory easily explains how USAEC & Co. managed to facilitate Shapiro's "Top Secret Diversion of SNM to Israel. The secret Is out ladies and gents.
Making matters worse since the Patriot Act is the dodge is used by far too many, far too often by those who in my opinion abuse the privilege and are misusing this bull shit ruse. Lies, lying liars and the liars they work for.
When we talk about investigations of NUMEC / Zalmon Shapiro, Apollo New York and a large amount of missing highly enriched U- 235. One should note that enriched U-235 used in Naval reactors is between 93% - 96% U-235. I figure the actual number is classified, but this info is out on the net.
I suspect one issue that sealed the deal for the importance of John Hadden's discovery of highly enriched U-235 is the tell tale level of enrichment of that highly enriched U-235 - which was and still is likely a secret. The secret being that John Hadden's newly discovered SPECIAL NUCLEAR MATERIAL, highly enriched U-235 was very likely above 93% enrichment. The only direct source of info I have at my disposal is the POUE facilty wiki. However the Portsmouth Ohio Uranium Enrichment facility is credited by the wiki as being a supplier of Naval Reactor fuels and is not to be confused with the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, located near Portsmouth New Hampshire.
Shapiro was actively engaged in developing fuel elements needed by Rickover to perfect both fuel and reactor design for Naval power reactors. Shapiro was a longtime Zionist.
You don't have to take my word for it take Hyman Rickover's word at face value. SEE: THE RICKOVER AFFECT, HOW ONE MAN MADE A DIFFERENCE - Theodore Rockwell Copy right 1992
The level of enrichment for weapons is around 80% enriched U-235.
Everyone here except for a selected few need to come to grips with exactly what a counter intelligence officer is involved in. JJA was top dog on the porch in this story and to tell the truth simply was not an option for this character.
Anyone who thinks Angleton's redacted testimony was not the result of his effort to protect CIA, himself and Israel is in for a real big surprise. He cared for Israel first evidently, maybe because he had to. It hardly makes any difference now, but he and his co-conspirators should have been drawn, quartered and then shot.
Google - CIA triple agent and see what comes up, Angleton got himself into quite the fix it seems to me.
I wrote to Jeff years ago this story was much bigger than the death of JFK or RFK, regardless they both had to die. It was a matter of needing the time for Israel to develop their ability to build the thermo nuclear weapon and the CIA, Helms, Angleton and LBJ were happy to oblige it seems for very selfish reasons.
So in this case this bull shit sources and methods ruse allowed the guilty to walk away and the rest of didn't even get a T-shirt out of the deal our great grandfathers, grandfathers, fathers and ourselves paid for. Especially a real ass burner for those who now have the likes of Benny "the Blade" Net-tinyahoo to deal with.
But what do know, criminy, give m a break!
Everybody knows. . . . .everybody knows. . . .