The Vindication of Karen Silkwood — Final part

3 different spy agencies were keeping tabs on Karen Silkwood when she died, and the Justice Department stepped in to cover-up the radioactive mess.

Continued from Part One and Part Two.

In the nick of time

While Jacque Srouji was testifying to John Dingell's subcommittee, a young lawyer named Daniel Sheehan sat in the audience watching in disbelief, convinced that Srouji was revealing far less than she knew. He went and met Bill Silkwood — Karen's father — and, after a brief discussion, agreed to file a civil suit on his behalf against Kerr-McGee for Karen's death.

Daniel Sheehan (C)

The case was far murkier than it seemed, and Sheehan knew he needed the support of Bill Taylor, a private investigator and friend. He spent days trying to convince Taylor, but since it was a civil suit, Taylor wasn't interested. So Sheehan met Peter Stockton, who opened up about what he had learnt from Srouji. She had seen transcripts, Stockton told him; those wouldn't exist if Karen Silkwood hadn't been under surveillance, her telephone hadn't been tapped, and her apartment hadn't been bugged. And she had seen FBI documents in Kerr-McGee's files and vice versa, as if they had conducted a joint investigation.

In an attempt to sway Taylor, Sheehan even gave him the Oklahoma Highway Patrol's accident report, and Silkwood's autopsy report. The contradictions convinced Taylor this wasn't a mere civil matter. So he called a source of his inside FBI's headquarters for one last check.

“The Silkwood case is a doozy. The Bureau is covering so much shit on Karen Silkwood, you wouldn't believe me.”

When Taylor asked him to elaborate, the source told him Silkwood had been under heavy surveillance, and he had seen transcripts of taped conversations in her files. For good measure, the source told Taylor everything was buried too deep, and Taylor would never uncover it all.

Taylor was now convinced Silkwood had been murdered. Nothing about the case seemed right. His sources had told him she was under FBI surveillance before and at the time of her death, that the reason for surveillance was national security, and that they suspected she might smuggle plutonium.

Just days before the statute of limitations ran out, Sheehan filed two civil suits: one against Kerr-McGee, charging the corporation with negligence and 23 of its members with conspiracy to deprive Silkwood of her civil rights; and one against members of the FBI, accusing them of conspiracy to cover up illegal activity. Jacque Srouji was also charged with having joined the conspiracy.

Taylor's source in FBI headquarters rang him:

“The Bureau has gathered all the Silkwood files and moved them,” the source said before contextualising the extent of the files the Bureau had on her: “You'd need a truck to cart the boxes around.”

The investigation begins

The first thing Taylor did was travel to the site of the crash in Oklahoma. After investigating tracks in the grass, he drove down the shoulder of the road all the way to the culvert. The ride was bumpy, and he had trouble keeping the car from going out of control into the ditch and pasture to the left or the highway to the right. She couldn't have remained asleep at the wheel on that bumpy ride, and the car wouldn't have travelled straight for 240 feet unless she was driving it, he concluded.

Taylor could think of only one hypothesis that fit these facts:

Karen Silkwood had been forced off the road; she had straightened out the Honda and sped along the shoulder, hoping to swing back onto the highway. But she couldn't, because another car was running parallel to her, keeping her off the road. She didn't see the culvert because she was looking over her right shoulder at the car chasing her. She flew over the first wingwall [of the culvert] without realising what was happening [before crashing into the second wingwall].

While searching the crash site for the documents Silkwood was supposed to be carrying, he chanced upon a farm a few hundred yards away from the culvert. The unoccupied farm belonged to the family of Silkwood's roommate Sherri Ellis. Inside the old tractor barn, he found a brown manila envelope and a white business envelope. Both were covered with thick layers of dust, and both bore the Kerr-McGee logo. Taylor concluded that Silkwood had stashed her documents in Ellis's barn, and had retrieved them the evening she was killed. A few days later, he found out he was under surveillance.

