cfr - make it or break it

8/14/2019 CFR - Make It or Break It

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MAKE IT OR BREAK IT

The weapons labs built theBomb. Now theyre taskedwith finding ways to get ridof it. Trouble is, old habitsdie hard.

n August 1945, nuclear weapon scientists became heroes. The U.S.atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki signaled the end to a longand bloody world war.

The scientific expertise that gave birth to the Bomb has also helped se-cure nuclear weapons and weapons-usable materials. During the Manhat-tan Project, the United States sent scientists throughout Europe to stopNazi Germany from building the Bomb. This dual role continued through-out the Cold War, as the national weapons laboratories maintained the

By Charles D. Ferguson & Lisa Obrentz

46 BULLETIN OF THE ATOMIC SCIENTISTS MARCH/APRIL 2007

Charles D. Ferguson, who worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory during

the summers of 1986 and 1987, is a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations

(CFR); Lisa Obrentz is a CFR research associate in the science and technology

program. The authors thank the Ploughshares Fund for supporting the research-

ing and writing of this article. ALLPHOTOS:CORBIS/JIMS

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Vol. 63, No. 2, p. 46-52, 66-67DOI: 10.2968/063002011


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MARCH/APRIL 2007 BULLETIN OF THE ATOMIC SCIENTISTS 47


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U.S. nuclear deterrent while simul-taneously developing the means toverify the arms control treaties thatimposed a degree of stability on thesuperpower arms race.

Following the collapse of the SovietUnion, the labs announced that they

would place a renewed emphasis onramping up nonproliferation pro-grams. Certainly, events in subsequentyears have validated the need forsuch efforts. Three additional nations(India, Pakistan, and North Korea)have joined the nuclear club, with po-tentially dozens of othersincludingterrorist organizationswaiting inthe wings. Yet, recent developmentsraise concerns about the labs com-mitment to this mission. The weapons

designers are back on the job, taskedwith developing a new generation ofwarheads that is said to be vital tosustaining the U.S. nuclear arsenal.The labs themselves see no conflict ofinterest, arguing that nonproliferationdivisions benefit from the expertiseof their weapons-making colleagues.But others worry that weapons workcompromises the integrity of these

efforts and diverts resources from halt-ing the spread of nuclear weapons.

Wanting to probe this question fur-ther, last year we interviewed severalsenior scientists and analysts at threeweapons laboratories: Los AlamosNational Laboratory and Sandia Na-

tional Laboratories in New Mexico,and Lawrence Livermore NationalLaboratory in California.1 In addi-tion, we sought out the perspectivesof watchdog groups: Western StatesLegal Foundation, the Los AlamosStudy Group, and Tri-Valley Com-munities Against a Radioactive Envi-ronment (CAREs). Throughout ourconversations, we wondered: Can thenonproliferation divisions at the labsfully serve the greater good if they re-

main steeped in a culture that createsweapons of mass destruction?

Serving the greater goodAt the weapons labs, several hundredpeople work on nonproliferation andhomeland security, operating under abudget that, in recent years, amountsto several hundred million dollars

annually. The Energy DepartmentsNational Nuclear Security Administra-tion (NNSA) remains the nonprolif-eration divisions primary sponsor, al-though they also receive support fromthe State Department, the DefenseThreat Reduction Agency, the Depart-

ment of Homeland Security, and someforeign government agencies.

The labs have long been at the fore-front of verifying compliance witharms control treaties by developingtechnologies that can detect the signa-tures of a nuclear detonation: X-rays,gamma rays, radio-frequency neu-trons, charged-particle radiations, andseismic waves. In fact, Los Alamossfirst major arms control initiative wasthe design of the Vela satellite, which

monitored gamma ray bursts to detectatmospheric nuclear weapons testsfollowing the ratification of the 1963Limited Test Ban Treaty.

