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Current Events => Breaking News => Topic started by: TVDOC on September 17, 2010, 02:19:46 PM

Title: Two (Americans) Held in Alleged Nuke Bomb Making for Venezuela
Post by: TVDOC on September 17, 2010, 02:19:46 PM
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39235273/ns/us_news-security/

Quote
WASHINGTON — A scientist and his wife were arrested and indicted on charges of trying to help make a nuclear bomb for Venezuela, the Justice Department announced Friday.

Pedro Leonardo Mascheroni, 75, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Argentina, and Marjorie Roxby Mascheroni, 67, a U.S. citizen, were indicted on Thursday by a federal grand jury.

Both had worked as contractors at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, the Justice Department said in a statement.

If convicted of all 22 charges in the indictment, the defendants face a potential sentence of life in prison, the department said.

,exerpted>

Balance at link.......

doc
Title: Re: Two (Americans) Held in Alleged Nuke Bomb Making for Venezuela
Post by: cavegal on September 17, 2010, 02:24:08 PM
Wow how bad are they that THIS Justice Dept arrested them? This WH is pro Venezula.
Title: Re: Two (Americans) Held in Alleged Nuke Bomb Making for Venezuela
Post by: DLR Pyro on September 17, 2010, 03:23:37 PM
the 2010 version of the Rosenbergs
Title: Re: Two (Americans) Held in Alleged Nuke Bomb Making for Venezuela
Post by: DefiantSix on September 17, 2010, 03:25:46 PM
Wow how bad are they that THIS Justice Dept arrested them? This WH is pro Venezula.

Oh don't worry.  I'm sure Kaliph Barry piss be upon him will have a word with that Holder guy, get him to plead it down to "improper handling of classified documents" or something.
Title: Re: Two (Americans) Held in Alleged Nuke Bomb Making for Venezuela
Post by: DumbAss Tanker on September 17, 2010, 03:33:38 PM
Of course, at their ages, confinement awaiting trial could be a life sentence...

 :evillaugh:
Title: Re: Two (Americans) Held in Alleged Nuke Bomb Making for Venezuela
Post by: Godot showed up on September 17, 2010, 03:42:32 PM
Wow how bad are they that THIS Justice Dept arrested them? This WH is pro Venezula.

Twice as surprising---this WH is pro-US-being-attacked, too.
Title: Re: Two (Americans) Held in Alleged Nuke Bomb Making for Venezuela
Post by: true_blood on September 17, 2010, 07:12:57 PM
Oh don't worry.  I'm sure Kaliph Barry piss be upon him will have a word with that Holder guy, get him to plead it down to "improper handling of classified documents" or something.
HA HA!  :cheersmate:
The red diaper doper baby will say next week that they, the DOJ, made a mistake and we'll never hear of it again! :bird:
Title: Re: Two (Americans) Held in Alleged Nuke Bomb Making for Venezuela
Post by: JohnnyReb on September 18, 2010, 08:10:32 AM
SO, what's their DU name? You know they have one.
Title: Re: Two (Americans) Held in Alleged Nuke Bomb Making for Venezuela
Post by: DumbAss Tanker on September 18, 2010, 08:52:29 AM
Venezuela apparently wasn't actually involved in this, it was an FBI counterintelligence operative posing as a Venezuelan agent to whom they were going to give the classified info.
Title: Re: Two (Americans) Held in Alleged Nuke Bomb Making for Venezuela
Post by: Duke Nukum on September 18, 2010, 01:14:00 PM
Remember duringthe Clinton years, all the laptops and other thefts of information fomr Los Alamos?
Title: Re: Two (Americans) Held in Alleged Nuke Bomb Making for Venezuela
Post by: Mike220 on September 18, 2010, 01:19:56 PM
 
Remember duringthe Clinton years, all the laptops and other thefts of information fomr Los Alamos?

Yes and I always found the thefts strange. All China and their ilk had to do was ask and it would have been hand delivered.
Title: Re: Two (Americans) Held in Alleged Nuke Bomb Making for Venezuela
Post by: vesta111 on September 18, 2010, 05:28:35 PM
the 2010 version of the Rosenbergs

That was my first thought too DLR, it just don't pay to be a middle aged or senior scientist in the Government when the powers that be screwed up and need a scape goat.

Title: Re: Two (Americans) Held in Alleged Nuke Bomb Making for Venezuela
Post by: DefiantSix on September 18, 2010, 06:34:28 PM
That was my first thought too DLR, it just don't pay to be a middle aged or senior scientist in the Government when the powers that be screwed up and need a scape goat.



