Benjamin Blumberg

Benjamin Blumberg ( Hebrew בנימין בלומברג; * 1923 in Mikveh Israel , Palestine ; † August 28, 2018 ) was head of the Office for Special Tasks - the top-secret news agency created in 1957 to protect the Israeli nuclear weapons program and operating outside the structures of the Ministry of Defense , which later became the "Office for Scientific Connections" (Lischka le Kischrei Mada - Lakam ) was renamed. He held this position until 1981.

Life

Blumberg grew up in a kibbutz . He was a fighter of the Hagana , a Jewish defense formation and participant in the War of Independence (1948–1949) . He then worked with the Israeli security service Shin Bet , later he was appointed security chief of the Ministry of Defense, both of the office itself and of the construction offices and armaments companies under him. In the mid-1950s, during the construction of the first Israeli nuclear reactor with French help, Blumberg's office was given the task of protecting the top-secret Negev Nuclear Research Center in Dimona , in the Negev desert . In the mid-1960s, when French President Charles de Gaulle stopped aid to the Israeli nuclear program, Blumberg began to seek fissile material from other sources. His first success was the purchase of 21 tons of heavy water from Norway , then he illegally obtained uranium from the USA . The American Atomic Energy Commission announced that a company Blumberg did business with had lost 267 kilograms of this raw material. In cooperation with the Israeli intelligence service Mossad , Blumberg's agents also intercepted 200 tons of uranium oxide that disappeared from the German freighter Scheersberg on the line from Antwerp to Genoa in 1968 ( Operation Plumbat ). Working with unprecedented energy, Blumberg also used his people in other areas of industrial espionage, especially for the theft of rocket technology.

In addition to the successes he achieved, there were also critical voices. In a book entitled Every Spy Is a Prince , Dan Raviv and Yossi Melman write : “In a small circle of Israelis privy to the existence of the Lakam , some complained that Blumberg was unduly weak for his friends, them he helped to enrich himself. With a full hand he distributes valuable information and lucrative items. There were even references to the fact that the chief of the Lakam was benefiting from it personally, although few questioned his impeccable honesty and humble lifestyle. "

In May 1977, after the right-wing Likud party Menachem Begins came to power, pressure intensified to remove Blumberg, affiliated with the Labor Party establishment . Nonetheless, he managed to keep the post for a certain period of time, although his activities were subjected to much stricter controls. Eventually, however, the Defense Minister in the Begin government, Ariel Sharon , decided that Blumberg had to go in connection with the growing criticism. In 1981, Rafi Eitan took over the role of Blumberg.

literature

• Dan Raviv, Yossi Melman: Every Spy a Prince: The Complete History of Israel's Intelligence Community . Houghton Mifflin, 1990, ISBN 978-0-395-58120-9 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ איש הצללים ששמר בתעוזה - ובחוצפה - על סודות הכור בדימונה חדשותצבא וביטחו. Retrieved September 19, 2019 . 
2. ↑ Victor Gilinsky: SOMETIMES MAJOR VIOLATIONS OF NUCLEAR SECURITY GET IGNORED p. 11
3. ^ Every Spy a Prince: The Complete History of Israel's Intelligence Community , Houghton Mifflin, Boston, Massachusetts, USA, ISBN 0-395-47102-8 . - 1992: German by Uta Haas: The history of the Mossad. The rise and fall of the Israeli secret service , Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich, ISBN 3-453-05805-4