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whlfe in storage at a reprocesslng plant,
nuclear mateñals are often surprisingly
susceptible to theft.
The problem of atomic theft is also
compounded by the fect that it
is
ex–
ttemely órflicult to keep track of all the
nuclear material. 'Thousands of kilo–
grams of plutonium are produced each
year in nuclear reactors; yet less than
four kilograms are requlred to make an
etomic bomb.
The limit of error for " Material Unac–
counted For" (MUF)
is
from 0.5 to 1.0
percent for most reprocessing
O¡;era–
tíons. Since
a
reprocesaing plant rñight
handle 15,000 kilograms of plutonium
per year, this means
1
!¡O
kilograms
could be
'1ost"
without anyone neces–
sarily suspecting theft. Yet that's
enough plutonium for dozens of atomic
bombs! "The degree of protection is
less than is typically given to money in
vaults," says Theodore Taylor, co-au–
thor
of
the Ford Foundation Study.
Adds Taylor, " We guard our money
much better than
we
have guarded, are
guarding
O<
will guard our nuclear mate–
rial . . . the overwhelming majority of
plant managers
1
talked to said they
couldn't stop theft by e larga group of
professionals. We need more guards,
'fences; alarms and surveillanca."
A Bomb foi Every Terrorlat
• •GóVémment
offlcillls·sa~
tlle nuclear
•ndustry is experiancing about 4 MUF's
a year. At one nuclear facility in Penn–
aylvania, sorne 100 kilograms of ura–
nium were unaccountall (or over a frve–
year peñod. Happily, no proven thefts
hove occurred so lar. Yet there is a
growing. fear that weapons-grada pluto–
nium or uranium could be siphoned off
by sorne of the 120,000 persons who
have
8CC8$S
to U.S. nuclear weapons
and weapons-grade fissionilble material
-
not to mention outside agents.
thieves, and terrorists. •
In many cases, the purpose
for
such
thafts éould be purely financia!. Pluto–
nium, for example,
is
lar more valuable
than' gold and selis for ovar s300 an
ounce. Plutonium ís also íncredibly
toxic, another factor that could play into
terrorist hands.
Plutonium-239
is
at least 20,000
tjmfl more toxic than cobra venom or
potassium cyanide and 1.000
IÍ<ne$
more toxic than modero nerve gases. A
millionth of a gram os reponed to cause
canoer. A baseball sized mass of pluto–
nium
in jvst
one
-tomlc bomb
could the–
·oretically - il properly dispersad -
cause canear in almost every human
being on eanh. Plutonlum-238, used in
nuclear powered batteries, is oven more
toxic - 300 times mora toxic than plu–
tonium-239. The plutonium-238 in just
one small nuclear battery,
lt
dispersad
in small pani!;les
by
a terrorist group,
would produce very serlous radioactiva
contamination ovar hundteds of square
miles.
The greatest worry, however, is that
an ominous potential exista for the hi·
WEEK ENDINO niNll7, 197S
jacking of nuclear bombs or fissionable
material and employing them as ex–
ceedingly powerful explosiva devices.
The stunning successes of
the
Palesttn·
ian' guerrillas - Olympic murders. air–
plano hojackings. ambush massacras -
have demonstrated that both nuclear
fuel and U.S. tactical nuclear stockpiles
could well be vulnerable to raids by
dedicated and disciplinad terrorists.
Today, more than 50 inajor terrorist
groups are reportad to exist worldwide.
A hall doren terrorists with either a sto–
len or homemade nuclear weapon could
cause thousands of deaths in a city like
N-York.
Accordlng
to
Barry Schneider of tha
Ceoter for Defensa lnformation in
Washington, D.C.. ·a one-megaton
bomb exploded on Manhattan lsland
would lnflfct casualties exceedíng the
combinad !otals of the Américan daad
from the Revolutionary War, the War of •
1812, the Mexican War, the U.S. Civil
War, the Spanish-American War, World
War
1,
Wortd War
11,
the Korean War,
and the Viet.namWar.
lndeed. íf tarrorists use atomic weap–
ons. the whole strategic doctrine of mu–
tual datarrence will become obsoleto
end all the vaunted nuclear might of the
U.S. (and othercountries as well) will no
longar serve to ward off all possible nu–
clear threats.
