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Letters to the Editor
Closing Dimona and Tritium
Bennett Ramberg presents an interesting and well-researched analysis of the potential radiological hazards of a strike on Dimona and hence of a safety rational for closing down the reactor ("Should Israel Close Dimona?" May 2008). There are other reasons for considering mothballing Dimona, particularly if doing so could be part of a regional arms control agreement in which Israel received concessions of equivalent value to its national security. One such benefit might be an agreement for excluding uranium-enrichment and plutonium reprocessing facilities from the region.
Still, as Ramberg notes, closing down Dimona would have consequences, including for Israel's ability to produce boosted weapons using tritium. Although tritium could be produced in an accelerator, this would be very difficult on political grounds. The accelerator Israel is buying from Germany surely comes with end-use requirements that would rule out use for weapons purposes. Unlike France's role in the late 1950s in winking at the military intentions for the reactor and reprocessing plant it sold to Israel, Germany will not be at all inclined to ignore a violation of the accelerator end-use agreement. This and other aspects of Israel's nuclear activities are assessed in a just-published International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) strategic dossier entitled Nuclear Programmes in the Middle East: In the Shadow of Iran (May 2008).Mark Fitzpatrick is senior fellow for nonproliferation at the IISS.
Time For More NUMEC Information
In a letter in the October 2007 issue of Arms Control Today, Henry Myers ("The Real Source of Israel's First Fissile Material") wrote about lingering suspicions that, in the early 1960s, Israel obtained bomb-grade uranium from the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC) in Pennsylvania, which had performed work for the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). Myers said that, in the late 1960s, the suspicions were taken very seriously by top officials in the Central Intelligence Agency, and after a review during the Ford administration, they were again taken very seriously at the Justice Department and White House. Documents in the Gerald R. Ford Library, which I believe have never been discussed in print, appear to confirm Myers' view of the importance with which this matter was treated-and more.
In preparing congressional testimony on government accounting for nuclear materials, including those at NUMEC, Attorney General Edward H. Levi had the FBI prepare a report, dated April 22, 1976, on the NUMEC affair. The same day, with the FBI report attached, Levi sent a memorandum to President Gerald Ford. Under the heading "Possible Violation of Criminal Statutes," Levi-who would surely not have bothered the president with idle gossip-wrote the following:
The FBI did not conduct an investigation into the alleged discrepancy in nuclear materials at NUMEC because it was advised by the AEC that any loss likely was attributable to inadequate accounting procedures and that there was no evidence or suspicion of a violation of law. Since no investigation was undertaken, the Department of Justice cannot state that there is no evidence which would support a criminal charge. The facts available with respect to this matter indicate that the following criminal statutes may be involved...
Levi goes on to list 10 possible violations of the Atomic Energy Act and criminal statutes. Two of them, unauthorized dealing in special nuclear material and transportation of dangerous articles, point to suspicions on his part that enriched uranium was unlawfully removed from the NUMEC facility. Even more intriguing are the last three crimes listed: accessory after the fact; misprision of felony (that is, concealing knowledge, usually by an official, of a felony committed by another); and conspiracy. These violations appear to refer to someone in the federal government, and that can only mean at the AEC. Levi writes:
Because the statute of limitations may not have run with respect to any [of the three] offenses that may be involved and because of the responsibility to consider whether any dismissal or other disciplinary proceedings may be appropriate with respect to any persons presently employed as federal officials who may have participated in or concealed any offense, I believe it necessary to conduct an investigation. Section 2271 of the Atomic Energy Act provides that "the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the Department of Justice shall investigate all alleged or suspected criminal violations" of the Act.
The attorney general was telling the president there might at that time still have been persons employed by the federal government that may have earlier "participated in or concealed" offenses related to the misappropriation of nuclear material from NUMEC.
It is unclear whether the investigation Levi believed necessary ever took place. We do know that in 1977 the counselor to the outgoing Ford administration thought it important enough to pass to the head of President Jimmy Carter's transition team key classified NUMEC documents. They included a 1968 memorandum from CIA Director Richard Helms to Attorney General Ramsey Clark, a 1969 letter from FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to Helms, a 1969 memorandum from Helms to President Richard Nixon, and a 1976 memorandum from CIA Deputy Director for Science and Technology Carl Duckett to Helms. It is time the public got a look at them. I have asked that the documents be declassified, but the answer so far has been "Items denied in full."Victor Gilinsky is an energy consultant based in Santa Monica, California. He was a commissioner on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission from 1975 to 1984.
