Based on an exhaustive review of formerly classified government documents-as well as previously unexplored corporate filings, office diaries and unguarded interviews-Grant F. Smith has written a riveting story of the 1960s diversion of US weapons-grade nuclear material from an Israeli front company in Pennsylvania into the clandestine Israeli atomic weapons program. The talented but highly conflicted founder of the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC)-Dr. Zalman Mordecai Shapiro alongside his close friend and financial backer David Lowenthal-engaged in a ferocious clandestine drive to funnel the most valuable military material on earth that forever tilted the balance of power between Israel and the world. Divert! chronicles Zalman Shapiro's journey from crafting ingenious innovations for the Nautilus nuclear submarine in the 1950s to his costly pursuit of America's most advanced hydrogen bomb designs in the 1970s. Tasked during secret summits with high-level Israeli intelligence agents, guided by Israel's top nuclear arms designers, and defended by Israel and its US lobby, Shapiro and NUMEC drove the CIA and FBI from furious outrage to despair. Presidents from LBJ to Jimmy Carter secretly grappled with how to respond to Israel's brazen theft of American nuclear material before finally deciding to bury the entire affair in classified files. But NUMEC's toxic secrets have refused to be buried alive. Newly declassified wiretaps have risen from the grave, detailing Shapiro's utter contempt for worker and nuclear safety. David Lowenthal's role as an international refugee smuggler between the US, Europe and Israel-before organizing financing for NUMEC-is placed under new scrutiny. This explosive story emerges even as the US Army Corps of Engineers struggles to quietly clean NUMEC's toxic waste near Apollo, Pennsylvania with $170 million in taxpayer funding. At a time when America is coming under intense pressure to attack on the mere suspicion that Iran is diverting nuclear material, Divert! stands as the ultimate cautionary tale of how US Middle East policy is continually undermined from within by corruption, immunity, deceit and unwarranted secrecy.
Divert!
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"Grant F. Smith writes books that are essential for our country...Mr. Smith details the manner in which weapons-grade uranium was illegally diverted to Israel from a ramshackle facility in Apollo..." - Michael Scheuer, former senior CIA analyst and author of "Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror"
"The book reads like a thriller...a whodunit. This could be a movie. There are so many interesting characters, and plots and turns. An extraordinary read." - Jeffrey Blankfort is a long time Middle East analyst and host of the KZYX public affairs program "Takes on the World"
"...the temptation to not fully develop a 'cover' entity is severe. ...I think this is an important book." Walter Patrick "Pat" Lang Jr. is a retired U.S. Army colonel who became a member of the Senior Executive Service providing military intelligence analysis of the Middle East and South Asia for the Department of Defense.
"I cannot say enough about a new book by Grant Smith...Smith shows how Israel gamed the American system going back to its apparent diversion in the 1960s of enriched uranium from an American front plant in Pennsylvania owned and operated by Israel lobbyists..." Philip Weiss, MondoWeiss.net
"The book reads like a thriller...a whodunit. This could be a movie. There are so many interesting characters, and plots and turns. An extraordinary read." - Jeffrey Blankfort is a long time Middle East analyst and host of the KZYX public affairs program "Takes on the World"
"...the temptation to not fully develop a 'cover' entity is severe. ...I think this is an important book." Walter Patrick "Pat" Lang Jr. is a retired U.S. Army colonel who became a member of the Senior Executive Service providing military intelligence analysis of the Middle East and South Asia for the Department of Defense.
"I cannot say enough about a new book by Grant Smith...Smith shows how Israel gamed the American system going back to its apparent diversion in the 1960s of enriched uranium from an American front plant in Pennsylvania owned and operated by Israel lobbyists..." Philip Weiss, MondoWeiss.net
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More About the Author
Grant F. Smith is director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy in Washington DC. He is author of the books Spy Trade, America's Defense Line, Foreign Agents, Deadly Dogma, and Neocon Middle East Policy. Jeff Stein of the Washington Post calls Smith "a Washington, D.C. author who has made a career out of writing critical books on Israeli spying and lobbying." Mondoweiss.com blogger Philip Weiss says "the best investigative work is being done by Grant Smith at IRmep..."
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
By Fishman
Format:Paperback
I am surprised to see that this book has not gotten more attention. It is an excellent, well - researched account of how Israel, acting through American Jewish intermediaries, diverted (stole) the enriched uranium used to make Israel's first nuclear weapon. It also outlines how powerful people subverted the investigation.
Smith uses recently declassified investigative material from the FBI, AEC, and CIA. His sources are impeccable and he uses them fairly. The only disappointment is that none of the principals ever was arrested and forced to talk, so we (like the FBI) are always outside looking in. But still and all, he makes clear the outlines of what happened, and how it happened, and who happened it.
