Dec 17 2006
Ridiculous Assassination Theory
The assissination theories are really getting strained and bizarre with the latest ‘speculation’ from Yuri Shvets. His theory is pretty lame with lots and lots of wholes in it:
Yuri Shvets, an ex-spy based in the United States, said Mr Litvinenko, who died in a London hospital on 23 November from poisoning by Polonium-210, had been employed by a British company to provide information on five potential Russian clients before they committed to investment. He had helped the former KGB man with information on one of the five.
In an interview with the BBC, Mr Shvets said the report had led to the British company pulling out of a deal, losing the Russian figure potential earnings of “dozens of millions of dollars”. Neither the Russian nor the British company was named, but asked whether the report had lead to Mr Litvinenko’s death, he replied: “I can’t be 100 per cent sure, but I am pretty sure.”
Actually I am sure this is a ridiculous theory. This mystery Russian may have lost a ‘potential business opportunity worth dozens of millions. Let’s say it was $48 million dollars in potential business (4 dozens). The value of the Polonium-210 which Litvinenko ingested alone was $25-50 million. The Polonium-210 trail spread across Russia, London and Germany could easily be the same amount. And the price to pay the smugglers and the assassin would not be cheap. But let’s just use the $25 million dollar number and do some math.
So this guy loses $48 million in business, which may have translated to $5 million in profit after all the costs are accounted for. So what kind of businessman would spend $25 million in profit to pay Litvinenko back for helping him lose $5 million??
The problem with this theory is the guy is throwing away a material that would recoup his losses 5 times over to kill one guy, who could be taken out for a couple grand if you could find a desparate drug addict or street thug. This is the gold brick problem with these lame assassination theories. Who would use a gold brick to kill someone?
Yuri Shvets just wants more than his 15 minutes of fame and is feeding the media’s conspiracy theorists dreams.
Addendum: Let me extend my comments on this before I go in and read the comments people have posted. This story relies on a timeline that is just plain unrealistic. Because of a report supposedly submitted on Sept 21st we find, 3.5 weeks later, Polonium-210 successfully being smuggled into London (this is the date of the Knightsbridge hotel contamination and the earliest reported visit of Lugovoi and Kovtun to see Litvinenko). Now it is not possible to, on a lark of vengeance, go out and get large quantities of Polonium-210. But even if you had iPolonium-210 sitting around (remember the half life situation) then it is not reasonable to assume you could develop a sophisticated smuggling effort, involving many people, to get the material into London in 3 short weeks. And that doesn’t even include developing a way to deliver the poison. Journalists, for some reason or another, have suspended all inquisitiveness on this matter.
Now we have an unreasonable time frame on top of the ridiculous issues a potential bussiness opportunity lost verses the cost to get Polonium-210 for revenge. But let’s not beating this dead horse here. As I have been contemplating this matter it is clear we the evidence to date is not only around a smuggling effort, but a large one. First off we have these three hotels contaminated in multiple rooms on three different dates with Lugovoi coming into London and meeting Litvinenko. We all know that even the amount needed to kill Litvinenko was a thousands of a gram so why three trips? One trip and you can bring in a gram on one person? If you can hide a thousandths of a gram you can hide a gram of this stuff. So multiple trips are not necessary, especiall after the material is in on Oct 16th.
Why multiple rooms at each hotel? Most people do not understand that it takes special equipment to divide material up into thousandths of a gram. So we have trail of Polonium 210 that just doesn’t fit the assassination concept because the dosage could be brought into one place on one trip, because of its size alone.
And why hotels? If the material was destined for the UK why not rent some flat or something and do whatever was being done in these hotel rooms in much more private conditions, without traces due to travel and hotel records? Combining the multiple rooms and keeping in mind the amounts of material that could be worked on in a hotel room setting it seems to me we are dealing with mulitple grams of the material – not thousandths of a gram. I can see people dealing in grams and half and quarter grams in a hotel setting. Once you get below a quarter gram you don’t need multiple people to move the material around.
So I see much larger amounts coming in on each of the dates we are dealing with in these hotel contaminations. This starting amount is divided up in each room and given to a person to take it on its next leg of its travels. With 4-5 rooms per hotel being contaminated that means 3-4 points of departure (assuming one room is Lugovoi’s and hosts the incoming material). What worries me is where could these f3-4 destinations be. Recall that the hotel makes sense as a way-point for people transitting in and out of the UK. Otherwise one would think to use a different location than a hotel.
The other thing to remember is, if Lugovoi did coordinate the movmement and distribution of this material (a common theme in both scenarios), it is doubtful he himself would move the material across the borders and that planes would be used. It would be better to use trains and ships than planes given the level of security on airlines. The Chunnel and Ferries are really nice because people take their cars with them into the UK from mainland Europe.
