James Neal Blue

James Neal Blue, a billionaire US arms dealer, in July 2009 acquired an (unnamed) uranium mine in Western Australia, at an indisclosed price (See: http://www.allgov.com/)

Blue owns a US nuclear outfit called General Atomics (formerly General Atomic), which has a sordid sixty year history. It was the first to build so-called "civil" commercial nuclear reactors anywhere in the world. General atomic was also the key US protagonist in the global uranium cartel, set up by Rio Tinto and other uranium mining companies, which succeeded in quintupling global market prices of this nuclear fuel between 1972 and 1975 (thus enabling the UK company to secure a massive UK uranium supply contract from its Rossing mine in Namibia).

Of particular note is General Atomic's relationship with UNC (United Nuclear Corp) during this period and the succeeding decade: UNC had become General Atomic's most important uranium provider by late 1978. Just a year later in July 1979, UNC's Church Rock mine suffered the most egregious radioactive tailings disaster ever experienced in the US. [For a history of General Atomic, see "The Gulliver File: Mines, people and land, a global battleground", Minewatch and International Books, 1992, pps 389-390.]