Since 9/11, Homeland Security sup-port has allowed the labs to branchout from their traditional nuclearnonproliferation work. Los Alamos,for example, has developed a radio-logical emergency response project,



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which is improving decontaminationtechnologies and is educating first re-sponders about preparing for dirtybomb attacks. Complementing thisproject, Livermore makes its NationalAtmospheric Release Advisory Centeravailable to first responders to model

the dispersal of radioactive materials.In addition, the labs continue to de-

vote considerable resources to nuclearsecurity activities, including the Materi-al Protection, Control, and AccountingProgram to protect nuclear materialsin the former Soviet Union, and foren-sics analysis to help trace the origin ofmaterials used in nuclear or radiologi-cal weapons. Nuclear safeguards train-ing and analysis are the heart andsoul of Los Alamoss nonprolifera-

tion work, according to one senior LosAlamos official. For example, the labtrains all International Atomic EnergyAgency inspectors in nondestructiveassay techniques and supports exportcontrol analysis at the Nuclear Suppli-ers Group. Sandia has used its coop-erative monitoring centers to educateforeign officials about safeguards, aswell as other security issues. Livermorehas created a computer program thatallows inspectors to understand howproliferators could try to spoof moni-toring systems in a uranium enrich-ment or plutonium reprocessing plant.

Still, lab safeguards groups havefaced funding shortfalls. One ana-lyst said that his lab had developeda conceptual model of how to moni-tor the uranium enrichment level inindividual centrifuge machines. But alack of money has held back furtherdevelopment of this tool, which couldin theory provide the means for coop-erative continuous inspection of Irans

enrichment plant.

Axis of proliferationThese efforts serve U.S. interests bylimiting horizontal proliferationthe spread of nuclear weapons tocountries that do not already havethem. Yet, there is also verticalproliferation, more commonly knownas arms races, when nations build uptheir existing nuclear arsenals.

Each concept lies on a separateaxis, but they inevitably intersect. TheNuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty(NPT) encompasses a grand bargainwhereby nations pledge to foreswearthe development of nuclear weaponsif the existing nuclear weapon states,

including the United States, pursue

complete nuclear disarmament.The NPT does not specify when

disarmament must be accomplisheda fact that was a key source of grid-lock at the May 2005 NPT ReviewConference. While many non-nuclearweapon states wanted to concentrateon this issue, the United States soughtto deflect attention from the chargethat it has made little or no progresson disarmament. Lab policy analystspitched in by drafting a glossy bro-chure that argued the United Stateshas been fulfilling its disarmamentcommitment.

Lab officials we spoke with pointedto the substantial reduction in the U.S.nuclear arsenal since the end of theCold War as evidence of Americas

good intentions. Around 1990, theUnited States had about 20,000 war-heads, and today, it has cut that numberroughly in half. And the Bush adminis-tration has announced plans to furtherreduce the stockpile to approximately6,000 warheads by 2012.

The labs also place tremendousfaith in the Reliable ReplacementWarhead (RRW) Program, whichhas spurred considerable contro-versy since Congress initiated it in

late 2004. The programis billed asreplacing existing weapons, and of-ficials claim that it could allow forfurther reductions in the stockpilebecause the new weapons high reli-ability would lessen the need to keepa large number of reserve warheads.

The program would also add security

features to the warheads to guardagainst terrorist tampering. Officialsbelieve that the program would notneed nuclear testing to ensure that thenew warheads work. Moreover, theyargue that RRW would strengthendeterrence by convincing adversariesthat the United States has highly reli-able warheads, theoretically makinguse of the weapons less likely.

Today, Energy is pushing towardan ambitious makeover of the labs.The plan, called Complex 2030, en-visions completely replacing the cur-rent stockpile with an RRW stockpileby 2030. If all goes as expected, thiswould result in a smaller arsenal anda smaller number of sites holdingweapons-usable nuclear material that

could be vulnerable to theft. Althoughthis transformation would requireconsiderable up-front costs, Energy es-timates that in the long term Complex2030 would save more money.

A not-so-hidden stimulus for theRRW program was the perceived needto provide new work for weaponsscientists. Commenting on the excite-ment of an RRW design competitionbetween Los Alamos and Livermore,Joseph Martz, the leader of the Los


From the perspective of the labs, there is no

inherent conflict of interest between efforts

to prevent nuclear proliferation abroad while

pursuing a potentially multibillion-dollar effort

to reduce the existing U.S. nuclear stockpilethrough new warhead designs.