Intelligence networks

In October 1977, Sheehan and Taylor were informed that Georgia Power Company had a secret security force euphemistically called Risk Management that kept files on all kinds of activists and individuals who might hold anti-nuclear views, and likely had a dossier on Silkwood. Georgia Power's 80-employee intelligence unit (yes, a power company had an intelligence unit staffed with former intelligence professionals from the CIA, FBI, and Military Intelligence) even had top-line surveillance equipment that was often borrowed by the FBI.

According to Washington Post reporter Bill Richards, FBI agents complained that Georgia Power was way ahead of them in its surveillance ability.

It was modelled on similar units at Southern California Edison, Pacific Gas & Electric, and the Alabama Power Company.

“On at least one occasion, a local law enforcement agency, also joined the Georgia Power Company in its covert surveillance operations.”
—Donna Warnock, Citizens Energy Project

These corporate intelligence units had complete access to police information.

“I'd give a sheriff a list of names and he'd tell me if there was anything on them anywhere, no matter who they were.”
—William Lovin, former member of Georgia Power intelligence unit

They were also plugged into Law Enforcement Intelligence Unit (LEIU), an unofficial, private intelligence organisation of 240 top intelligence agents who were employed by large municipal and state police departments. The LEIU operated a network of 100 computers for the purpose of storing and sharing dossiers of activists and political leftists. And this network drew information from the FBI's National Crime Information Center, a national computer linking police departments.

Sheehan hammered away at Kerr-McGee, Jacque Srouji, and the FBI in court, but just like John Dingell's subcommittee, they were met with stonewalling tactics. Even after Sheehan's team got Larry Olson, Sr. to accept in court that Srouji was an FBI informant (which meant the FBI actively directed her efforts to gather information, in addition to other activities), the situation didn't change much. Srouji pleaded the Fifth (amendment) to avoid answering sensitive questions, and the DOJ retreated behind national security concerns.

Fort Lauderdale

While all this was going on, Taylor continued digging. The LEIU revelation had resulted in a number of leads, and he followed them patiently. His investigation led him to the National Intelligence Academy (NIA) in Fort Lauderdale, founded by Jack Holcomb — a one-time private detective and wiretapper who had since gone on to found multiple companies that manufactured electronic surveillance equipment — and Leo Goodwin, Jr., former army intelligence officer and millionaire.

NIA was located in a building owned by the Audio Intelligence Devices (AID) corporation, which designed high-grade surveillance equipment. It offered short-term courses in electronic surveillance for law enforcement officials from the United States and allied countries. Taylor noticed up to 13 flights a day of CIA-owned aircraft arriving and departing from a private airstrip owned by NIA at the Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport. The other end of this air ferry was in an island in the British Bahamas.

A short helicopter trip to Andros island later, Taylor discovered a place with numerous underground training facilities and command posts belonging to the CIA, US Naval Intelligence, and British Intelligence.

Fort Lauderdale and Andros Island. Source: Google Maps

A source inside NIA told him Oklahoma police officers had been trained at NIA, and the state police had purchased surveillance equipment from AID. Soon afterwards, Taylor found out that he was being investigated by a private intelligence agency.

Documents

Meanwhile, the FBI released a substantial tranche of documents Sheehan had subpoenaed. Among them, he found references that suggested that Jacque Srouji had worked as an undercover agent for an intelligence agency that wasn't the FBI. That agency had directed her — through her handler, Dominc de Lorenzo who Srouji said worked for the CIA — to write a book about the nuclear industry. That, in turn, allowed Srouji to insinuate herself into the Silkwood investigation. The documents also showed that Srouji had coordinated her testimony before the Dingell subcommittee with the FBI, intending to take the heat off the Bureau and frame the union.

In October 1977, Taylor's source in FBI headquarters called to warn him that the Bureau hadn't given him most of their Silkwood documents, most of which were secret reports that were carefully guarded. This included surveillance reports involving Silkwood, her boyfriend, and the owner of the garage where her car had been kept. They were classified as top secret, and appeared to have originated not in the FBI, but in the National Security Agency (NSA). Some went back as far as 1973.

