Defendant in Atomic Bomb Trigger Case Fails to Show

A federal judge issued a warrant Wednesday for the arrest of Richard Smyth, a Huntington Beach engineer indicted in May on charges of illegally exporting atomic bomb-triggering devices to Israel.

Smyth, 55, failed to appear in federal court for an 8 a.m. hearing just five days before his trial was scheduled to begin. “At the present time, Smyth is a fugitive,” said Assistant U.S. Atty. William Fahey, who presented the case to the grand jury.

‘Supposed to Be There’

Alan Croll, Smyth’s Los Angeles attorney, declined to say when he had last spoken to Smyth or whether he knew Smyth’s whereabouts, saying: “It is true he was supposed to be there and was not there (in court).”

Croll said it would be incorrect to say Smyth had fled, but he offered no explanation for his client’s absence.

A federal grand jury indicted Smyth May 16, alleging that he sent Israel as many as 800 of the triggering devices, known as krytrons, without obtaining the required license or approval from the U.S. State Department. The shipments were made between January, 1980, and mid-December, 1982. The indictment charges Smyth, owner of a small Huntington Beach electronics company called Milco International Inc., with 15 violations of the Arms Export Control Act and 15 counts of making false statements to the government. At the time of the indictment, Smyth was traveling overseas on business. He surrendered to federal authorities in late May after returning to the United States.

Smyth pleaded not guilty to the charges and had been free on $100,000 bond, which was forfeited when he failed to appear in court.

Fahey said U.S. District Judge Pamela Rymer waited about 45 minutes for Smyth, thinking he might have been caught in rush-hour traffic. When Smyth failed to appear, Rymer issued a bench warrant effective at noon Wednesday. “It’s a non-bail warrant,” said Fahey. “Hopefully, if we find him, we can start the trial next week.”

Passport Question

Fahey said he was trying to determine whether Smyth had a U.S. passport in his possession. U.S. law-enforcement officials, including the U.S. Customs Service, are participating in the search for Smyth.

After the indictment was issued, a State Department spokesman said that Israel was cooperating with the investigation into the import of krytrons and had agreed to return the krytrons remaining in stock. The devices can also be used for conventional military ordnance, lasers and radar as well as atomic devices.

The indictment alleged that Smyth described the devices on some export shipping forms as “diodes, triodes and pentodes”--terms for common electric equipment--rather than krytrons.

Federal investigators said that Arnon Milchan, an Israeli businessman, is believed to have worked with Smyth to import the devices. No charges have been filed against Milchan.

Smyth’s mother-in-law, who asked that her name not be used, spent Wednesday waiting at Smyth’s home on Cotuit Drive in Huntington Beach. “I came over here to see what was wrong,” she said. “I hoped I would be called by them (Smyth and his wife).”

But by late Wednesday afternoon, she said, she hadn’t heard from Smyth or her daughter, Emilie. She said the house and its contents appeared undisturbed. “Everything is here,” she said, adding that neither Smyth nor his wife appeared to have taken any clothes or suitcases.

“I don’t know if they have been kidnaped,” the mother-in-law said.

‘Very, Very Worried’

She said she saw the Smyths at a dinner party at a local restaurant about a week ago. She said Smyth was “very, very worried” about the coming trial.

Smyth has been described by friends and former employees as a brilliant but moody scientist. A longtime friend of Smyth, Orange County Municipal Judge Brian Carter, serves on the board of directors of Smyth’s firm, Milco. Carter said in a May 16 interview that Milco company officials were well aware that the government had been investigating Milco’s exports. Carter said Smyth himself called authorities to report an office burglary in 1978 or 1979. Smyth not only called local police, but alerted Air Force officials that security might have been breached.

Carter met Smyth when they both worked at Rockwell International Corp. A Rockwell spokesman said Smyth worked at Rockwell for a total of 17 years but declined to specify his duties.