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Alamos design team, said, I have hadpeople working nights and weekends.I have to tell them to go home. I cantkeep them out of the office.2

Although the nonproliferation labexperts we talked to seemed verydedicated to their work, they did

not exhibit as much unbridled en-thusiasm as their colleagues on theweapons design teams. Perhaps theprimary difference is that the weap-oneers, after a long dry spell, nowhave, to use J. Robert Oppenheimerswords, a technically sweet projectto whet their appetites. There is a joyin having the opportunity to learnsomething new. As one of us who hasworked at Los Alamos knows, thereis another thrill at play: Weapons

work bestows a great sense of power.This situation will persist unless, as

philosopher William James observedin his 1906 essay, The Moral Equiv-alent of War, anti-militarists endowtheir labors with the glories and disci-plines associated with preparation forwar. In U.S. society, the value placedon someones labors often correlateswith the money bestowed on theiractivities. The Natural Resources De-fense Council estimates that the Bushadministration is spending more than12 times as much on nuclear weapons

research and production activities asit is on urgent global nonproliferationefforts to retrieve, secure, and disposeof weapons materials worldwide.3

Despite dining off the table scraps atthe weapons complex banquet, senior

lab nonproliferation officials emphati-cally told us that their programs havebenefited from having access to weap-ons designers and nuclear materialsnear their offices. For instance, thenonproliferation lab groups suppliedtechnical advisers to the six-party talks

with North Korea and to the teamsworking to dismantle Libyas nuclearprogram. Having access to weaponsdesigners also facilitated a detailed as-sessment of the nuclear bomb designLibya obtained from the A. Q. Khannetwork.

Bait and switchFrom the perspective of the labs,there is no inherent conflict of inter-

est between efforts to prevent nuclearproliferation abroad while pursuing apotentially multibillion-dollar effort toreduce the existing U.S. nuclear stock-pile through new warhead designs.

But others see nonproliferation asinherently incompatible with what re-mains the core mission of the labs: de-veloping weapons of mass destruction.The debate was thrown into sharp reliefwhen, in 2000, chemist Andreas Toupa-dakis resigned from Livermore. He hadjoined the lab with promises of work-ing on its environmental programs but

soon became disenchanted when he wasdrawn into weapons work. In a pub-lic letter explaining his resignation, hewrote: We, the scientists, have tried tojustify our involvement in building andmaintaining nuclear arsenals by claim-

ing that we are doing it for peace. Howcan we have peace when, by our workon weapons, we are raising fear in thehearts of those who do not have thesame technology for killing? . . . Thosewho work on environmental projects ornonproliferation projects at the nuclear

labs have not realized that such a thingis an illusion.4 One year later, computerscientist Isaac Trotts also resigned fromLivermore when he learned that a com-puter simulation project he was workingonostensibly to help prevent nuclearwarheads from accidentally detonat-ing or polluting the environment withradioactive materialalso supportedefforts to enhance the nuclear-capableB61 warheads ability to penetrate un-derground targets.5

While opponents of continuedweapons work recognize that thisknowledge can potentially increasethe effectiveness of programs to pre-vent proliferation or nuclear terror-ism, they believe that such activitywould provide only marginal insightas to how proliferators or terroristgroups would build nuclear weap-ons. The 60-plus years of weaponswork at the labs is sufficient to un-derstand those threats. We share thatassessment because the major hurdlefor either a nation-state or a state-less terrorist group to make nuclearweapons is acquiring the necessaryamounts of highly enriched uraniumor plutonium. Understanding how tostop this acquisition does not dependon continued production of nuclearweapons in the United States.

Of all the labs work, the RRWProgram and its associated claimsof reducing the U.S. arsenal has es-pecially outraged watchdog groups.

Marylia Kelley, executive director ofTri-Valley CAREs, deems the RRWProgram a bait and switch because,It was advertised as making exist-ing weapons more reliable but in factnew weapons are being designed.She adds, The second generation baitand switch will be the need for a finalproof test. Trying to counter govern-ment claims, Tri-Valley CAREs com-missioned a report by Robert Civiak,a physicist who had worked as a U.S.


The major hurdle for either a nation-state or a

stateless terrorist group to make nuclear weapons

is acquiring the necessary amounts of highly

enriched uranium or plutonium. Understanding

how to stop this acquisition does not depend on

continued production of nuclear weapons.


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government policy analyst. Their Jan-uary 2006 report argues that the RRWProgram might lower the threshold ofnuclear weapon use because it is im-possible for this Congress to preventfuture administrations from assign-ing those new warheads to new mis-

sions.6 Civiak further asserts that thecurrent arsenal is already highly safe,secure, and reliable.