“There are at least four more file cabinets full of documents.”

Diversion of uranium & plutonium to Israel

The source mentioned that the CIA appeared to be intimately involved in the affair, and that the CIA had been diverting plutonium and uranium from nuclear plants to friendly countries. Whether they had diverted plutonium from the Cimarron plant remained unanswered; he didn't have access to those reports.

If this seems far fetched, read on.

On 12 August 1977, the Dingell subcommittee had asked the Comptroller General of the United States / the General Accounting Office (GAO) to investigate possible diversion of 206 pounds of nuclear material (uranium-235) from Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC), a US facility, in 1965. There were allegations that the material — adequate to build five nuclear weapons — was diverted to Israel by NUMEC management and the CIA with the acquiescence of the US government.

The GAO reported back on 18 December 1978. It had been denied access to documents by the CIA and FBI, and had relied on oral evidence obtained from interviews with former and current staff at those agencies.

The GAO found “no evidence that the 200 pounds nuclear material has been located.”

FBI agents involved in the investigation opined that based on circumstantial evidence, it could be concluded that a diversion had occurred. A former high-ranking CIA official told the GAO in August 1977 that the facility in question was the "most likely" source of the uranium held by Israel. The official position of the CIA, however, was far less conclusive. Multiple former officials of the CIA told the GAO that the CIA had information linking diversions at the facility to uranium in Israel's possession. One of those was senior enough to have reported directly to the Director of the CIA himself.

The FBI agents investigating the diversion confirmed that while the CIA had initially told them they had information supporting the diversion to Israel, it later reversed itself and told the FBI it didn't have that kind of information. They also withheld other bits of information about the diversion from the FBI and the DOE. And just in case its report gave the impression that the botched investigation was entirely the CIA's fault, the GAO noted that the FBI had initially declined the Department of Energy's request to conduct an investigation of the diversion. Although such an investigation was its responsibility, the FBI did not conduct one until 11 years after the incident. And even then, it was hardly thorough or swift.

This investigation, which is currently ongoing, is obviously hampered by the 11-year gap since the alleged incident occurred. Also, although it may not affect the investigative outcome, GAO found that certain key individuals had not been contacted by the FBI almost 2 years into the FBI's current investigation.

Danger

Despite evidence that Jacque Srouji had perjured herself to the subcommittee as well as in court, the DOJ took no steps to prosecute her. This led Sheehan's team to conclude that a backroom deal had been worked out whereby Srouji would perjure herself to protect the FBI and, in return, would not be prosecuted for it by the DOJ.

While the trial was going on, Mazzocchi found a bug in his kitchen while moving houses. He gave it to Sheehan, who consulted David Waters a former CIA electronics man. It was an NSA bug, Waters told him. When Sheehan mentioned that it had to be related to the Silkwood case, and told him about NIA and AID and everything else they had discovered, Waters arranged for Sheehan to meet two of his who worked at the White House.

White House I & II asked if Sheehan's investigation had led to anyone with top secret clearance in Naval Intelligence. It had. They then asked if he had heard of Wackenhut Security Agency. He had. Wackenhut was a private security company that shared office space with Oklahoma Police's intelligence unit. They told him Wackenhut also had a very large office in Venezuela, and more than half their staff were CIA. White House I & II both told Sheehan to call Taylor back and have him stand down. If he didn't, Taylor would be killed, adding:

“And I promise you, no one will do anything about it.”

Sheehan bargained. He would ask Taylor to give up the investigation if White House I & II could give him valuable information.

On his way back from the meeting, he called Taylor and had him stand down. Then he met White House II the next Monday, who introduced him to another individual. This guy confirmed that NIA and AID were CIA sponsored programs where potential CIA agents, double agents, and informants were recruited and trained. It was also where the CIA recruited American law enforcement officers.