Theory vs. Practice in Combating Nuclear Terrorism
Thomas B. Cochran and Matthew McKinzie
Michael Levi's book On Nuclear Terrorism begins where we at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) did on this topic: the ABC News nuclear smuggling experiments of 2002-2003 involving depleted uranium.[1] Yet, our perspectives diverge.
As noted in William Potter's review ("Using Murphy's Law Against Nuclear Terrorists," April 2008), two principal themes organize the presentation of narrative and data in Levi's book. One is confronting nuclear terrorism via a synergistic defensive system. Another is the utility of an exploratory approach to understanding terrorist decision-making and actions, seeking to think beyond what are judged to be the most likely scenarios. For proponents of a defensive system, the separate stages in a terrorist plot are met individually with an array of protective measures, each contributing some probability of defeat to the enemy. When the probabilities are multiplied together, what results is an overall low chance of success for the nuclear plotters. Judgments about the efficacy of a defensive system, in Levi's story, arise not just from the effectiveness of the parts of the system, but also from the ways in which the parts of the defensive system mutually support and inform one another. The exploratory aspect to On Nuclear Terrorism is an interesting read, delving cautiously into the technical aspects of constructing a terrorist nuclear device, such as the trade-offs in quality of fissile material and nuclear explosive yield. What emerges at the end of 152 pages is a post-September 11 "to do" list for policymakers nuanced by an emphasis on bringing into play non-nuclear tools and capabilities.
Yet, Levi's exploratory analysis of a defensive system against nuclear terrorism floats above the more problematic landscape of politics and contractor influence on the federal government. This was something NRDC experienced firsthand when we pointed out that neither the existing, first generation nor a planned second generation of radiation portal monitors can reliably detect highly enriched uranium, despite government claims to the contrary. NRDC's experience in the aftermath of the ABC News nuclear smuggling experiments were false statements by federal officials, the seizure and disposal of our depleted-uranium slug used in the experiments, and government harassment. In regard to the Department of Homeland Security's system of radiation portal monitors, the Government Accountability Office in 2006 and 2007 documented official complicity in contractor fraud during classified trials of the second generation of detectors, the Advanced Spectroscopic Portals, at the Nevada test site.[2] Where enormous government contracts are at stake, coupled with expenditures in specific congressional districts and competition between federal agencies for resources and political capital, the system can and has worked to emphasize parts at the expense of the whole. In light of these unfortunate but real world dynamics of a defensive system against nuclear terrorism, we advocate a far greater effort directed at securing and eliminating fissile material at its source.Thomas B. Cochran is director of the nuclear program of the National Resources Defense Council and holds the Wade Green Chair for Nuclear Policy. Matthew McKinzie is the nuclear program's senior scientist.
ENDNOTES
1. Thomas B. Cochran and Matthew G. McKinzie, "Detecting Nuclear Smuggling," Scientific American, March 24, 2008. Additional information can be found at www.nrdc.org/media/2008/080325.asp.
2. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has produced letters, reports, and testimony critical of the Department of Homeland Security's program to test and develop the second generation of radiation portal monitors. See GAO, "Combating Nuclear Smuggling: Additional Actions Needed to Ensure Adequate Testing of Next Generation Radiation Detection Equipment," GAO-07-1247T, September 18, 2007; GAO, "Combating Nuclear Smuggling: DNDO Has Not Yet Collected Most of the National Laboratories' Test Results on Radiation Portal Monitors in Support of DNDO's Testing and Development Program," GAO-07-347R, March 9, 2007; GAO, "Combating Nuclear Smuggling: DHS's Cost-Benefit Analysis to Support the Purchase of New Radiation Detection Portal Monitors Was Not Based on Available Performance Data and Did Not Fully Evaluate All the Monitors' Costs and Benefits," GAO-07-133R, October 17, 2006; GAO, "Combating Nuclear Terrorism: Federal Efforts to Respond to Nuclear and Radiological Threats and to Protect Emergency Response Capabilities Could Be Strengthened," GAO-06-1015, September 21, 2006; GAO, "Combating Nuclear Smuggling: DHS Has Made Progress Deploying Radiation Detection Equipment at U.S. Ports-of-Entry, but Concerns Remain," GAO-06-389, March 22, 2006; GAO, "Combating Nuclear Smuggling: Corruption, Maintenance, and Coordination Problems Challenge U.S. Efforts to Provide Radiation Detection Equipment to Other Countries," GAO-06-311, March 14, 2006.
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