Zalman Shapiro
Encyclopedia
Zalman Mordecai Shapiro is an American
chemist
and inventor. He has received 15 patent
s, including a 2009 patent on a process to make commercial production of diamond
s cheaper, and played a key role in the development of the reactor that powered the world's first nuclear power
ed submarine
, the Nautilus
.
Pinck) Shapiro. He graduated from Passaic High School
in New Jersey
as the valedictorian
in 1938. He attended Johns Hopkins University
, earning B.A.
, M.A.
, and Ph.D.
degrees in 1942, 1945, and 1948, respectively.
, and began a career in engineer
ing and chemistry. He worked for Westinghouse Electric
and the Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory
, where he worked on developing the fuel for the first commercial nuclear power plant, the Shippingport Atomic Power Station. He founded Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corp. (NUMEC) in Apollo, Pennsylvania
in 1957 to develop improved methods of processing nuclear fuel.
s. After the company was awarded a contract to process enriched uranium
, it was told to inventory its uranium. The inventory came up short, and after a series of efforts to search and recover the material from the factory and its disposal site, the company paid $834,000 to the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC)
for the missing uranium.
Shapiro is a long-time Zionist
, and he had business interests and contacts among high government officials in Israel, including a contract to build nuclear-powered generators for Israel. He was suspected for many years of diverting some 200 pounds of uranium to Israel, enough to make several nuclear weapon
s. In September 1968, four Israeli intelligence agents visited NUMEC; among them was Rafi Eitan
, who was listed as a defense ministry chemist. In the same meeting, arranged by NUMEC with the Atomic Energy Commission, Shapiro also met with Avraham Hermoni (technical director of Israel's nuclear bomb project at RAFAEL), Shin Bet operative Avraham Bendor, and Ephraim Biegun, head of the Israeli Secret Services technical department, all working undercover as scientists.
The missing uranium was investigated several times over two decades. Both the AEC and the FBI
examined the records and the plant; only a small portion of what was thought to be missing was located. Estimates of the missing amount have varied as well, from 200 pounds to almost 600 pounds. However, no charges were ever filed, and one report concluded that there was "no substantive evidence to indicate that a diversion occurred". Shapiro has long denied any wrongdoing, and has said that such discrepancies are "not unusual" and that losses could be explained as normal to the complex processing.
A 2010 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists article, "Revisiting the NUMEC Affair" concluded that 337 kilograms of weapons grade uranium could still not be accounted for and was likely diverted into the Israeli nuclear weapons program. They cite a 2001 Department of Energy audit revealing that most NUMEC highly enriched uranium loses occurred between 1966 and 1968, returning to industry standard levels only after Shapiro left NUMEC in 1971.
In his 1991 book, The Samson Option
, Seymour Hersh
concluded that Shapiro did not divert any uranium; rather "it ended up in the air and water of the city of Apollo as well as in the ducts, tubes, and floors of the NUMEC plant." He also wrote that Shapiro's meetings with senior Israeli officials in his home were related to protecting the water supply in Israel rather than any diversion of nuclear material or information. A later investigation was conducted by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
(successor to the AEC) regarding an additional 198 pounds of uranium that was found to be missing between 1974 and 1976, after the plant had been purchased by Babcock & Wilcox and Shapiro was no longer associated with the company. That investigation found that more than 110 pounds of it could be accounted for by what was called "previously unidentified and undocumented loss mechanisms", including "contamination of workers' clothes, losses from scrubber systems, material embedded in the flooring, and residual deposits in the processing equipment." Hersh further quoted one of the main investigators, Carl Duckett, as saying "I know of nothing at all to indicate that Shapiro was guilty."
Later U.S. Department of Energy records show that NUMEC had the largest highly enriched uranium inventory loss of all U.S. commercial sites, with a 269 kilograms (593 lb) inventory loss before 1968, and 76 kilograms (167.6 lb) thereafter.
The US Army Corps of Engineers is overseeing a taxpayer funded $170 million cleanup of contaminated land at the site of NUMEC's waste disposal, currently scheduled to be completed in 2015.
