Washington, DC: Recently declassified wiretap transcripts of conversations between Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC) founder Zalman Shapiro and venture capitalist David Lowenthal reveal that illegal storage practices led to a dangerous nuclear spill. Obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by IRmep’s Center for Policy and Law Enforcement, the files were heavily censored by the Central Intelligence Agency which blocked release of 225 pages.
The transcript, http://www.irmep.org/ila/numec/08292011lowenthal.pdf, details that Shapiro and Lowenthal’s interest in completing NUMEC’s sale to Atlantic Richfield Company outweighed public safety concerns. The FBI and CIA investigated Shapiro and Lowenthal in the 1960s under suspicion of diverting highly enriched uranium (HEU) from NUMEC into the clandestine Israeli nuclear weapons program. For decades the CIA has blocked release of its files and equity content in other government agency reports about NUMEC…More