Watchdog groups are not won overby claims of spending reductions,particularly since the Sec-retary of Energy AdvisoryBoard underscored the largeuncertainties in the Complex2030 cost estimate, whichranges between $155 bil-lion and $175 billion.7 That

skepticism is also apparentin Congress, where Repub-lican Cong. David Hob-son of Ohio, who serves onthe House AppropriationsCommittee, recently issueda stern warning over thespiraling costs of Complex2030. RRW is a deal withCongress, but the deal re-quires a serious effort by thedepartment to modernize,consolidate, and downsizethe weapons complex, hewrote in a letter to EnergySecretary Samuel Bodman.Absent that effort, there isno deal.8

In an attempt to rein in thelabs, Tri-Valley CAREs part-nered with Nuclear WatchNew Mexico, another watch-dog group, to submit in 2005a proposal to become the new man-agement team of Los Alamos. The co-

alition wanted to change the overalldirection of future missions at thelab by downgrading the labs nuclearweapons programs and subordinatingthem under a new associate director-ship of nuclear nonproliferation. Thegoal was to ensure that commitmentsunder the NPT are met. Jay Coghlan,executive director of Nuclear WatchNew Mexico, and Tri-Valley CAREsKelley would have also discontinuedwork on new weapons designs. They

would have shifted substantial re-sources toward non-nuclear programsat the lab and elevated to the highestpriority work on resolution of long-term national security needs such asenergy independence, conservation,and global climate change.9 In late

2005, Energy rejected this manage-ment bid, and in January 2007, it dis-qualified a more recent proposal thatCoghlan and Kelley submitted to runLawrence Livermore because their

proposal did not meet the criteriafor running the lab, according to an

NNSA spokesman.10Proponents of a robust U.S. nucle-

ar arsenal would probably not givethe watchdogs proposal a secondthought because they would view itas anti-nuclear. But a closer lookmay point to some common ground.While Kelley confirms that she isstrongly in favor of irreversible nu-clear dismantlement, she has accepteda need for maintaining a custodialrole for nuclear weapons activities

during the transition to a nuclearweaponfree world.

Mixed messagesGreg Mello, the director of the LosAlamos Study Group, a nuclear disar-

mament organization based in Albu-querque, New Mexico, recommendsthat the nonproliferation divisionshire people who favor nuclear disar-mament to help the labs break out

of a mental straitjacket. Butwatchdog groups also recog-nize that changing the cultureof the labs ultimately dependsupon broader changes in U.S.policies. While lab officials citethe post-Cold War decline in

U.S. warheads as evidence of aU.S. commitment to reducingnuclear tensions, this tells onlypart of the story. A more criti-cal indicator is the value thatthe U.S. government places onnuclear weapons. In this re-gard, the Bush administrations2001 Nuclear Posture Reviewsignaled a mixed message.On the one hand, it called formore capable conventionalweapons systems to make theUnited States less dependenton nuclear weapons for its of-fensive deterrent capability.On the other hand, the reviewrecommended reestablishingadvanced warhead conceptsteams at each of the nationallaboratories. While the reviewwelcomed the goal of shiftingdown to between 1,700 and

2,200 deployed strategic nuclear war-heads by 2012, it warned that unex-

pected contingencies demand that theUnited States maintain nuclear forcesfor the foreseeable future.

The task of cultivating a mind-set that would devalue U.S. nuclearweapons is made difficult by a re-volving door that allows lab employ-ees to spend months or years at atime in Washington helping to writepolicy briefs. Mello noted that fewpeople in Congress have power overthe labs and added that the lab



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directors are protected because oftheir ties to U.S. Strategic Command(Stratcom), which has recently ex-panded its mission beyond nucleardeterrence to include combating un-conventional weapons worldwide.The nonproliferation divisions, he

says, have strayed from true non-proliferation work and supportedStratcoms new mission by doing tar-geting and nodal analysis of Iraniannuclear facilities.

Lab watchdogs believe that armscontrol analysis is best done at theState Department because that agen-cy has the vested authority to ensurethat the United States is meeting itstreaty obligations. But the State De-partments elimination of its arms

control bureau during a recent reor-ganization has left a vacuum that ithas filled by contracting out some ofthis analytic work to the labs. Thecritics, in general, would prefer a ro-bust firewall erected between the labsand the policy shops in Washington.

