U.S. man admits nuke-linked sale to Israel

LOS ANGELES, Dec. 28 (UPI) -- A former engineer admitted in federal court Friday that he smuggled 50 electronic devices to Israel that could be used for a number of applications, including triggering nuclear bombs.

Richard Kelly Smyth, who spent the past 16 years living in Spain as a fugitive, pleaded guilty in Los Angeles to a 1985 charge that he illegally exported a shipment of krytrons to Israel in 1982 without the appropriate U.S. licenses.

Smyth's guilty plea to one count of violating the Arms Export Control Act and one count of making a false statement to the Customs Service was expected to land him in federal prison for up to seven years when he is sentenced Feb. 28.

The U.S. Attorney's office described krytrons as "small devices that transfer precise bursts of energy."

"The devices can be used in nuclear weapons, in other military applications and in civilian products such as photocopying machines," the prosecutors said in a release.

At the time the 30-count indictment was issued, the Israeli government maintained that it had purchased the krytrons sent by Smyth's Orange County firm from Heli Trading Corp., an Israeli vendor, for purely conventional research purposes and not for use in nuclear weapons.

Tel Aviv also said it was not aware of U.S. export restrictions, however U.S. prosecutors said Smyth had been well aware of them. The Los Angeles Times said Friday that the plea agreement requires Smyth to answer any lingering questions U.S. investigators may have about his dealings in krytrons.

Among the questions on investigators' minds may be just how Smyth managed to get to Spain without the passport he had been forced to surrender shortly before his 1985 trial was scheduled to begin.

The Times said Smyth and his wife, Emilie, apparently lived quietly in southern Spain without attempting to conceal their identities. Spanish authorities arrested Smyth last summer after he attempted to open a bank account in Malaga and an Interpol check revealed the U.S. arrest warrant.

from a Google Search on Kryton

Newsgroups: sci.military From: John De Armond Subject: Re: N. Korean Cruise Missile Date: Mon, 13 Jun 1994 16:58:07 GMT R J Whitaker writes: >Maybe so. But, given that there's some doubt as to whether NK actually >*has* the bomb or not - and even if it has they'd have trouble mating it >to a missile so soon after acquiring it, there isn't that much to worry >about.

Yeah, loading a device in the cargo hold of a civilian airliner and sticking a suicide pilot in the right seat is real tough.

>Also, talk of megatons is misleading - NK only has plutonium and can >therefore only build a fission bomb which will produce kilotons at most.

>Megatons require fusion which means they need tritium - this is *very* >hard to come by.

Yep. You need a nuclear reactor to make it. Ooops.....

Actually tritium isn't necessary - it breeds just fine from Li-6 in the neutronic environment that exists at the instant before thermonuclear ignition.

Tritium is much more handy for boosting the yield of the fission initiator which permits a physically smaller unit but it is NOT necessary.

A little Li-6, a little deteurium and viola, you're cooking with gas. Hydrogen that is :-)

>BTW, to build *any* effective nuclear bomb they'll also need some Kryton >switches and a few rather specialized capacitors, the trade in which is >rigourously controlled.

Nope. krytrons are simply thyratron tubes filled with Krypton-85 gas.

The radioactive gas provides uniform ignition characteristics.

Krytrons are used in some photocopy machines, and in any event, are available off the shelf here in the US.

EG&G will be happy to sell you some and they're not terribly expensive.

A net.friend recently told me he found some surplus at a ham radio swapfest.

The caps are similarly off-the-shelf low-ESR energy storage devices.

There are many civilian uses for such caps, not the least of which is high speed stroboscopy.

The concept that the construction of a nuclear device requires parts made of pure unobtainium is rubbish, a myth promoted by the government to placate the population.

John

-- John De Armond, WD4OQC, Marietta, GA jgd@dixie.com Performance Engineering Magazine. Email to me published at my sole discretion

Clinton at Normandy for D-day is worse than Hitler presiding over the Holocaust Museum.

I like the way this guy ends his message. So if one wanted to get some Krytons all you would have to do is get a bunch of the correct copiers (used) and avoid the export restrictions. No one would be the wiser.

What concerns me is that nuke triggers may have already fallen into the hands of Sadddam Husein and Iraq, or Iran, and Bin Laden and other terror groups for the right price. And these terror nations and groups have their own scientists and enough help from CHinese and Pakistani scientists and enough weapons grade uranium to build nukes and even small neutron bombs with these triggers.

For all those who want to PooPoo what Sam Cohen and others have said:

You will not need red mercury as a trigger if you can get other types of nuke triggers on the black market and it appears they are readily available. Not good news guys.

I believe the nuke weapons can be made small enough that they can be smuggled into the US now and used by one of these groups. And we have the specter of China using proxy terror groups and nations to do China's dirty work against the US. China militarily supports Iraq, Iran,Syria,Sudan, Bin Laden, AlQaeda, Hezbollah,Islamic Jihad -- all capable of getting nuke triggers to build nuke terror weapons.

This is why I believe Clinton's and now GW Bush's appeasement of China with MFN status and looking the other way on China's terrorist activites is absolutely INSANE.

Unilateral cuts in US nuke delivery systems, giving Russia and China operational details of the US missile defense system, and propping up CHina economically (and militarily) does not make me feel secure that GW Bush will in the end protect America against China and terrrorism like he should, no matter how much worse that Gore and Clinton would have done or did.

Some people have been blinded by their own fears and have put themselves into a state of denial when they realize that the President who is to protect them and America , Clinton and now GW Bush , has embarked on horrible policies with CHina that will lead to even bigger disasters than what we faced on 9/11.

Some people have a false sense of security because GW Bush took action in Afghanistan to clean up the mess his father made(CIA and Mujahadden)and that Clinton should have taken years ago. Does that mean Bush is doing the right thing to stop terrorism when it comes to China ? The answer is a resounding NO!

And will GW Bush have the courage to clean up the mess his father made in Iraq for giving Saddam weapons of mass destruction (biological, chemical and nuke process and materails to ues with NUKE TRIGGERS) before the Gulf war?

Even if he does, look at the cost to AMericans it will take to stop Iraq and terror groups Iraq supports that would not have been necessary without Bush Sr' actions. And look at the waste in human lives Bush Sr's actions contributed to moving the world to the brink of extinction with illegal and imoral exports of nukes and biological weapons to Iraq.

If it is a game of high stakes chicken Bush Sr played, then excuse me while I express doubts about his and his son's and COndi Rice failed and disasterous CHina policies that will lead to terrorists getting nukes and biologicals to use on the US.

I am a messenger on all this. If you doubt it, wait and watch what will unfold unless GW Bush drastically improves his policies with China and takes action against Saddam. Maybe the Bushes are either just greedy or too dumb to see any of this with China? Maybe they really do not want a new world order and a world government (even though they have said so)??

Sorry if it sounds like I got too far off on China and Clinton and Bush, but this thread "triggered me" and made me go "nuclear" when I contemplated the consequences and tie in to terrrorists being able to use nukes agasint America because of disaterous and suicidal Bush and CLinton policies with China.

But all this is just my opinion, right? And opinions can never be right especially if they are labeled by others as conspiracy theories , right?

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