Why is no-one doing this sort of investigative journalism nowadays?
17Aug11 - Buying Weapons Grade Plutonium 239 - on the Black Market -
Roger Cook (published 2000)
Extracted from Chapter 7, When Push Comes To Shove - available to
print as RTF file
http://www.bilderberg.org/censored.htm#cook
Roger Cook reported for BBC Radio 4's 'Checkpoint' programme from
1974 until 1987 when The Cook Report was commissioned from ITV's
Central Television. ITV Network Centre cancelled The Cook Report in
1997 when its final audiences were around nine-and-a-half million.
The Cook Report joined This Week, First Tuesday, World In Action and
Weekend World in the censorship graveyard of investigative journalism.
'Dangerous Ground, The Inside Story of Britain's Leading
Investigative Journalist' by Roger Cook and Howard Foster, Harper
Collins, 2000, ISBN 0 00 653108 3 pp. 311-318
For months, there had been occasional newspaper reports, mainly
tucked away in the foreign pages, of nuclear material being smuggled
out of the former Soviet Union for sale illegally in the West. In
just twelve months, the German police had made no fewer than 160
seizures of radioactive chemicals - all of it on its way to, so far,
unidentified groups keen to obtain the capability to manufacture
nuclear weapons.
The World Trade Center in New York had just been bombed by Moslem
extremists. Was it only a matter of time before one of these
fanatical organisations got hold of enough plutonium to rig up a
small bomb to be detonated in another Western city?
Clive Entwistle and Paul Calverley were on the case. Some friends of
Mike Garner worked for Greenpeace. They were in touch with a young
Russian journalist who had contacts with the gangs selling
weapons-grade plutonium, and much more besides.
Entwistle went to Moscow to meet the reporter - Kyril - to see if he
would help. Subject to certain conditions -that neither he nor his
contacts would be filmed or identified in any way, he agreed. He
reminded Entwistle that the people we would be dealing with were
dangerous and that we had to be very careful. I flew out to Moscow to
meet him. He was young and, understandably, nervous. We per-suaded
him that we had the expertise and the resources to carry off a
'sting' on his contacts.
The plan was that I would pose as the representative of a Middle
Eastern organisation keen to buy Plutonium 239- the essential
ingredient for putting together a small nuclear bomb. Back in
Britain, we hired - a consultant nuclear engineer, John Large, to see
if it would be possible to make such a weapon. The simple answer was
yes. In fact, the prospect of an attack using one had been worrying
the experts for some time. It already had a name - a 'dirty bomb' -
so called because it would be rudimentary, inefficient but,
nonetheless, deadly whether it triggered properly or just dispersed
millions of nuclear particles over the immediate, highly-populated area.
John Large built us a replica 'dirty bomb' small enough to fit into a
briefcase. It was frightening to click open such -a commonplace piece
of baggage and see the tubular, pre-assembled nuclear unit inside,
complete with plutonium core and battery-operated timing and
detonation devices.
Another expert told us in interview that a small terrorist group
would quite easily be able to. find the necessary components if they
were properly funded. In Moscow, we were hoping to prove that he was right.
Mike Garner joined Entwistle and me in Moscow. He and secret filming
equipment wizard Alan Harridan had hurriedly created two cameras that
were built into clothing, which Garner was to use when meeting the
gang. In a series of cloak and dagger meetings at the Slavjanskaya
hotel, Kyril helped us to plan our visit to the gang's HQ. He was
begin-ning to have second thoughts about what was about to hap-pen,
and was only just holding his nerve.
The following morning, Garner and I were joined by Kyril and two
heavy-looking characters with bulges under their coats - Kyril's
underworld 'contacts' - and we set off in an impressive-looking hire
car for one of Moscow's outer suburbs. Eventually we stopped in front
of a gloomy, low--rise, pre-war apartment block in a surprisingly
leafy street. Kyril led us to the front door of a scruffy,
ground-floor flat and rapped nervously on the frosted glass.
The door opened and a dishevelled man in his thirties waved us
quickly inside. He invited us to sit down in a makeshift office,
which centred on a rickety desk, bare but for a telephone. Gamer sat
down last, making sure he could get a good shot of our host with the
camera which was built into the breast pocket of his denim jacket.
The man introduced himself as Gennady. He said that he could obtain
most nuclear materials from a variety of sources. He pointed to the
telephone. We just had to tell him what we needed and he would make
the call to his 'business partner', who would arrange delivery. I
told him that we wanted twenty-five kilograms of plutonium for our
Middle Eastern clients. Gennady didn't bat an eyelid. He picked up
the receiver and dialled his friend. They spoke in Russian for a
minute, then Gennady put the phone down and talked to Kyril. The
journalist translated that weapons grade plutonium would cost $15
million dollars a kilo but that for a large order such as we were
placing; Gennady was prepared to close the deal for $200 million
dollars. Had we wanted a uranium/plutonium mixture, we could have had
it straight away. As it was, pure plutonium would take a little while
to obtain.
He had uranium and plutonium straightaway? I asked.
Gennady smiled and told us to stay where we were. He walked over to a
cupboard under his staircase. He reached inside and, with a grimace,
hauled something into the room - a lead-covered container about two
feet high. Suddenly Gamer dropped forward onto his knees. My God, I
thought. 'He's been irradiated. In fact, he was just trying to film
the lettering and codes stamped on the outside of the canister with
his secret camera, while appearing to want to check out the details
for his own professional satisfaction.
Before we left, Gennady gave us a small sample of nuclear material
from the container so that 'our people' could have it tested to prove
he could deliver what we wanted. I hoped to God that the small
container he'd given us was leakproof. Everything seemed so
ramshackle and amateur - a scruffy man in a cardigan operating from a
shabby flat with weapons-grade nuclear material hidden under his
stairs. My . blood ran cold. We left Gennady with a handshake and
agreed that we would come back to him as soon as we had spoken to our
clients in the Middle East.