The labs, however, bristle at theaccusation of political manipulation.A senior lab official asserted that thenonproliferation divisions supportpolicy but do not make it. He added,Management of the lab was set up

to buffer the division from politicalleaders. A lab analyst added that thelabs have to remain independent totell the customer [government] what iswrong. Another scientist believes thedesired relationship between the labsand government should be that the

government tells the labs what needsto happen and that each lab has itsown mission space to accomplish thegoals government has selected for it.

Still, some personnel see the currentrelationship as too personality drivenand too riddled with micromanage-

ment. For example, they pointed tothe Material Protection, Control,and Accounting Program as havingput the labs in an overly competitiveenvironment. A senior lab scientistsaid that Energy picked individualsfrom separate labs and threw themtogether in nonhomogeneous teams,creating a conflict of interest. Fordecades, the labs have felt the pushand pull of competition and coopera-tion. The government formed Liver-

more under the belief that competi-tion with Los Alamos would producecreative tension and result in betterwork. (During the Cold War, a Liver-more scientist posted a sign that de-clared: Remember, the Soviets arethe competition, Los Alamos is theenemy.) There are indications thatthe competitiveness continues today.

We witnessed a contemporary clashin perspectives at Los Alamos andSandia. Each views itself as doing thebest in working with other nonpro-

liferation divisions. As the oldest ofthe labs, Los Alamos sees itself as anatural leader, according to a seniorscientist. A Sandia analyst believesher lab is unique in looking at theinterstitial space between policy andtechnology and does the best job

at reaching out to other labs.However, a senior nonproliferation

official told us that the competition ismostly friendly. While the nonpro-liferation divisions at the three weap-ons labs overlap in their capabilities,each has developed special strengths

to tame competitive tensions. Forinstance, Livermore has a distinctadvantage in regional analysis of cur-rent and potential emerging threats.Taking pride in its outreach capabili-ties, Sandia has brought together for-eign scientists and analysts in its co-operative monitoring centers to helpresolve common security problems.For example, two security expertsfrom India and Pakistan recentlywrote a Sandia-sponsored paper as-

sessing how to prevent nuclear ter-rorism in South Asia.

But even if the labs maintain anatmosphere of creative tension, thelarger question remains: What pre-cisely are they creating? Nonprolif-eration specialists are engaged in aheroic taskstopping the spread ofnuclear weapons. But they see pro-liferation as the inherent problem,not the security dilemma spawned bycontinued possession of these weap-ons by the United States and othernuclear-armed countries.

Lab nonproliferation experts aresteeped in a culture thatmore thansix decades after Hiroshima andNagasakistill believes the path tonational security lies in maintainingAmericas competitive nuclear edge.The ongoing paradox of their work is,in part, the product of a bureaucracythat seeks to sustain itself with newmissions after the Cold War. But it isalso a product of the larger paradox

of U.S. policy, which simultaneouslydenounces the acquisition of nuclearweapons abroad while seeking to up-grade the nuclear deterrent at home.

Though the labs share a commonnational security mission, it is, ironi-cally, this very mission that holdsthem back from objectively analyzingwhether nuclear weapons will alwaysbe needed for U.S. security.

FOR NOTES, PLEASE SEE P. 66.


Nonproliferation specialists are engaged in a

heroic taskstopping the spread of nuclear

weapons. But they see proliferationas the

inherent problem, not the security dilemma

spawned by continued possession of theseweapons by the United States and others.


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FEAR NOT

Continued from p. 37

1. The probability calculation, by astrono-mer Alan Harris, is at psweb.sbs.ohio-state.edu/faculty/jmueller/overblown.html.

2. Bart Kosko, Terror Threat May BeMostly a Big Bluff, Los Angeles Times, Sep-tember 13, 2004, p. B11.

3.Testimony by Mueller can be found at

www.fbi.gov/congress/congress.htm.4. Graham Allison, Nuclear Terrorism: The

Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe (New York:Times Books, 2004), p. 28.

5. Brigette I. Nacos et al., The Threat ofInternational Terrorism After 9/11 (paper,American Political Science Association, Au-gust 31, 2006); David C. Rapoport, Terror-ists and Weapons of the Apocalypse, Nation-al Security Studies Quarterly, vol. 5, no. 1, p.50 (1999).