Recalling that a gram of this material is like a few sugar packs, it is clear there is no reason to use multiple carriers unless distribution to many points is implied as part of this entire effort. The interesting question is whether this was in liquid, salt or solid form. The first two forms may be easier to transport, but if you want to move grams the volumes become quite large. I would assume an increase of 10-100 to 1 for the salt or liquid forms. This may be why there are so many people involved and so many sites. This too really flies against the assassination theory where Litvinenko’s deadly dose of thousandths of a gram translates into only 10ths of a gram in these forms. Something easily smuggled by one person on one trip and not something someone would divide up.
Actually, it doesn’t seem far-fetched, not nearly as much as smuggling accident. As logically pointed out several times earlier, the PO could be obtained by state insiders for very little $. So this gold brick analogy doesn’t work, never worked.
There is another problem. Litvinenko is biased. I don’t believe he is capable of making an objective conclusion. Why would he have been brought in to write any kind of dossier that would be a key component of a deal worth tens of millions of dollars having heard the opinions of both Lugovoi and Kovtun? Both of them thought he was something of an oddball. Lugovoi talks about Litvinenko being an embarrassing component to meetings and Kovtun laments that one should never start a political discussion with him.
So it seems that the nature of the relationship would be such that he would not be trusted to write such a dossier and if he was (just to give him something to do) it would probably be discounted out of hand if it contained some wild claims. I have to admit that Litvinenko lost a lot of stock with me when he claimed Putin was responsible for 9/11.
I don’t believe he was killed as a result of any dossier killing a business deal nor do I believe he was capable of killing such a business deal because I don’t believe any of his business associates placed that much value on his conclusions. Basically the guy was a couple of nuggets short of a Happy Meal and had a problem with keeping his mouth shut. I doubt anyone would confide in him with any details they didn’t want the world to know about.
If he produced any damaging dossier, it would have been the product of someone using him to create such a thing … telling him what he might want to hear … and I believe it would be taken as such by anyone he presented it to. Litvinenko was, sadly, used as a tool by Berezovsky and I believe his utility had come to an end and the final measure of that utility was in his death.
I don’t necessarily believe Shvets story, but CP has taken the Litv bait hook, line & sinker. Of course Russian spokespersons, and Lug & Kov, would paint Litv in negative light. To give weight to anything Litv said or stood for would be to lend support to criticism against Kremlin. I have no idea how bright or a dupe Litv was, but I seriously doubt the propoganda typecast put forth by his adversaries. He seemed to be capable & competent in his stint in KGB/FSB, so I would think he had a little more together than what CP put forth above (but, that doesn’t fit the anythng but assassination angle.)
We should be carefull not to buy into any disinformation about his character.
There may have been a particular reason that he was chosen for this job – maybe he knew the person or for some other reason was well placed to do this research.
Also he may not have been killed for the loss of Business but for what was written in the Dossier.
If the company was in teh business of protection to oil and gas companies – remember Litvinenko trip to israel
I don’t think I have “taken” anything. Actually, I think his death is a sad tragedy and I believe he has been completely used. I think that people who are want to blame Putin are the ones that have fallen for the theatre. It was designed to look that way. MUCH too obviously, I might add. Whatever, we will eventually find out.
The Shvets theory is lame, but that doesn’t necessarily rule out the use of polonium as a means of assassination – free for those who can afford it, very expensive for those who can’t.
And remember, polonium is not so easy to detect – it took Litvinenko’s doctors until the day of his death to work out what was wrong with him. The traces we’re finding are generally miniscule, apart from at the Millennium Hotel. And the Russians have plausible deniability via the smuggling theory.
I don’t agree with your politics. I’m a believer in the cock-up theory of history rather than the conspiracy, especially when it comes to Russian exiles.
The full BBC radio programme on this story – which I agree is ludicrous – can be accessed on:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/news/pip/kg4nw/
What I think is of interest is the reporter of this story, Tom Mangold. Mangold is a veteran – and generally very good – BBC foreign correspondent. But he has always had the reputation of someone who walks – however circumspectly – with the spooks. He’s not a James Bond blow-em-up sort of guy, but someone who probably swops information with them.
Since 9/11 he’s become more and more involved in intelligence/security reporting, usually domestic.
He was a close neighbour and good friend of Dr David Kelly. (Before anyone leaps to conclusions, he’d been both friend and neighbour for a longtime, and was obviously not a quick plant, which would have been required if the intelligence services needed a spokesman on the spot). But in all the upheavals which followed Kelly’s death, Mangold became the super-spokesman for the suicide theory and backed the findings of the official enquiry fully and very publically).
Which means that its more than likely that this particular Litvinenko theory, with Mangold as its reporter, is one which the security services would seem to have an interest in pushing.
Wiley, again, Po represents money. You can exchange it for money. This is not dissimilar from a heroin dealer getting cheap stuff and being able to get good money for it. It was cheap for him with his Afghan and lab contacts to acquire, but other people will pay a lot to get it. He knows this, and therefore the heroin represents money and is not just something he’ll dump someday in someone’s tea to kill them.
If he was killed over a dossier, this is still the most idiotic way to call attention to that dossier. Nobody would have cared much if yet another dissident was struck down….why call attention to this by using Po?