Once again Vesta, you're wrong as a wee li'l ol' body could be.  The KGB's own records (released in the '90s, remember?) showed that Julius and Ethel were as guilty as sin of what they were charged with. 

I only regret that these clowns aren't going to get near the punishment that the Rosenbergs brought upon themselves.
Title: Re: Two (Americans) Held in Alleged Nuke Bomb Making for Venezuela
Post by: NHSparky on September 18, 2010, 06:51:33 PM
Well, given the link between Venezuela and Iran being all buddy buddy, I'm guessing it'll be about 3 days before Holder releases them with the profuse apologies of the DOJ and White House, and Obama will be on television by the end of the week telling us how the FBI "acted stupidly".
Title: Re: Two (Americans) Held in Alleged Nuke Bomb Making for Venezuela
Post by: true_blood on September 18, 2010, 07:39:46 PM
^^Ha ha!! Nice one Sparky. :hi5: :cheersmate:
Title: Re: Two (Americans) Held in Alleged Nuke Bomb Making for Venezuela
Post by: vesta111 on September 18, 2010, 07:51:27 PM
Once again Vesta, you're wrong as a wee li'l ol' body could be.  The KGB's own records (released in the '90s, remember?) showed that Julius and Ethel were as guilty as sin of what they were charged with. 

I only regret that these clowns aren't going to get near the punishment that the Rosenbergs brought upon themselves.

The KGB records released in the 90's were scripted by our CIA to prove any darn thing they wanted them to be.

After all those years of Spy vs Spy I do not believe one darn thing the Russians said at any time.

Had the Russian records said that the Rosenberg's had NOTHING to do with their developing their nuclear capability, do you really believe that the CIA or anyone would come out and say WE made a mistake and fried two innocent people ?

Get real,  no way would we admit to elocution of a middle age couple that were most likely innocent.     You want to believe what the Russians say--go for it---I would not trust them or our own CIA to tell us the truth.

Anyway you look at it this is a dirty business, someone has to be set up as a scape goat just in case.  

As for the idiot spy's that were in the military and sold for a pittance our  secretes, why are they still hanging about in prison, why were they not hung as traitors.?

If you wish to believe anything we got from the KGB , that is your choice, but I cannot believe the stuff on the Rosenberg's.

I believe that scientists working for us leaked the information on nuclear bomb making to to the Russians.

These people had friends and politions in high places.  They perhaps liberals  wanted to even the playing ground.  Remember most of our best scientists came from Germany after the war.  Who is to know just how pissed they were with us.  

When it came out that the Russians now were in the nuclear race, someone had to take the blame.   Like the Russians were to stupid to make build a nuclear bomb themselves.  

  Give me a break the Germans were only months behind us in making the A bomb.  [ something about heavy water what ever the heck that is held them back]  

 The game of Spy Vs Spy goes on, no one one either side will ever know the truth, never has never will be.

 
Title: Re: Two (Americans) Held in Alleged Nuke Bomb Making for Venezuela
Post by: NHSparky on September 18, 2010, 07:56:57 PM
Quote
The KGB records released in the 90's were scripted by our CIA to prove any darn thing they wanted them to be.

The Verona Cables were "scripted" by the CIA?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venona_project

Quote
Senior Army officers, in consultation with the FBI and CIA, made the decision to restrict knowledge of Venona within the government (even the CIA was not made an active partner until 1952).

Quote
Some of the earliest detailed public knowledge that Soviet code messages from WWII had been broken came with the release of Robert Lamphere's book, The FBI-KGB War, in 1986. Lamphere had been the FBI liaison to the code-breaking activity, had considerable knowledge of Venona and the counter-intelligence work that resulted from it. MI5 assistant director Peter Wright's 1987 memoir, Spycatcher, however, was the first detailed account of the Venona project, identifying it by name and making clear its long-term implications in post-war espionage.

Once again, FAIL.  You really should learn to know what the **** you're talking about before you post, toots.
Title: Re: Two (Americans) Held in Alleged Nuke Bomb Making for Venezuela
Post by: DefiantSix on September 18, 2010, 08:02:00 PM
And the fact that the KGB documents just happen to jibe with the known data we had from the declassified Verona wiretaps is just a cruel, cruel cowinky-dink I guess?  