6.Milton J. Leitenberg, Assessing the Bio-logical Weapons and Bioterrorism Threat(Carlisle, Penn.: Strategic Studies Institute,U.S. Army War College, 2005), pp. 2728.Leitenberg notes that those arrested did have

in their possession a readily available bookthat contained a recipe for making ricin. Iffollowed out, the recipe would have yieldedenough poison to kill one person if the sub-stance were injected.

7. Ron Suskind, The One Percent Doctrine:Deep Inside Americas Pursuit of Its EnemiesSince 9/11 (New York: Simon and Schuster,2006), pp. 19498.

8. Shaun Waterman, Cyanide Gas DeviceProbably Didnt Work, United Press Interna-tional, June 25, 2006.

9. Ian Lustick, Trapped in the War on Ter-ror (Philadelphia: University of PennsylvaniaPress, 2006), chap. 5.

10. Eric Lipton, Former Antiterror Of-ficials Find Industry Pays Better, New YorkTimes, June 18, 2006, p. A1.

11. Bernard Brodie, The Development ofNuclear Strategy, International Security, vol.2, no. 4, p. 83 (1978).

12. Clark R. Chapman and Alan W. Har-ris, A Skeptical Look at September 11th:How We Can Defeat Terrorism by Reactingto It More Rationally, Skeptical Inquirer,September/October 2002, p. 32.

13. Clark R. Chapman and Alan W. Har-ris, Response, Skeptical Inquirer, January/February 2003, p. 65.

14. David Gergen, A Fragile Time forGlobalism, U.S. News and World Report,February 11, 2002, p. 41; James Carafanoand Paul Rosenzweig, Winning the Long War:

Lessons from the Cold War for Defeating Ter-rorism and Preserving Freedom (Washington,D.C.: Heritage Books, 2005), p. 93.

15. Interview with Sen. Richard Lugar, FoxNews Sunday, June 15, 2003; Charles Krau-thammer, Blixful Amnesia, WashingtonPost, July 9, 2004, p. A19; Charles Kraut-hammer, Emergency Over, Saith the Court,Washington Post, July 7, 2006, p. A17.

16. Graham Allison, Nuclear Terrorism:The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe (NewYork: Times Books, 2004), p. 19.

17. Graham Allison, Nuclear Terrorism:The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe (NewYork: Times Books, 2004), p. 191; MichaelIgnatieff, The Lesser Evil: Political Ethics in

an Age of Terror (Princeton, N.J.: PrincetonUniversity Press, 2004), p. 147.

18. Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon,The Age of Sacred Terror (New York: Ran-dom House, 2002), pp. 39899, 418.

19. Marvin R. Shanken, General TommyFranks: An Exclusive Interview with Ameri-cas Top General in the War on Terrorism,Cigar Aficionado, December, 2003; Anony-mous [Michael Scheuer], Imperial Hubris:Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror (Dulles, Va.: Brasseys, 2004), pp. 160, 177,226, 241, 242, 250, 252, 263.

20. Jennifer C. Kerr, Terror Threat LevelRaised to Orange, Associated Press, Decem-ber 21, 2003.

21. Michael Ignatieff, Lesser Evils: WhatIt Will Cost Us to Succeed in the War on Ter-ror, New York Times Magazine, May 2,2004, pp. 4648; Michael Ignatieff, The Less-er Evil: Political Ethics in an Age of Terror(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press,2004), p. 146.

22. Bob Dart, Leak Plugged: Toll Esti-mate Rises as Water Begins to Fall, Atlanta

Journal-Constitution, September 6, 2005,

p. 1A. The estimate on September 24, for ex-ample, was that nearly 7,000 had died (NewYork Times, September 24, 2001, p. B2)

23. William M. Arkin, Goodbye War on Ter-rorism, Hello Long War, Washington Postwe-blog, January 26, 2006, blogs.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning; Gilmore Commission(Advisory Panel to Assess Domestic ResponseCapabilities for Terrorism Involving Weaponsof Mass Destruction), First Annual Report: As-sessing the Threat, December 15, 1999, p. 37.

