Atom Thriller

Five thuds in the night

Three night watchmen who patrol the cluttered yards of an industrial plant in the French Riviera town of La Seyne-sur-Mer were about to begin their 3 a.m. rounds when they heard five dull thuds from one of three unmarked rectangular hangars on the factory grounds. Rushing to the building, they found its alarm system disconnected but its hermetically sealed doors unopened. No intruder was spotted scaling the yard's 6-ft. walls.

Inside the hangar, the guards discovered two ruined nuclear-reactor cores blasted apart by five charges of plastic explosives that had been strategically positioned and then detonated with a sophisticated fuse. The metal cores, built over a period of three years, had already been crated for delivery to their buyer, Iraq, and were due to be shipped only three days later. The reactor components were 60% destroyed; the damage was estimated at $23 million. French officials estimated that delivery would be delayed for two years, which would also postpone the shipment of 65 kilograms of enriched uranium fuel that France had agreed to supply along with the reactor. That is enough uranium to build at least half a dozen "dirty" atomic bombs of Hiroshima force. The saboteurs--police later estimated that three men were involved--knew their mission as well as they knew their way around the plant. Similar machinery destined for West Germany and Belgium had not been vandalized.

As explosive as the blast itself was a bomb of a question: Who had pulled off the nuclear sabotage? An environmental organization calling itself Groupe des Ecologistes Franc,ais claimed responsibility. No one had ever heard of the group before the explosion, and French authorities dismissed its claims. But by imposing a blackout on news of the police investigation, government officials inspired speculation in the press about possible, and some rather impossible, culprits. France Soir reported that the police believed "extreme leftists" had planted the explosives. Le Matin de Paris suggested that the act had been committed by Palestinians working on behalf of Libya. The newsweekly Le Point hinted that the CIA might have been involved, and Le Nouvel Observateur insinuated that the French secret service had set the charges.

More serious theorists had a more obvious culprit--Israel. Fearful that Iraq would use the reactor to produce bombs rather than electricity, the Israelis have been protesting the proposed shipment for the past three years. The French had been stung many times before by MOSSAD, Israel's secret service, notably on Christmas morning 1969, when its agents piloted five embargoed gunboats from the port city of Cherbourg to Haifa in a daring and well-executed maneuver. Certainly, Israel benefits from the sabotage, but its officials have denied that they triggered the La Seyne explosion, branding such suggestions "anti-Semitism."

Whoever was responsible, the incident may be a blessing in disguise for French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing. The contract with Iraq was engineered in 1975 by then Premier Jacques Chirac, with Giscard's approval. The deal was kept secret until the following year. Then it was announced as a commercial agreement between several French companies and Iraq, rather than an accord between two nations, thus allowing the arrangement to escape an acrimonious debate in the French parliament. After Chirac's resignation in 1976, Giscard "began having second thoughts about the contract. He feared France would not only be contributing to nuclear proliferation but would be blamed for intensifying tensions in the Middle East. But breaking the $350 million contract and risking Iraqi ire was unthinkable. Iraq is France's second largest supplier of oil, and the reactor deal has also helped keep the French trade deficit from spiraling higher.

Giscard's worries are now over.

Thanks to the substantial two-year delay in furnishing the reactor and its uranium, Giscard expects that by the new delivery date his nation's scientists will have perfected a nuclear fuel called "caramel," composed of 7%-enriched uranium that is unsuitable for making bombs. End result: lucrative contract is saved, international reputation is salvaged, Iraqis are appeased, if not pleased.

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