Highly recommended.
Smith uses recently declassified investigative material from the FBI, AEC, and CIA. His sources are impeccable and he uses them fairly. The only disappointment is that none of the principals ever was arrested and forced to talk, so we (like the FBI) are always outside looking in. But still and all, he makes clear the outlines of what happened, and how it happened, and who happened it.
Highly recommended.
18 of 39 people found the following review helpful
By Ian A. Mokel
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This book is, pure and simple, anti-Semitic hate propaganda. If Israel decides to do something - like harmlessly appropriate extra weapons-grade Uranium that the US probably didn't need anyway - there is a good reason for it and we as Americans should accept Israel's explanation or, if Israel chooses not to explain, we must accept on faith that what Israel is doing is good for Israel, and therefore, good for the US. A person who questions the fact that whatever is good for Israel is also good for America is probably an anti-Semite or a terrorist. Israel, being chosen by G*d, is the steward of humanity therefore Israel is conceptually incapable of "crime" as such. In short, if Israel does it, it is no crime. We non-Jews must accept this and accept the fact that we, as non-Jews, are in most cases just not intelligent enough to understand that everything Israel does is good, even if we can't see how. To accuse Israel of a "crime" either collectively or through its agents is not acceptable, and hopefully in the future such accusation - no matter how deceptively "documented" or "well-founded" - will be treated as a crime itself. Surely it should be.
We as Americans must learn that we have to put the safety, security, prosperity and well-being of Israel first and foremost before our own selfish, narrowminded interests like "patriotism," "the Constitution" or "the middle class." Americans need to be asking themselves everyday - every minute of everyday - how they can use their positions in business and government to help Israel. Zalman Shapiro did just that and Americans should applaud him for this great mitzvah he fulfilled on behalf the Jewish State. Placing dogmatic and short-sighted prejudices like "loyalty" to one's country over the Law of honoring Israel is, at bottom, a virulent form of idolatry that must be addressed (ideally, in some kind of binding Noahide court) every bit as much as overt anti-Semitism itself. The kind of naked appeals to "nationalism" which implicitly undergird the very purpose of writing a hateful book like this are what led to the Holocaust in the first place.
The blessed and holy Talmud of Babylon says, "All of Israel have a portion in the world to come," therefore Zalman and NUMEC cannot be "guilty" of anything in any meaningful sense of the word. The Babylonian Talmud (Amoraic Babylon, A.D. 500) is the absolute final word on all moral law, therefore, it is not the place of uppity Americans to question why Israel uses the resources of the US in the manner which she does. Israel is chosen by G*d, therefore it is up to Israel to decide how the US disposes of its weapons-grade uranium. Any American not willing to accept that fact should move to the West Bank or Norway and await their fate with the rest of the anti-Semites and terrorists. The Talmud also clearly and infallibly states (in Tractate Sanhedrin 58b) that to "strike" a Jew is the same as if one struck the holy countenance of G*d himself, so surely to strike at the Jewish state the way in which this book does by attempting to profane the blessed and Holy Name of Israel, is a criminal assault on G*d himself.
We as Americans must learn that we have to put the safety, security, prosperity and well-being of Israel first and foremost before our own selfish, narrowminded interests like "patriotism," "the Constitution" or "the middle class." Americans need to be asking themselves everyday - every minute of everyday - how they can use their positions in business and government to help Israel. Zalman Shapiro did just that and Americans should applaud him for this great mitzvah he fulfilled on behalf the Jewish State. Placing dogmatic and short-sighted prejudices like "loyalty" to one's country over the Law of honoring Israel is, at bottom, a virulent form of idolatry that must be addressed (ideally, in some kind of binding Noahide court) every bit as much as overt anti-Semitism itself. The kind of naked appeals to "nationalism" which implicitly undergird the very purpose of writing a hateful book like this are what led to the Holocaust in the first place.
The blessed and holy Talmud of Babylon says, "All of Israel have a portion in the world to come," therefore Zalman and NUMEC cannot be "guilty" of anything in any meaningful sense of the word. The Babylonian Talmud (Amoraic Babylon, A.D. 500) is the absolute final word on all moral law, therefore, it is not the place of uppity Americans to question why Israel uses the resources of the US in the manner which she does. Israel is chosen by G*d, therefore it is up to Israel to decide how the US disposes of its weapons-grade uranium. Any American not willing to accept that fact should move to the West Bank or Norway and await their fate with the rest of the anti-Semites and terrorists. The Talmud also clearly and infallibly states (in Tractate Sanhedrin 58b) that to "strike" a Jew is the same as if one struck the holy countenance of G*d himself, so surely to strike at the Jewish state the way in which this book does by attempting to profane the blessed and Holy Name of Israel, is a criminal assault on G*d himself.