After the meeting, it was clear that Kyril wasn't happy with what we
were doing. It was just about the last time we saw him - and I can't
say that I blamed him. We were all very nervous. In his absence,
however, we were without an interpreter for our covert meetings with
Gennady. We could hardly approach one of the translation agencies and
ask for someone to come and tell us when the Mafia man was planning
to deliver our plutonium.
In the meantime, our sample had been taken to the Atomic Energy
Ministry laboratories in central Moscow. Screened by residential
developments, the laboratories were housed in a series of low,
cream-painted buildings which, on the inside, reminded me of Dr Who's
Tardis. A worried -looking scientist opened the sample with his hands
encased in heavy silver gloves built into the side of a
radiation-proof cabinet. He emptied the contents of the phial into a
glass dish, and we filmed him testing it.
Sure enough, it was exactly what Gennady had said it was. We
interviewed a Ministry spokesman. It was obvious that he knew that
his country was haemorrhaging nuclear material through the Russian
Mafia, but he put a brave face on things and vowed that he would do
everything he could to stop it.
Back in Birmingham, programme manager Pat Harris had had a brainwave.
Central had just finished filming one of its most successful dramas -
'Sharpe', starring Sean Bean as the swashbuckling soldier hero of the
Napoleonic Wars - in Eastern Europe. An English woman who spoke
fluent Russian had been working on the production as an interpreter
and she was coming back to the UK via Moscow. Would she help?
Surprisingly, given that I had to tell her exactly what we were
involved in, she agreed and cheerfully set off with us for our second
visit to Gennady. This time, he had brought in his partner, Ilya.
They had had an idea. If, as we said, we wanted the plutonium so that
we could make a nuclear warhead, why not just buy one ready-made?
They had an SS 20 ballistic missile they could provide for us - what
did we think?
As our interpreter translated, I felt a sense of unreality wash over
me, as I had the first time I had met Gennady. f we were finding it
so easy to obtain these things, what he hell was there to stop a
genuine terrorist organisation with real money behind it from doing
exactly the same?
I obviously wasn't looking keen on the idea, because Gen-nady and
Ilya were now outlining to our interpreter how the original order of
weapons-grade plutonium was to be smuggled out to us. It would be
coming through Vilnius in Lithuania. When would we like delivery? And
would I please take the details of how we should make the payment to
their company? Fine, fine. We took down the details and arranged to
talk later. We had all the evidence we needed that the fissile
material for our 'dirty bomb' could be found here in Moscow. We flew
back to Britain to prepare for the final stage of the programme.
We had decided to take our dummy 'dirty bomb' to the United. States.
The totally reasonable thinking was that the bomb set off by the
Moslem extremists at the World Trade Center could so easily have
contained nuclear material. If not this time, maybe next time. We
wanted to ask the auth-orities there if they had contemplated such a
threat and, if so, what plans they had to deal with it.
We wanted to carry out our plan sensibly and without causing any
panic, so we informed both British and US Customs exactly what we
were doing. The briefcase was thoroughly examined at Heathrow Airport
and again when we arrived in New York.
Understandably, perhaps, the New York authorities -from the Mayor's
office to the civil defence department -refused to meet us.. The
story of what we had brought with us and our exploits in Moscow were
picked up by New York radio stations.
In Washington, however, I interviewed Bob Kupperman, a former US
National Security Adviser who looked at the briefcase's contents and
said, 'Oh, my God. My worst night-mare is coming true!' A chilling
comment from the man who was once the chief scientist for the
American side in the SALT Two disarmament talks. He had warned
several times that the ready availability of small amounts of nuclear
material on the black market would ultimately give the ter-rorists
the power they had wanted for so long.
Here, in theory, was a bomb small enough to fit into a briefcase but
big enough to obliterate Manhattan.
When news of our visit to New York was picked up in Britain, we were
lambasted by the Sun, which accused me of being 'irresponsible and
naive' for trying to 'sneak' the 'dirty bomb' into the US with me.
This really annoyed me. We had moved heaven and earth to avoid
scaring people. We had informed all the relevant authorities in
Britain and the USA and, after all, we were making a very valid
point, given our Russian findings.
I insisted that Central complained to Kelvin MacKenzie, then the
editor of the Sun. Our press department advised against it. 'If you
cross the Sun, they'll never give you pub-licity again - not good
publicity anyway,' they warned.
I insisted, however, and, a couple of weeks later, an apology
appeared in the paper, printed as prominently as the original,
condemnatory article. And, despite the fears of the Central
Television press department, when we broadcast the first programme
about the terrorist activities of Martin McGuinness a few weeks after
that, the Sun described me as a 'national hero'. This was one
'national hero' who was ready to lie down and sleep for a year.
+44 (0)7786 952037
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"Capitalism is institutionalised bribery."
_________________
www.abolishwar.org.uk
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www.public-interest.co.uk
www.radio4all.net/index.php/series/Bristol+Broadband+Co-operative
<http://utangente.free.fr/2003/media2003.pdf>http://utangente.free.fr/2003/media2003.pdf
"The maintenance of secrets acts like a psychic poison which
alienates the possessor from the community" Carl Jung
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--
Please consider seriously the reason why these elite institutions are not discussed in the mainstream press despite the immense financial and political power they wield?
There are sick and evil occultists running the Western World. They are power mad lunatics like something from a kids cartoon with their fingers on the nuclear button! Armageddon is closer than you thought. Only God can save our souls from their clutches, at least that's my considered opinion - Tony
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