IN SICKNESS AND IN HEALTH


1. David Harris, The Crisis (New York: Lit-tle, Brown and Company, 2004), pp. 1921.

2. Steven Erlanger, Sharon Suffers Exten-sive Stroke and Is Very Grave, New YorkTimes, January 5, 2006, p. 1.

3. Text of Proclamation Aired on CubanRadio, Miami Herald Online Edition, Au-gust 1, 2006.

4. See for example, Jerrold M. Post ed.,Psychological Assessments of Political Lead-ers, (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press,2003). Dr. Post was the founder of the CIAsCenter for the Analysis of Personality andBehavior and has written extensively on thissubject.

5. Leslie R. Pyenson, MD, The Physicianand Intelligence Analysis, (remarks, Ameri-

can Academy of Psychology and the LawAAPL 2004 Annual Meeting, Scottsdale, Ari-zona, October 22, 2004).

6. Jerrold M. Post and Alexander George,Leaders and Their Followers in a DangerousWorld: The Psychology of Political Behavior(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004), pp.6567, 8082.

7. Seth S. King, Indonesia Says Plot to De-pose Sukarno Is Foiled by Army Chief, TheNew York Times, October 2, 1965, p. 1.

8. The Shahs Illness and the Fall of Iran,Studies in Intelligence, Summer 1980, p. 63.

9. Pyenson, AAPL remarks, October 22,2004.

10. Central Intelligence Agency, Intelligence

Memorandum, Soviet Leaders and Succession,May 13, 1974, www.foia.ucia.gov.

11.Myles Maxfield and Edward G. Greger,VIP Health Watch, Studies in Intelligence,Spring 1968, pp. 5363.

12.Features of this dynamic include: thenature of the physicianVIP patient relation-ship; how the demands of high office com-promise the quality of a leaders medical care;and political implications of illness in a given

society. See Jerrold M. Post and Robert S.Robins, When Illness Strikes the Leader: TheDilemma of the Captive King(New Haven:Yale University Press, 1993), p. xv.

13.Milos Jenicek and David L. Hitchcock,Evidence-Based Practice: Logic and CriticalThinking and Medicine (Chicago: AMA Press,2005), p. 15.



16. Jack Anderson, CIA Snoops Study Ail-ments of Leaders, Washington Post, March1, 1982, p. C13.

17.Walter Pincus, Analysts Seek Clues in

Public Silence of Bin Laden; Fugitive May BeDead, or Waiting for Dramatic Moment toReappear, Timed to Future Attack, Washing-ton Post, April 24, 2002, p. A26.

18. Bin Ladens Doctor Disappears, CBSNews Online, November 14, 2002.

19. James Bamford, The Puzzle Palace(New York: Penguin Press, 1983), p. 360.

20. Myles Maxfield, Robert Proper, andSharol Case, Remote Medical Diagno-sis, Studies in Intelligence, Spring 1979,pp. 914.

21. Ibid., pp. 1112.22. Anderson, CIA Snoops Study Ailments

of Leaders, Washington Post.23. Nicholas Wade, Covert Ops Enter the

Genomic Era, New York Times, April 20,2003, p. 2.

24. Alyce M. Girardi, Leslie R. Pyenson,Jon Morris, and Francis X. Brickfield, Im-pact of Coronary Heart Disease on WorldLeaders, Annals of Internal Medicine, Feb-ruary 20, 2001, pp. 287290; Francis X.Brickfield and Leslie R. Pyenson, Impact ofStroke on World Leaders, Military Medicine,March 2001, pp. 231232; Leslie R. Pyenson,F. X. Brickfield, and L. A. Cove, Patterns ofDeath in World Leaders, Military Medicine,December 1998, pp. 797800.

MAKE IT OR BREAK IT


1. Participants were willing to speak on therecord if their names were not cited.

2. Labs Compete to Make New NuclearBomb, Associated Press, June 13, 2006.

3. Christopher E. Paine, principal author,Weaponeers of Waste, Natural ResourcesDefense Council, April 2004, p. 8, emphasisin the original.

4. Andreas Toupadakis, The Reasons for MyResignation from Lawrence Livermore NationalLaboratory, available at www.trivalleycares.org.

5. Lawrence Livermore Lab ScientistQuits Over Weapons Work, DisarmamentDiplomacy, March 2001.


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6. Robert Civiak, The Reliable Replace-ment Warhead Program: A Slippery Slope toNew Nuclear Weapons, Tri-Valley CAREs,January 2006.

