If At First You Don’t Succeed… Sell to Venezuela?
Former government physicist P. Leonardo Mascheroni, an outspoken critic of U.S. nuclear strategy, is in the FBI’s crosshairs. In October, the feds raided his home, seizing computers, documents, books, and cell phones. The FBI hasn’t publicly stated what it's investigating, but Mascheroni maintains that he's been wrongly accused of nuclear espionage because he gave a CD with sensitive information to the Venezuelan government.
Just what was on the disk? Well, during his days as a scientist, Mascheroni championed hydrogen-fluoride laser fusion, which in theory could produce a cleaner and more reliable nuclear weapons arsenal. He pitched it to Congress in 2007, and when they shot him down, an alleged Venezuelan representative agreed to pay him $800,000 for a laser study, according to Mascheroni. He says he delivered a CD containing only unclassified documents, but was never paid. Mascheroni claims none of that matters since he was never going to build the laser--the whole thing was a ploy to get the United States to take his technology seriously, he says. Well, they are taking him seriously now.
Mascheroni isn't the only scientist who has been accused of espionage. Click through for more tales of scientists who turned spy.
Image: U.S. State Department
