Gerald Bull

Gerald Bull was a Canadian scientist and aeronautical engineer known for his work on long-range artillery, particularly the "supergun" project. He was involved in developing artillery that could shoot payloads over remarkable distances without the need for missiles.¹

Israeli Artillery Contracts

Israel had contracted with Dr. Gerald Bull for the supply of specially configured artillery shells whose range was extended as much as 25 percent. American weapons experts understood that given the inaccuracy of an artillery shell fired at such long range, Israel's real goal had to be the use of nuclear weapons. One American expert noted that if a shell is going forty-five miles and precision is three percent of range, it would hit nothing much with a high explosive shell, implying the need for a nuclear weapon. This information, including suggestions that Israel had targeted Damascus with these special cannons during the Yom Kippur War, was reported to U.S. intelligence.²

South African Connections

In 1981, Bull approached Israel Military Industries in Israel hoping to sell his project, but they were more interested in missile technology. In 1983, Mark Thatcher, son of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, introduced Bull to Gen. Pieter Van Der Westhuizen, chief of South African Defense Force, who in turn connected him with ARMSCOR. ARMSCOR contracted Bull for his artillery project.¹

Arrest and Relocation

Bull was later arrested by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York City and the U.S. Customs for violating the Munitions Export Act by exporting military technology to South Africa. After plea bargaining, he spent about six months in a federal jail. Upon his release, he moved to Brussels, Belgium, and continued his work.¹

Iraqi Supergun Project

He was commissioned to develop his supergun for Iraq, with funding channeled through Carlos Cardoen's financial network. Bull believed his supergun would work and would bring peace by creating a balance of terror, arguing that Iraq only sought to defend itself against potential attacks from the Americans and Israelis.¹

Space Research and Baghdad

After working for the Pentagon in the 1960s on a gun-launch project Bull set up the Space Research Corporation in northern Vermont to sell a long-range "base-bleed" artillery shell. According to one account the CIA "contacted Bull and asked him to sell advanced weaponry to South Africa in order to preserve Western strategic interests," and he took a development contract with Armscor. "As the CIA came under greater Congressional scrutiny in the late 1970s, however, it appears that they abandoned Bull. He was arrested for breaking the UN arms embargo on South Africa and sentenced to six months in jail."³

His first contact with Iraq was in 1982, when the arms dealer Sarkis Soghanalian took him to Baghdad. He came to know Lieutenant General Amir al-Saadi, and put his idea to al-Saadi's superior, Hussein Kamel. "For just $10 million, Bull told Hussein Kamil, the gun could be built right in his own country." Kamel signed for four. The large version had a bore of 1,000 millimeters and a barrel over 107 meters long and needed ten tons of propellant for a shot. Bull said he had the drawings of the German "Paris Gun" of 1918 "from the daughter of one of the German engineers who designed it." He set up branches of his company in Brussels, Geneva, and Montreal, a shell called the Advanced Technology Institute, and sold 45 percent of SRC International to the Belgian explosives maker Poudreries Réunies de Belgique.³

The Iraqi holding company in London, the Technology Development Group, which owned Matrix Churchill, "had a partnership with Dr. Gerald Bull's Space Research Corporation, and it financed purchases for Bull thanks to loans from BNL Atlanta." An executive of Matrix Churchill, Mark Gutteridge, "first told MI5 about Bull and his supergun in May 1988," and his reports "had been passed straight to the CIA." A plan agreed between Bull and the British fuse maker Allivane was "replete with references to detonators, fuses, and artillery projectiles." "We informed the Defence Ministry of exactly what we were doing," a former Allivane manager said. "Somebody up there in the government loved us." On February 6, 1990, the Central Bank of Iraq opened a credit of 2.9 million dollars through Space Research to an American fuse maker. Bull was shot dead at his door in Brussels the next month.⁴

Israeli Intervention and Assassination

In late November 1988, Ari Ben-Menashe met with Bull in his Brussels apartment to persuade him to stop his supergun project. Ben-Menashe offered Bull $5 million to scrap the project, but Bull refused. Ben-Menashe warned him about the "terrible accidents" happening to various people involved in similar activities.¹

Gerald Bull was named as an enemy of the state by an Israeli intelligence committee and was placed on an execution list, along with Ihsan Barbouti and 12 other scientists. He was killed in March 1990 in his Brussels apartment, an act attributed to Israeli intelligence.¹