. Shapiro and his wife were honored in 2008 for their contributions to the Jewish community for over 60 years. He lives in the Oakland
section of Pittsburgh.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
chemist
Chemist
A chemist is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties such as density and acidity. Chemists carefully describe the properties they study in terms of quantities, with detail on the level of molecules and their component atoms...
and inventor. He has received 15 patent
Patent
A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....
s, including a 2009 patent on a process to make commercial production of diamond
Diamond
In mineralogy, diamond is an allotrope of carbon, where the carbon atoms are arranged in a variation of the face-centered cubic crystal structure called a diamond lattice. Diamond is less stable than graphite, but the conversion rate from diamond to graphite is negligible at ambient conditions...
s cheaper, and played a key role in the development of the reactor that powered the world's first nuclear power
Nuclear power
Nuclear power is the use of sustained nuclear fission to generate heat and electricity. Nuclear power plants provide about 6% of the world's energy and 13–14% of the world's electricity, with the U.S., France, and Japan together accounting for about 50% of nuclear generated electricity...
ed submarine
Submarine
A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below the surface of the water. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability...
, the Nautilus
USS Nautilus (SSN-571)
USS Nautilus is the world's first operational nuclear-powered submarine. She was the first vessel to complete a submerged transit beneath the North Pole on August 3, 1958...
.
Biography
Shapiro was born in Canton, Ohio, to Abraham and Minnie (néeMarried and maiden names
A married name is the family name adopted by a person upon marriage. When a person assumes the family name of her spouse, the new name replaces the maiden name....
Pinck) Shapiro. He graduated from Passaic High School
Passaic High School
Passaic High School is a four-year community public high school, serving students in ninth through twelfth grades from Passaic, in Passaic County, New Jersey, United States, operating as part of the Passaic City School District...
in New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
as the valedictorian
Valedictorian
Valedictorian is an academic title conferred upon the student who delivers the closing or farewell statement at a graduation ceremony. Usually, the valedictorian is the highest ranked student among those graduating from an educational institution...
in 1938. He attended Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University
The Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...
, earning B.A.
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
, M.A.
Master of Arts (postgraduate)
A Master of Arts from the Latin Magister Artium, is a type of Master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The M.A. is usually contrasted with the M.S. or M.Sc. degrees...
, and Ph.D.
Doctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...
degrees in 1942, 1945, and 1948, respectively.
Career
After completing his education, Shapiro moved to Pittsburgh, PennsylvaniaPennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
, and began a career in engineer
Engineer
An engineer is a professional practitioner of engineering, concerned with applying scientific knowledge, mathematics and ingenuity to develop solutions for technical problems. Engineers design materials, structures, machines and systems while considering the limitations imposed by practicality,...
ing and chemistry. He worked for Westinghouse Electric
Westinghouse Electric (1886)
Westinghouse Electric was an American manufacturing company. It was founded in 1886 as Westinghouse Electric Company and later renamed Westinghouse Electric Corporation by George Westinghouse. The company purchased CBS in 1995 and became CBS Corporation in 1997...
and the Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory
Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory
Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory is a U.S. Government-owned, contractor-operated research and development facility located in the Pittsburgh suburb of West Mifflin, Pennsylvania. It solely focuses on the design and development of nuclear power for the U.S. Navy....
, where he worked on developing the fuel for the first commercial nuclear power plant, the Shippingport Atomic Power Station. He founded Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corp. (NUMEC) in Apollo, Pennsylvania
Apollo, Pennsylvania
Apollo is a borough in Armstrong County, Pennsylvania, United States, 35 miles northeast of Pittsburgh in a former coal-mining region. Apollo was settled in 1790, laid out in 1816, and incorporated as a borough in 1848. The town was originally known as 'Warren', but was later renamed to avoid...
in 1957 to develop improved methods of processing nuclear fuel.
Controversy
NUMEC began by doing consulting work for companies in the nuclear field, and it was the first company able to provide fuel that could be used for nuclear reactorNuclear reactor
A nuclear reactor is a device to initiate and control a sustained nuclear chain reaction. Most commonly they are used for generating electricity and for the propulsion of ships. Usually heat from nuclear fission is passed to a working fluid , which runs through turbines that power either ship's...
s. After the company was awarded a contract to process enriched uranium
Enriched uranium
Enriched uranium is a kind of uranium in which the percent composition of uranium-235 has been increased through the process of isotope separation. Natural uranium is 99.284% 238U isotope, with 235U only constituting about 0.711% of its weight...
, it was told to inventory its uranium. The inventory came up short, and after a series of efforts to search and recover the material from the factory and its disposal site, the company paid $834,000 to the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC)
United States Atomic Energy Commission
The United States Atomic Energy Commission was an agency of the United States government established after World War II by Congress to foster and control the peace time development of atomic science and technology. President Harry S...
for the missing uranium.
Shapiro is a long-time Zionist
Zionism
Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...