"lmaglhe tl'>e momiñg after a nuclear
explosivo has destroyed hall of en
American city." says Dr. Fred C. lkla,
Director of the U.S. Arms Control and
Disarmament Agency. " How are wa go–
ing to apply our theories of mutual de·
terrence, of first strike, and second
strike, of stretegic stability conceived for
a bipolar world, if we cannot tell whose
nuclear explosiva it was? Or even if we
could tell, but it tumed out to ba an
organiution such as might exist in the
futuro - an organization perhaps with
dedlcated people but no clearly defined
national territory - what
good
would
our more than 2,000 nuclear missoles
and bombers do? ... Our society and
our politice! institutions might simply
prove incapable to coping with this new
age of imminent terror!'
Will terrorists go nuclear? Can
safeguards be instituted to prevent a
nightmare of uneontrolled nuclear prolif·
eration and tarrO<?
Nuclear expen Mason Willñch
be–
lleves that safeguards against nuclear
theft and sabotage must deal with "the
ñsk
of
malfuncti<?ning huma.ns.•·
" The possibility of nuclear violenca
using material diverted from dvilian in·
dustry
ls
fundamentally a human prob–
lem for whlch there is no technological
fix. " says Willrich. "Thare is no final
solution. NO< is thare arry alternativo to
dealing with
it
effectively until the last
fiSSionable atom
has
been split."
~o
final solution7 A sobering if not
frightening thought in a wot1d which
seems to be enteriñg a new dark age of
unprecedented violence and nuclear
brinkmanship. o
,..T,_.Aoc.
,...,.,._.
ABOVE
are rough diltgriJm$ Óf
two
types of fission bomb$, The first is
a
ursníum·
235 gvn· assembly, which is the
rype
bomb dropped st HiroshimiJ (pictvred IJboVtl).
lt conrained less than 100 lbs. of uraniúm but released
the
equiva/ent destructive
forc11 of 20,000 tons of
T.
N.T. In this desígn, one sectíon of U-235 is shot into
thtl other by the use of hlgh explosives to achieve etomic fission.
The second type demonstrates the implosion technique. and was
vsed
in the
first " Trinity" test blsst and IIJter at NagasiJki. lt requíres s high explosive she/1 to
be detonated, •round
two
tN
mortt pieces of fi$slon11bltJ material, ln this c•s•
plutonium-239. Soplti#tic11ted etomic bombs using
the
implosion design un
N
$mal/ enough to
be
carried in • suitcase.
The
Atomic
8omb
-HowHWorks
One of the most lntriguing and
significan! discoveries of the twen–
tieth century was that atoms could
be split or "fissioned.' ' Just before
Wor1d War 11, scientists found that
fast moving subatomic particles
such as neutrons could cause heavy
atoms like uranium-23.5 to fissión
into lighter atoms. and also release
prodigious amounts of energy.
Equally important was the discovery
that the fissioning of a uranium atom
produces 2 or 3 additional neutrons
that could, in·tum. lission other ura–
nium atoms in a chain reaction .
Therein líes the key to an atomic
bomb. All that is required is a suf–
ficient amount of fissionable mate–
rial to sustain a rapid nuclear chain
reaction. In such a situation a sud–
den ralease of energy equal to hun–
dreds or ihousands of tons of TNT
can occur in less than a millionth of.
a second .
In practice, of course. the making
of an · atomic bomb is not a trivial
achievement. A means must be
lound to bring
two
or more " sub–
critica!' ' (i.e.. non-chain reaction
sustaining) masses of uranium or
plutonium together in one lump in
much less than a thousandth of a
second. A slower assembly time
would p(oduce a "fizzle" - a lot of
heat and vapor, but not a real ex–
plosion . Thus the idea lhat a rroan
could hold a sub-critica! mass ol ura–
n ium in each hand and threaten to
create an A-bomb by bringing them
together ís totally unrealistic. A fizzle
would undoubtedly occur and radío–
activity would be dispersad ovar a
small area; but no explosion would
result.
To produce an atomic bomb, the
subcritical masses must be very
quickly brought together by the use
of high explosivos.
Just how much fissionable mate–
rial is needed? A few kilograms (a
kilogram is about 2 .2 pounds) is
usually sufficient. But special tech–
niques of compressing fissionable
material can drastically reduce the
amount needed to "go critica!." Un–
dar certain conditions only a few
ouncés of plutonium may be critica!
quantity.
Thus, there are two requirements
for building a nu_clear !::1omb: (1) A
suitable mechanism using high ex–
plosivas must be devisad to combine
subcritical masses of uranium or
plutonium into a ctitical mass in a
very short time; (2) A source of high
grade fissionable material must be
available.
The proliferation of nuclear weap–
ons shows that neither of these re–
quirements is especially diffícult to
meet.
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