Gerald Bull/Assassination
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| Date | 22 March 1990 |
|---|---|
| Location | Brussels |
| Blamed on | Unknown, Mossad |
| Description | The killing of Gerald Bull as he returned home from his nearby office whilst unlocking the door to his Brussels, Belgium appartment. |
Gerald Bull was working on the SCUD project, making calculations for the new nose-cone needed for the higher re-entry speeds and temperatures the missile would face. Over a period of a few months following, his apartment suffered several non-robbery break-ins, apparently as a threat or a warning, but he continued to work on the project. On 20 March 1990 he was assassinated. The Supergun project was stopped when its parts were seized by HM Customs and Excise in the United Kingdom in November 1990, and most of Bull's staff returned to Canada. The smaller test gun was later broken up after the Gulf War.
Who killed Gerald Bull?
According to the journalist Gordon Thomas in The Telegraph:
- Within the global intelligence community, respect for Mossad grew following the kidon assassination of Dr Gerald Bull, the Canadian scientist who was probably the world's greatest expert on gun-barrel ballistics. Israel had made several attempts to buy his expertise. Each time, Bull had made clear his dislike for the Jewish state.
- Instead he had offered his services to Saddam Hussein, to build a Supergun capable of launching shells containing nuclear, chemical or biological warheads directly from Iraq into Israel. Saddam had ordered three of the weapons at a cost of $20 million. Bull was retained as a consultant for a fee of $1 million.
- On the afternoon of 20 March 1990, the sanction to kill Bull was given by the then prime minister, Yitzhak Shamir. The head of Mossad, Nahum Admoni, sent a three-man team to Brussels, where Bull lived in a luxury apartment block. Each kidon carried a handgun in a holster under his jacket.
- When the 61-year-old Bull answered the doorbell of his home on 22 March 1990, he was shot five times in the head and the neck, each kidon firing their 7.65 pistol in turn, leaving Bull dead on his doorstep. An hour later they were out of the country on a flight to Tel Aviv.
- Within hours, Mossad's own department of psychological warfare had arranged with sayanim in the European media to leak stories that Bull had been shot by Saddam's hit squad because he had planned to renege on their deal.[1][2]
The co-operation between Gerald Bull and Saddam Hussein posed an immediate threat to Iran and Israel as Iran had endured an eight-year long war with Iraq, and Israel had had previous military engagements with Iraq during the Arab–Israeli war. Watching development of the gun, Israel feared it could be used to launch nuclear weapons, but the re-designed SCUD missiles were of greater concern at that moment. As for Iran, it was under threat from both Bull's Supergun and his re-designed SCUD missiles.[3]
Although it seemed obviously to be in Iran and Israel's immediate interest for Gerald Bull to discontinue his co-operation with Saddam Hussein, he had worked for many different parties in a number of critical defence projects, which could have made him a target for assassination by both US and British intelligence as well as by the governments of Chile, Syria, Iraq and the apartheid South African regime.[4]
Related Documents
| Title | Type | Publication date | Author(s) | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Document:CIA Research Paper SW91-10076X - Intelligence Summary | Research paper | November 1991 | CIA | Transcription of the unredacted 'Intelligence Summary' (pages 22-26) of CIA Research paper SW91-10076X titled 'Project Babylon' which names two ex-SAS soldiers as having been contracted to eliminate Gerald Bull |
| File:CIA Research Paper SW91-100076X Redacted.pdf | Research paper | November 1991 | CIA | Redacted CIA Research paper SW91-10076X titled 'Project Babylon' as it appeared on the CIA web site in July 2012 |
| File:CIA Research Paper SW91-100076X summary.pdf | Research paper | November 1991 | CIA | Unredacted 'Intelligence Summary' (pages 22-26) of CIA Research paper SW91-10076X titled 'Project Babylon' and naming two ex-SAS soldiers as having been contracted to eliminate Gerald Bull |
| File:CIA Research Paper SW91-100076X un-redacted.pdf | Research paper | November 1991 | CIA | Unredacted CIA Research paper SW91-10076X titled 'Project Babylon:The Iraq Supergun' (pages 1-21) |
The Official Culprits
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Mossad | "Mossad" (Hebrew for Institute) is an abbreviation for ha-Mossad le-Modiin ule-Tafkidim Meyuhadim (Institute for Intelligence and Special Tasks). It is the Israeli State Agency with overall responsible for external intelligence and covert operations. |
| Unknown |
References
- ↑ "Mossad's licence to kill" 17 February 2010
- ↑
{{URL|example.com|optional display text}} - ↑
{{URL|example.com|optional display text}} - ↑ Dr. Gerald Bull: Scientist, Weapons Maker, Dreamer at CBC.ca
