TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/caps/81/81iraq.2

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                                                                                June 22, 1981

WORLD

Trying to Contain the Genie


The industrialized nations must cooperate, not compete

By John Kohan. Reported by Frank Melville/London and Roberto
Suro/Washington

Israel's attack on the Iraqi reactor last week on the grounds
of self-defense dramatized the dilemma that has haunted the
nuclear age since the U.S. exploded the first atomic bomb in a
New Mexico desert 36 years ago: how to cope with the genie of
nuclear power once released. After the first atomic blast,
President Harry Truman said that control of the bomb was "the
No. 1 problem of the world," adding confidently that "we would
in time come to some intelligent solution."  Truman was too
optimistic. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency,
there are some 340 research reactors and 475 power reactors in
operation or under construction in a total of 46 nations. Says
the agency's deputy director, Hans Grumm: "Any really determined
nation could now produce the bomb."

The U.S. monopoly lasted just four years. In 1949 the Soviet
Union exploded an atomic bomb, followed three years later by
Britain. France launched its force de frappe in 1960. By the
time China entered the exclusive club in 1964, the three oldest
members were already looking for ways to close the door on any
more and ban nuclear testing. One solution was the 1968
nuclear nonproliferation treaty. The nuclear powers agreed to
seek arms control and refrain from transferring nuclear weapons
to nations without them. The nuclear powers were also obliged
to share the peaceful uses of atomic energy with the nonnuclear
bloc.

From the start, the treaty was plagued with problems. France
and China refused to sign. Even today, with 114 signatories,
there are some notable holdouts, including such potential
members of the nuclear club as Pakistan and South Africa.
Israel, thought to have bombs already, also would not sign.

For a decade after China's entry, the membership of the club
remained unchanged, and the proliferation threat seemed to
subside. But India jolted the world back to reality by
exploding a "peaceful" nuclear device in 1974. The old anxiety
about the spread of fissile materials had returned, but with a
new dimension. India's blast proved that the peaceful atom used
in experimental research reactors and as a power source could
easily be diverted, whatever the safeguards, to build an atomic
bomb. At about the same time, world oil prices began to rocket
upward. To many nations, nuclear reactors seemed to be a ready
panacea for energy ills. Japan and industrialized nations in
Western Europe developed a brisk trade selling nuclear hardware
to developing nations that needed new power sources. The
nuclear menace had spread worldwide in the guise of "atoms for
peace."

After the Indian explosion, industrialized nations that traded
in nuclear technology met secretly to try to control sensitive
exports. But it took the Carter Administration to reinvigorate
the  faltering cause of nonproliferation. In 1977 the
Administration called for strict limits on the manufacture and
sale of fissile materials that could be used to build bombs.
Western European nations that had moved ahead in atomic
research objected, on the practical grounds that the plan
hindered new technological advances that would make it possible
to recycle nuclear fuel for peaceful purposes. The
Administration was unable to stop West Germany from selling
sophisticated equipment to Brazil, and it also failed to argue
France out of sending sensitive nuclear exports to Iraq.
Secretary of State Alexander Haig has criticized the Carter plan
for "using blackmail against Germany and France by using threats
to cut off uranium shipments."  But even Carter found it
difficult to live within the letter of the law. Fearing that
India might turn to the Soviet Union for nuclear fuel, the U.S.
sold uranium to New Delhi last year.

The Reagan Administration is still mulling over a policy of its
own to decrease the spread of nuclear weapons as the doomsday
clock ticks on. The number of nations that are close to
mastering bomb technology is expected to increase fivefold by
the end of the decade. With the help of sophisticated Western
European reactors, Argentina could produce the first Latin
American bomb. Taiwan and South Korea already have the skills
to make their own, but have pulled out of the arms race because
of intense U.S. pressure, a decision they may reverse if they
are threatened some day by their Communist neighbors.
Possessing both extensive uranium reserves and a home-grown
process for enriching atomic fuel, South Africa is poised to
become its continent's first nuclear power. Pakistan could
produce what is known as the "Islamic bomb."

Adding to the concern about the mushrooming nuclear club is the
fear of a multiplier effect: nuclear know-how or weapons-grade
fuel might eventually pass secondhand to nations in volatile
regions of the world or to international terrorists. Princeton
Physicist Theodore Taylor, onetime atom bomb designer, says the
procedure for making the weapon is so widely known that a
terrorist might be able to build one in a few weeks using
purloined plutonium.

To control the shipment of nuclear materials, the IAEA
negotiated the 1980 Convention on the Physical Protection of
Nuclear Material, which provides security guidelines for the
handling of fissile materials and sets forth methods of
international cooperation to recover stolen nuclear fuel. But
can anything really be done to stop nuclear proliferation?  As
the Carter Administration learned from the crisis over selling
uranium to India, strategic and political concerns work mightily
against shutting down the "plutonium economy."  But it can still
be checked. One approach might be to give international
controls more power. In order to get laggards to subscribe to
the nonproliferation treaty, nuclear suppliers could agree to
give preferential treatment to nations willing to accept
safeguards for the use of atomic energy.

