The Hebrew acronym of the Lishka LeKishrei Mada (Science Liaison Bureau). LAKAM was created in 1957 under the leadership of a Shin Bet officer, Benyamin Blumberg, to acquire and protect scientific and technical intelligence for Israel. It played a key role in the development of Israel’s covert atomic industry and undertook highly secret, deniable operations in support of it, including the management of front companies to procure components for nuclear weapons and enriched fuel for the Dimona reactor.
LAKAM was closed down in 1986 when its director, Rafael Eitan, a veteran Mossad officer, was compromised inadvertently by one of his sources, Jonathan Pollard, an American naval intelligence analyst who had been supplying classified satellite imagery to his Israeli handlers since 1984.