Shortly afterwards, Taylor was attacked inside his hotel room. The two men who attacked him with a knife spoke a foreign language. Taylor committed what they said to memory, managed to grab the knife-wielder's arm, and injured him in the stomach. But before he could reach for his gun, they had disappeared. He couldn't find anyone matching the description of his assailant in hospitals and emergency rooms in that area, but he later found out the language they spoke was Iranian.

White House II's friend had warned him that the CIA was training agents of the Iranian secret police — the SAVAK — at NIA.

Lieutenant General Nasser Moghaddam was the chief of SAVAK at that time. He was convicted for corruption and sentenced to death under Ayatollah Khomeini's order on 11 March 1979.

A few months later, someone broke into Taylor's house and stole his Silkwood files.

Sheehan then changed tack, focusing on the negligence case. Not that he had much choice. His requests for information had been stonewalled so badly, he did not have any evidence to even infer a conspiracy had taken place; the judge, consequently, dropped conspiracy charges against Kerr-McGee and the FBI officials. With that, Sheehan and Bill Silkwood's hopes of a favourable ruling resulting in an official investigation into

After a high-voltage trial for the negligence charge against Kerr-McGee, the jury returned a verdict on 18 May 1979.

• They found that Karen Silkwood hadn't intentionally contaminated herself.

• They found that Kerr-McGee Nuclear Corporation was negligent in its operation of the Cimarron facility and thus caused Silkwood's contamination.

• They awarded $505,000 in actual damages to Karen Silkwood's estate.

• They found that Kerr-McGee Corporation — the parent — was exerting managerial control on the operations at Cimarron.

• And they awarded exemplary damages of $10,000,000.

Bill Silkwood, center, and his wife Merle talk with reporters outside the federal courthouse Friday after a three-man, three-woman jury awarded their family $10.5 million damages for the radiation contamination of their daughter Karen.

So what had happened to Karen Silkwood?

Taylor's source in FBI headquarters took a risk and snuck a peek into the secret files, then narrated what he found to Taylor over the phone.

According to the FBI summary report, page 3, a car followed Karen Silkwood from the Hub Cafe, but lost her when she turned west (right), approximately 200 yards from the death scene, down a narrow oil road (the road to Sherri Ellis' father's farm). The chase car eventually turned down the same road, looking for Karen; it met her returning to Highway 74. The chase car tried to stop her on the oil road, but she sped around it. Then the chase car raced to a turnaround on the right and followed her. When she reached 74, Karen hit her brakes. The chase car slid into the Honda, lightly tapping it. Karen turned left as if to head back to the Hub Cafe, then swung right toward Oklahoma City, ending up on the grassy left shoulder. The chase car was right on her, running parallel, boxing her in. The driver of the chase car tried to flag Karen down. She was racing along the ditch . . .

But he did not dare to read further, for fear of being caught.

The vindication of Karen Silkwood — supporters erected the sign at the culvert minutes after the jury returned its verdict (Photo by Dale Wittner, taken from Rashke’s book)

Further reading

As I mentioned at the beginning of Part One, most of the information and excerpts are from Rashke’s book, The Killing of Karen Silkwood, which is an incredibly well-researched and detailed account of Karen Silkwood’s death and the investigations that happened after it. I cannot recommend this book enough.

As for Georgia Power’s intelligence unit, the report Nuclear Power and Civil Liberties: Can We Have Both? by Donna Warnock makes for fascinating and horrifying reading. The report can be accessed at this link (PDF file).

The GAO report entitled Nuclear Diversion in The US? 13 Years of Contradiction and Confusion, while significantly redacted, sheds considerable light on allegations of diversion of uranium-235 to Israel. The report can be accessed at this link (PDF file).

The Bizzarre Career of Jacque Srouji, Alias Lelia Hassan by Irvin Muchnick paints an interesting portrait of a journalist who became an intelligence operative. A PDF version can be accessed at this link.

While you’re here…

Espionage obviously interests you. Have you read my spy novels?
The Let Bhutto Eat Grass series sees a motley crew of spies try to halt nuclear weapons espionage during the Cold War. Click the button below to view it on Amazon.