Gimme a break.  Julius and Ethel were commies, spied for the Soviets and took a well deserved ride on ol' Sparky when they were found out, ma'am.
Title: Re: Two (Americans) Held in Alleged Nuke Bomb Making for Venezuela
Post by: NHSparky on September 18, 2010, 08:07:34 PM
Give me a break the Germans were only months behind us in making the A bomb.  [ something about heavy water what ever the heck that is held them back]

Actually, no--they weren't.  They were several years away, at least.  They did, however, have a wicked excellent delivery system for one had they ever managed to develop the bomb...
Title: Re: Two (Americans) Held in Alleged Nuke Bomb Making for Venezuela
Post by: DumbAss Tanker on September 19, 2010, 08:26:19 AM
Sparky's on the money, both on the decrypts and the German nuke program, except that the decryption program was 'Venona.'  If anyone interested in this little bit of history is ever in the Fort Meade, MD, area, I strongly recommend they stop by the NSA Museum and have a chat with the guys there.  There is actually a large percentage of the traffic that has never been decrypted.  The fall of the Soviet Union enabled the program and decrypts to be (In large part) declassified, records in the KGB files confirmed a lot of things that the operators had learned from it but couldn't talk about back in the day.

Vesta, if you seriously think the current DOJ and administration wouldn't be all over a shot at discrediting the entire Atom Spy era and the Rosenberg case in particular like white on rice, I want some of whatever you're taking, at least as long as it won't show up on an Army piss test.
Title: Re: Two (Americans) Held in Alleged Nuke Bomb Making for Venezuela
Post by: NHSparky on September 19, 2010, 08:57:59 AM
Whoops--Venona--my bad.  I'll bitchslap myself later.

And more likely than not, the DOJ will step all over their cranks in this case, just like they did with Wen Ho Lee.
Title: Re: Two (Americans) Held in Alleged Nuke Bomb Making for Venezuela
Post by: vesta111 on September 19, 2010, 05:08:36 PM
Whoops--Venona--my bad.  I'll bitchslap myself later.

And more likely than not, the DOJ will step all over their cranks in this case, just like they did with Wen Ho Lee.

Sparky, that is one heck of a story, Thank you.

Amazing the stuff I learn when I am wrong, if I were right on all the time I would learn nothing new. :-)
Title: Re: Two (Americans) Held in Alleged Nuke Bomb Making for Venezuela
Post by: TheSarge on September 20, 2010, 04:05:40 AM
Wow how bad are they that THIS Justice Dept arrested them? This WH is pro Venezula.

Given how unimportant things like Nuclear secrets are to the Dems...this one will probably end up like Wen Ho Lee.
Title: Re: Two (Americans) Held in Alleged Nuke Bomb Making for Venezuela
Post by: TheSarge on September 20, 2010, 04:07:23 AM
Actually, no--they weren't.  They were several years away, at least.  They did, however, have a wicked excellent delivery system for one had they ever managed to develop the bomb...

Just when you think Vesta has sobered up...*hic*
Title: Re: Two (Americans) Held in Alleged Nuke Bomb Making for Venezuela
Post by: Godot showed up on September 20, 2010, 09:22:46 AM
Just when you think Vesta has sobered up...*hic*

Well, it isn't like this isn't a topic of some controversy. People still argue about this; and I don't think, from what I've been reading, that the Germans were so far as "several years away"; my overall impression from what I've been able to find is that, had they been unmolested by bombing and not had to prioritize so much for the immediate war effort, that they might have been less than a year away. But even less than a year away is still far beyond nearly having it simultaneously with the US.

Good reading:


http://www.unmuseum.org/nbomb.htm


Some very informed opiners:


http://www.warhistoryfans.com/how-close-ware-the-germans-to-getting-a-nuclear-bomb-181574.html






I post this simply to point out that Vesta's opinion isn't so outre. Many informed people still argue, and in detail, about this.
Title: Re: Two (Americans) Held in Alleged Nuke Bomb Making for Venezuela
Post by: TheSarge on September 20, 2010, 10:17:41 AM
Well, it isn't like this isn't a topic of some controversy. People still argue about this; and I don't think, from what I've been reading, that the Germans were so far as "several years away"; my overall impression from what I've been able to find is that, had they been unmolested by bombing and not had to prioritize so much for the immediate war effort, that they might have been less than a year away. But even less than a year away is still far beyond nearly having it simultaneously with the US.

Good reading:


http://www.unmuseum.org/nbomb.htm


Some very informed opiners:


http://www.warhistoryfans.com/how-close-ware-the-germans-to-getting-a-nuclear-bomb-181574.html






I post this simply to point out that Vesta's opinion isn't so outre. Many informed people still argue, and in detail, about this.

I think with the Bomb...something similiar happened as that which ocurred with the people developing Germany's Jet and Rocket programs.  We got some of the scientists and they got some as well...or at least the designs for stuff because the Germans were terrified of what the Russians would do to them if captured.