7. Secretary of Energy Advisory Board,Nuclear Weapons Complex InfrastructureTask Force, Recommendations for theNuclear Weapons Complex of the Future,Draft Final Report, Energy Department, July13, 2005.

8. James Sterngold, Key Legislators Threat-en Funds for Nuclear Weapons Overhaul;Bush Administration Abandoning Effort toConsolidate, They Say, San Francisco Chron-icle, January 14, 2007, p. A4.

9. Nuclear Watch New Mexico and Tri-Val-ley CAREs, A Joint Proposal for Manage-ment of the Los Alamos National Labora-tory, July 18, 2005.

10. Ian Hoffman, Feds Can Activists Bidto Run Nuke Labs, Oakland Tribune, Janu-ary 6, 2007.

NUCLEAR NOTEBOOK


1. Essential references for following Russianstrategic nuclear forces include: the STARTmemorandum of understanding released by theU.S. and Russian governments twice a year; theU.S. Foreign Broadcast Information Service;Pavel Podvigs website on Russian strategicnuclear forces, www.russianforces.org; and thedatabase Russia: General Nuclear Weapons

Developments, maintained by the MontereyInstitute of International Studies Center forNonproliferation Studies (CNS), www.nti.org/db/nisprofs/russia/weapons/gendevs.htm.

2. Baluyevsky Says Russia To Have Thou-sands of Nuclear Warheads by 2010, Inter-fax, July 7, 2006. Yury Baluyevsky is also firstdeputy defense minister.

3. Vladimir Putin, Annual Address to theFederal Assembly of the Russian Federation,

Moscow, May 10, 2006, www.kremlin.ru/eng/.4. Vladimir Putin, Closing Address at

the Meeting of the Armed Forces CommandStaff, Moscow, November 16, 2006, www.kremlin.ru/eng/.

5. Vladimir Putin, Speech at Meeting withthe Ambassadors and Permanent Representa-tives of the Russian Federation, Moscow, June27, 2006, www.kremlin.ru/eng/.

6. Russia to Re-Equip Its New MobileICBMs with Multiple Warheads, RIA Novosti,December 15, 2006.

7. An English translation of the paper isavailable from CNS, cns.miis.edu/pubs/other/rusfed.htm.

8. Russia Might Tear up ISR [INF] Missile

TreatyDefense Ministry Source, RIA No-vosti, August 28, 2006.9. Russia Complains of U.S. Missile De-

fense Plans, Associated Press/InternationalHerald Tribune, December 13, 2006.

10. Russia: Missile Reduction Treaty WillNot Harm Russias Nuclear Potential, Inter-fax, May 17, 2006.

11. Transcript of the Press Conference for

the Russian and Foreign Media, Circular Hall,the Kremlin, Moscow, January 31, 2006, www.kremlin.ru/eng/.

12. Andrei Kislyakov, The Missile ThatDoes Not Care, RIA Novosti, February 14,2006.

13. Baluevski: Rossiiskie Rakety BudutPreodolevat Luybye PRO (Baluevski: Rus-sian Missiles Will Penetrate Any BMD), Strana.ru, May 18, 2006, as cited in Nikolai Sokov,

Russia Weighing U.S. Plan to Put Non-Nuclear Warheads on Long-Range Missiles,WMD Insights, June 2006, pp. 2628, www.wmdinsights.com.

14. Nabi Abdullaev, Russia Delays JointExercise, Tests ICBMs, Defense News, Sep-tember 18, 2006, p. 4; Russian Defense Min-ister Reports Successful ICBM Test-Launch,Mosnews.com, September 11, 2006.

15. Tu-160 Bomber to Remain Core ofRussian Long-Range Aviation, RIA Novosti,December 13, 2006.

16. Ibid.17. Russian Strategic Bombers Launch Se-

ries of Cruise Missiles, Mosnews.com, August24, 2006.

18. Russia Will Not Discuss its NuclearWeapons With U.S.Official, Mosnews.com(ITAR-TASS), June 14, 2006.

19. An English translation of the paperis available at, cns.miis.edu/pubs/other/rusfed.htm.

20. Vladimir Putin, Annual Address to theFederal Assembly of the Russian Federation,May 10, 2006, www.kremlin.ru/eng/.

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