It is very interesting that Lug and Kov talk so disparagingly about Lit. It does not seem to be in their own best interest, because it makes them look bad. He died, the Po is on THEIR hands. Why are they talking like this? They must be telling a different story than they’re telling the public, to investigators. Otherwise it just looks like they killed him in the most unprofessional, bumbling hit ever, effectively destroying the relationship between Britain and Russia.
Also, Rosenkreutz, they were bound to detect the Po. Sooner or later. The only way it would have gone undetected would have been if they’d given it to him in a dose much smaller.
Considering the principals, an extortion plot by the victim’s “circle” would not be too far-fetched.
“As logically pointed out several times earlier, the PO could be obtained by state insiders for very little $. So this gold brick analogy doesn’t work, never worked.”
Wiley,
I think they enjoy promoting fallacies.
Refusing to acknowledge that
* polonium would cost a state nothing more than they’ve already invested in the material and equipment that makes it, and that
* small bits of radioactive materials could be most easily “stolen” by the states theselves, outside of international controls because
* international controls are frighteningly and notoroiusly awful,
effectively guts any of their “this couldn’t happen because polonium is too expensive” arguments.
That leaves them blind and deliberately obstinate.
If the assasin was given 25 million worth of polonium (which cost the state nothing) to kill Litvinenko – what would he have been paid for the hit job? 5 million? He could make more by selling the pollonium on the black market and killing Litvinenko some other way. In these situations loyalty seems a bit precarious
Let me play Devil’s Advocate for a moment. Suppose there was an extortion ring which threatened vital resources inside Russia-such as the natural gas pipelines. Also suppose you are Putin, and have been given authority by the Duma (which he was) to track down and destroy terrorists outside of Russia.
How would you go about destroying this terrorist group-and discrediting them at the same time ?
Mariposa, if your argument doesn’t work, then turn to insults – that method never fails!
Getting the discussion back to a less emotional level, would you please explain why the assassin doesn’t take his cut from this valuable substance? Or did he, and that’s why we see the contamination (L+K)?
1) He doesn’t know what it is?
2) He doesn’t know anything about Po?
3) He doesn’t have more, and wants to make sure Lit dies?
4) He’s professional and gets $$$ per hit, and he does many hits, more than selling Po illegally would give him.
4 seems the most likely to me, but it would mean it was not L/K that did this, but someone whom Lit met on November 1st who was also in contact with L/K and could contaminate them (probably Sokolsky, or whatever his name is, the third one).
“If the assasin was given 25 million worth of polonium (which cost the state nothing) to kill Litvinenko – what would he have been paid for the hit job? 5 million? He could make more by selling the pollonium on the black market and killing Litvinenko some other way. In these situations loyalty seems a bit precarious”
Lizarde,
Good argument, good points. But to make it fact would also entail discounting all of the following (and I’m sure much more) at this point:
* that an assassin was even told what he was using; the killer may only be told it’s a poison and be careful with it. Who knows what a killer would be told by someone supplying a weapon and directing him to use it?
* that the assassin is a not “true believer” who would do anything for his country because he believes in their goals (unlikely IMO).
* that an assassin is promised a reward of even more riches and prestige over a lifetime for a risky job completed and keeping his mouth closed afterward (likeliest, IMO).
* that an assassin is not being forced to do this because his family or something they care about is being threatened. There are actually more scenarios for force, but this is the most obvious.
* that an assassin is not aware of the fact that by turning on his organization, his apparat if you will, he can be tracked and killed anywhere he goes.
* that an assassin who knew what he was using would know someone who would buy the polonium for a decent sum of money — and fast, because it decays quickly.
“Mariposa, if your argument doesn’t work, then turn to insults – that method never fails!”
LitD
That, too, is simply your opinion. I could just as easily say when you don’t like what I’m saying, accuse me of making insults. I’m not intending to be insulting.
I do believe deliberately ignoring when an idea is debunked is blind or obstinate when no idea is promoted that’s better.
At this point, I’m not being emotional about anything in “the Litvinenko affair” except Mikhail Trepashkin, so please don’t confuse my ability to write with passion and conviction as emotionalism.
Thank you, and back to our regularly scheduled debate…
LitD, by the way, would you mind you demonstrating why and how the argument doesn’t work?
Thanks again.
Yuri Shvets is always alluding to the idea that he’s only telling a small part of what he knows. It is funny that his website says he’s giving no interviews, but then this all comes out because he gave an interview… or maybe I’m just easily amused.
Most of what he said is nothing more than what he told the Washington Post, etc., in early December.
In my opinion the only new information is: data collected in a dossier by Litvinenko scrapped a pending business deal for someone in the Kremlin involving a British company.
So, if Shvets is not lying, or even partially incorrect, or he is giving us better than his guesses and opinions (all big assumptions to make) — then this new information is only a part of the puzzle — and I suspect our discussion may not be getting it into the right place in the big picture.