We just happened to end up with more of them and that left the Russians having to reverse engineer a lot of things and turn to espionage to get what they didn't have.  But there had been people in this country sympathetic to the People's Revolution since before the start of the war.
Title: Re: Two (Americans) Held in Alleged Nuke Bomb Making for Venezuela
Post by: DumbAss Tanker on September 20, 2010, 11:51:42 AM
There were numerous reasons for the failure to accomplish anything in the German program.

First, the expulsion of all the Jewish scientists did leave a hole in their academic community, though they still had at least parity if not a mild lead in theoretical physics compared to us or the UK even after that.

Second, the guys who figured it could be made did not do a Hell of a job selling it to Hitler, so it was really treated more as a scientific prestige program rather than a war-winning weapon, and so was somewhat under-resourced (Becoming more so as the war progressed).  Given that the program was never as tightly compartmentalized as the Manhattan Project (Only a tiny handfull of whose leaders knew the ultimate objective) there may be some credibility to speculation that some of the smartest players on their side figured out where it was going and it 'Spurred them on lesser efforts.'

Third, they were off on a totally unproductive rabbit trail with the heavy water reactors.  Stupid idea, really; heavy water proved very valuable for unlocking the technology to make hydrogen bombs later on, but trying to use it alone to moderate a simple fission reactor is like trying to spin five plates on sticks while eating off of them.  There is one way it can work right and a thousand ways for it to fail, nearly all of them more or less catastrophic.

The only way they could have been a year away would be to take what they had in 1945, and start from that with an entire new approach and priority level.  Given that, yes, possibly a year.  The way they were going, at least five.     
Title: Re: Two (Americans) Held in Alleged Nuke Bomb Making for Venezuela
Post by: wavespank on September 22, 2010, 01:55:11 PM
Obama wants to be the pre-election tough guy. That's all this is about.
Title: Re: Two (Americans) Held in Alleged Nuke Bomb Making for Venezuela
Post by: vesta111 on September 23, 2010, 06:13:29 PM
There were numerous reasons for the failure to accomplish anything in the German program.

First, the expulsion of all the Jewish scientists did leave a hole in their academic community, though they still had at least parity if not a mild lead in theoretical physics compared to us or the UK even after that.

Second, the guys who figured it could be made did not do a Hell of a job selling it to Hitler, so it was really treated more as a scientific prestige program rather than a war-winning weapon, and so was somewhat under-resourced (Becoming more so as the war progressed).  Given that the program was never as tightly compartmentalized as the Manhattan Project (Only a tiny handfull of whose leaders knew the ultimate objective) there may be some credibility to speculation that some of the smartest players on their side figured out where it was going and it 'Spurred them on lesser efforts.'

Third, they were off on a totally unproductive rabbit trail with the heavy water reactors.  Stupid idea, really; heavy water proved very valuable for unlocking the technology to make hydrogen bombs later on, but trying to use it alone to moderate a simple fission reactor is like trying to spin five plates on sticks while eating off of them.  There is one way it can work right and a thousand ways for it to fail, nearly all of them more or less catastrophic.

The only way they could have been a year away would be to take what they had in 1945, and start from that with an entire new approach and priority level.  Given that, yes, possibly a year.  The way they were going, at least five.     

I agree with Mr. D. Ass about the insanity of destroying or running off the very people that could have taken Germany to great heights in Science, not to mention the Arts, Music, and Medicine.

True they had to get out of a severe depression and chose to use tactics of the barbarians that marched into Mecca with the blood of the Muslims up to the flanks of their horses.

Like the invaders that burned the Library at Alexandra, the problem with destroying knowledge was to destroy themselves and ultimately destroy themselves.

We have some what the same problem here today. 





Title: Re: Two (Americans) Held in Alleged Nuke Bomb Making for Venezuela
Post by: Chris_ on September 23, 2010, 11:42:13 PM
Mr. D. Ass
Something new to put on your business card. :lmao:

 :bow:
Title: Re: Two (Americans) Held in Alleged Nuke Bomb Making for Venezuela
Post by: DumbAss Tanker on September 24, 2010, 07:56:09 AM
Since she apparently didn't understand the rest of the point she was agreeing with, it's tough to take umbrage at the mangling of the moniker.
Title: Re: Two (Americans) Held in Alleged Nuke Bomb Making for Venezuela
Post by: vesta111 on September 24, 2010, 10:58:41 AM
Since she apparently didn't understand the rest of the point she was agreeing with, it's tough to take umbrage at the mangling of the moniker.

 :heart:  sorry about that.
Title: Re: Two (Americans) Held in Alleged Nuke Bomb Making for Venezuela
Post by: DumbAss Tanker on September 24, 2010, 06:12:47 PM
'salright; my screen name is Army slang that goes 'way back, maybe as far as WW2, I'm not sure.  The normal way to shorten the term is "DAT."