, and he had business interests and contacts among high government officials in Israel, including a contract to build nuclear-powered generators for Israel. He was suspected for many years of diverting some 200 pounds of uranium to Israel, enough to make several nuclear weapon
Nuclear weapon
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. Both reactions release vast quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. The first fission bomb test released the same amount...
s. In September 1968, four Israeli intelligence agents visited NUMEC; among them was Rafi Eitan
Rafi Eitan
Rafael "Rafi" Eitan is an Israeli politician and former intelligence officer. Today he leads Gil and is a former Minister of Pensioner Affairs. In the past, he was in charge of the Mossad operation that led to the capture of Adolf Eichmann...
, who was listed as a defense ministry chemist. In the same meeting, arranged by NUMEC with the Atomic Energy Commission, Shapiro also met with Avraham Hermoni (technical director of Israel's nuclear bomb project at RAFAEL), Shin Bet operative Avraham Bendor, and Ephraim Biegun, head of the Israeli Secret Services technical department, all working undercover as scientists.
The missing uranium was investigated several times over two decades. Both the AEC and the FBI
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
examined the records and the plant; only a small portion of what was thought to be missing was located. Estimates of the missing amount have varied as well, from 200 pounds to almost 600 pounds. However, no charges were ever filed, and one report concluded that there was "no substantive evidence to indicate that a diversion occurred". Shapiro has long denied any wrongdoing, and has said that such discrepancies are "not unusual" and that losses could be explained as normal to the complex processing.
A 2010 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists article, "Revisiting the NUMEC Affair" concluded that 337 kilograms of weapons grade uranium could still not be accounted for and was likely diverted into the Israeli nuclear weapons program. They cite a 2001 Department of Energy audit revealing that most NUMEC highly enriched uranium loses occurred between 1966 and 1968, returning to industry standard levels only after Shapiro left NUMEC in 1971.
In his 1991 book, The Samson Option
The Samson Option (book)
The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy is a 1991 book by Seymour Hersh. It details the history of Israel's nuclear weapons program and its effects on Israel-American relations...
, Seymour Hersh
Seymour Hersh
Seymour Myron Hersh is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist and author based in Washington, D.C. He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker magazine on military and security matters...
concluded that Shapiro did not divert any uranium; rather "it ended up in the air and water of the city of Apollo as well as in the ducts, tubes, and floors of the NUMEC plant." He also wrote that Shapiro's meetings with senior Israeli officials in his home were related to protecting the water supply in Israel rather than any diversion of nuclear material or information. A later investigation was conducted by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Nuclear Regulatory Commission
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is an independent agency of the United States government that was established by the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974 from the United States Atomic Energy Commission, and was first opened January 19, 1975...
(successor to the AEC) regarding an additional 198 pounds of uranium that was found to be missing between 1974 and 1976, after the plant had been purchased by Babcock & Wilcox and Shapiro was no longer associated with the company. That investigation found that more than 110 pounds of it could be accounted for by what was called "previously unidentified and undocumented loss mechanisms", including "contamination of workers' clothes, losses from scrubber systems, material embedded in the flooring, and residual deposits in the processing equipment." Hersh further quoted one of the main investigators, Carl Duckett, as saying "I know of nothing at all to indicate that Shapiro was guilty."
Later U.S. Department of Energy records show that NUMEC had the largest highly enriched uranium inventory loss of all U.S. commercial sites, with a 269 kilograms (593 lb) inventory loss before 1968, and 76 kilograms (167.6 lb) thereafter.
The US Army Corps of Engineers is overseeing a taxpayer funded $170 million cleanup of contaminated land at the site of NUMEC's waste disposal, currently scheduled to be completed in 2015.
Personal
Shapiro married Evelyn Greenberg in 1945, and they have three children: Joshua, Ezra, and Deborah. He was formerly the president of the Pittsburgh chapter of the Zionist Organization of AmericaZionist Organization of America
The Zionist Organization of America , founded in 1897, was one of the first official Zionist organizations in the United States, and, especially early in the 20th century, the primary representative of Jewish Americans to the World Zionist Organization, espousing primarily Political Zionism.Today,...
. Shapiro and his wife were honored in 2008 for their contributions to the Jewish community for over 60 years. He lives in the Oakland
Oakland (Pittsburgh)
Oakland is the academic, cultural, and healthcare center of Pittsburgh and is Pennsylvania's third largest "Downtown". Only Center City Philadelphia and Downtown Pittsburgh can claim more economic and social activity than Oakland...
section of Pittsburgh.