Operation Plumbat
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Operation Plumbat is believed to have been an Israeli covert operation in 1968 to obtain yellowcake (processed uranium ore) to support the Israeli nuclear weapons effort.
France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
stopped supplying
Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
with
uranium Uranium is a chemical element with the symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Uranium is weak ...
fuel for the Dimona nuclear reactor after the
1967 Arab-Israeli War The Six-Day War (, ; ar, النكسة, , or ) or June War, also known as the 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab states (primarily Egypt, Syria, and Jordan) from 5 to 10 Jun ...
. Numerous sources believe that in 1968 Israel managed to obtain 200 tonnes of yellowcake from the Belgian mining company Union Minière, shipped processed uranium mined in Congo out of
Antwerp Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504,
to
Genoa Genoa ( ; it, Genova ; lij, Zêna ). is the capital of the Italian region of Liguria and the List of cities in Italy, sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015, 594,733 people lived within the city's administrative limits. As of the 2011 Italian ce ...
for a European front company by transferring the ore to another vessel at sea. This
Mossad Mossad ( , ), ; ar, الموساد, al-Mōsād, ; , short for ( he, המוסד למודיעין ולתפקידים מיוחדים, links=no), meaning 'Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations'. is the national intelligence agency ...
covert operation violated
Euratom The European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC or Euratom) is an international organisation established by the Euratom Treaty on 25 March 1957 with the original purpose of creating a specialist market for nuclear power in Europe, by developing nucl ...
controls of nuclear materials. The name of Operation Plumbat is derived from the Latin "plumbum", meaning
lead Lead is a chemical element with the symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cu ...
, and is a reference to the labeling of the drums used to transport the yellowcake.


Mossad operation

Mossad agents arranged to set up a fictitious company called Biscayne Trader's Shipping Corporation in Liberia to purchase an ocean freighter; this became the ''Scheersberg A'' (Scheersberg is a town in northern Germany, near the border with Denmark). With the assistance of a friendly official at a German petrochemical company, $3.7 million was paid to Union Minière for 200 tonnes of yellowcake uranium. The yellowcake was left over inventory from uranium mined from Shinkolobwe, in upper Katanga. This was loaded onto the newly renamed freighter and a contract was arranged with an Italian paint company for the yellowcake to be processed. The cargo was loaded in November 1968 in barrels marked "PLUMBAT" (a harmless lead product). The Spanish crew were replaced by sailors recruited by Mossad and forged passports provided. The freighter set sail for Genoa on November 17, 1968. Approximately seven days into its voyage, it rendezvoused with an Israeli freighter under cover of darkness, somewhere east of Crete. The cargo was transferred in near silence whilst Israeli gunboats kept watch nearby. After loading the Israeli freighter set sail toward Haifa, and eventually the Tunnel, a six-level automated chemical plant for processing fuel rods into plutonium at
Dimona Dimona ( he, דִּימוֹנָה, ar, ديمونا) is an Israeli city in the Negev desert, to the south-east of Beersheba and west of the Dead Sea above the Arava valley in the Southern District of Israel. In its population was . The Shi ...
. The ''Scheersberg A'' docked in Turkey eight days later; without any cargo to deliver, the contract with the Italian paint company was cancelled. Several pages were missing from the ship's log and no explanation was offered; the Italian paint company assumed the cargo had been lost to hijack or piracy.


Mossad Operative confession

In 1973, suspected Mossad operativ
Dan Ert (Dan Ærbel)
was arrested in Norway, alleged to have helped assassinate one of the Palestinian terrorists who had killed eleven Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic games in Munich. Ert recounted the story whilst imprisoned as a way of proving to Norwegians that he was a Mossad operative. The story seemed more credible once it was found that Ert had been listed as president of the Liberian shipping company used to purchase Scheersberg A. In 1977 the Plumbat Affair was leaked by Paul Leventhal, a former U.S Senate attorney, at a disarmament conference, he said the stolen yellowcake shipment was enough to run a reactor such as Dimona for up to ten years. Israeli officials at first were silent when enquiries were made, then issued a denial of all aspects of the story that related to Israel.


Popularization

A factual book called ''The Plumbat Affair'' by Elaine Davenport, Paul Eddy and Peter Gillman, published in 1978 by Futura Publications Ltd, The book ''Operation Uranium Ship'' by Menachem Portugali, Dennis Eisenberg and Eli Landau, published in 1978 by Signet Books, claims to provide details. The 1979 book '' Triple'' by
Ken Follett Kenneth Martin Follett, (born 5 June 1949) is a British author of thrillers and historical novels who has sold more than 160 million copies of his works. Many of his books have achieved high ranking on best seller lists. For example, in the ...
, also by Signet, is a fictional recreation of the events.


References


Sources

* Davenport, E., Eddy, P., & Gillman, P. (1978)
''The Plumbat Affair''
Philadelphia: Lippincott. Plumbat Israeli nuclear development Nuclear proliferation 1968 in Israel Covert operations {{Israel-mil-stub pl:Mossad#Operacja Plumbat