Such a step would require more resolve than the major nuclear
powers have shown so far. Said former Secretary of State Henry
Kissinger last week: "The first group that has to get together
[is composed of] those who spread nuclear technology -- the
industrialized countries."  Kissinger argued that these nations
should stop competing with one another for nuclear sales.
Whatever else it did, Israel last week violently underscored
that point to the world.

_______________________________________________________________
The ABCs of A-Bombmaking

Can anyone with the money master the subject?

By Frederic Golden


Suppose a small nation with limited technological skills wants
to build an atomic bomb. Could it succeed?  Yes, most nuclear
experts think the answer is yes, especially if the country
already possesses a nuclear reactor and the know-how to run it.
One of the unhappy facts of the nuclear age is that the same
reactors used in peaceful nuclear research and in the
production of electricity can also serve as the starting points
for fabricating A-bombs.

Building its own reactor would be extremely difficult for a
Third World country. But buying one would not be much of a
problem, particularly for a nation like Iraq, flush with
petrodollars. At least 15 countries are now offering nuclear
technology on the international market. (In addition to the
U.S. these include the Soviet Union and three of its allies --
Czechoslovakia, East Germany and Poland -- Britain, France, West
Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, Switzerland, Italy,
Canada and Japan.)  Their wares include not only a variety of
reactors and fuels, along with the necessary technicians, but
also reprocessing machinery that could be used for recovering
the lethal ingredients for bombmaking from the spent reactor
materials. A tidy set of such equipment that would be suitable
for conversion to weapon construction would cost upwards of
$250 million.

A nation that had signed the 1968 nonproliferation treaty, only
to decide that it wanted a nuclear weapon after all, would have
to conceal its operations from the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA), a Vienna-based affiliate of the U.N. The
agency's inspectors are often on hand when nuclear fuel is
loaded into a reactor. They install sealed closed circuit TV
cameras for continuous on-site monitoring, and they return
periodically to check this equipment. Still, the IAEA's
inspectors do not always get to see what they would like in
member countries. For a time during the Iraq-Iran fighting, for
example, Baghdad refused to allow IAEA officials into the area.

A bigger problem is that more and more people around the world
know how to build bombs. Even U.S. college students, poring
through declassified Government technical papers, have put
together designs for rudimentary A-bombs. Articles have been
written about the subject. The key ingredient for both the
bombs and the reactors is the same: fissile material such as
uranium or plutonium, whose atoms can readily split, scattering
tiny, fast-moving particles called neutrons. When neutrons
score bull's-eyes on the nuclei of neighboring atoms, they
split them as well, unleashing still more neutrons, which in
turn cause more break-ups, all of which release energy.

In a nuclear reactor, such a chain reaction is kept under
control by "absorbers" -- usually boron or cadmium rods. These
capture neutrons that might otherwise split more atoms. But if
the fissile material is pure enough, and sufficiently
compressed, as in a bomb, the chain reaction speeds up. Heat
accumulates, and the material blows apart to produce the nuclear
age's familiar mushroom cloud.

Most nuclear reactors and some nuclear weapons use a rare
isotope of uranium called U-235. To explode, the U-235 must be
relatively pure, preferably 90% or more. Commercial U.S.
reactors, by comparison, usually run on a mix containing only
3% U-235. This hampers would-be bombsmiths, since enriching
U-235 to a high level demands extremely complex separation
techniques that are still beyond the capability of all but the
most advanced industrial countries. Yet there are some
relatively simple ways of overcoming this handicap.

One would be to buy enriched uranium from a nuclear nation as
part of a deal for a reactor designed to burn such
weapons-grade fuel. The reactor Iraq acquired from France would
have used 93% U-235. During the course of operation, some of
this material might be skimmed off for nuclear weaponry,
although that would be a risky proposition. The IAEA inspectors
might spot the diversion, or some of the foreign technicians at
the site might blow the whistle on the schemers.

But diverting enriched U-235 is not the only option for the
bombmaker. A-bombs can also be fashioned out of plutonium,
which is a byproduct of the modern alchemy that occurs in
reactors. Even relatively small reactors can produce several
pounds a month of a type of plutonium that lends itself to
bombmaking. Equally important, plutonium, unlike the nearly
identical isotopes of uranium, is a separate element with its
own distinctive characteristics. Thus it is relatively easy to
pick out by ordinary chemical means from other radioactive
material.

After only a year or so of operation, enough plutonium (about
35 lbs.) could be generated in a small reactor to build two or
three bombs of the type dropped on Nagasaki. The plutonium
would be formed into a hollow sphere containing a small neutron
source that might be made of radium and beryllium. The
plutonium itself would be wrapped in a beryllium or uranium
reflector, which helps contain neutrons and prolong the chain
reaction. This shield would in turn be covered by a layer of
TNT charges, the most critical aspect of the design. The
charges would have to be so carefully shaped that the detonation
would direct their force largely inward, crushing the plutonium
into a solid, compact ball. The plutonium would quickly reach
what bombmakers call supercritical density. As the chain
reaction went out of control the material would explode.

By today's superpower standards, a Nagasaki-type bomb would be
puny -- the equivalent of a mere 10,000 tons of TNT. But that
might be more than enough to terrorize an enemy, or crush a
nonnuclear neighbor.