Tri-Valley CAREs

Thursday, March 01, 2007  
Make It Or Break It

By: Charles D. Ferguson and Lisa Obrentz
Published In: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Subtitle:

The weapons labs built the

Bomb. Now they?re tasked

with finding ways to get rid

of it. Trouble is, old habits

die hard.

In August 1945, nuclear weapon scientists became heroes. The U.S.

atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki signaled the end to a long

and bloody world war.

The scientific expertise that gave birth to the Bomb has also helped secure

nuclear weapons and weapons-usable materials. During the Manhattan

Project, the United States sent scientists throughout Europe to stop

Nazi Germany from building the Bomb. This dual role continued throughout

the Cold War, as the national weapons laboratories maintained the U.S. nuclear deterrent while simultaneously

developing the means to

verify the arms control treaties that

imposed a degree of stability on the

superpower arms race.

Following the collapse of the Soviet

Union, the labs announced that they

would place a renewed emphasis on

ramping up nonproliferation programs.

Certainly, events in subsequent

years have validated the need for

such efforts. Three additional nations

(India, Pakistan, and North Korea)

have joined the nuclear club, with potentially

dozens of others?including

terrorist organizations?waiting in

the wings. Yet, recent developments

raise concerns about the labs? commitment

to this mission. The weapons

designers are back on the job, tasked

with developing a new generation of

warheads that is said to be vital to

sustaining the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

The labs themselves see no conflict of

interest, arguing that nonproliferation

divisions benefit from the expertise

of their weapons-making colleagues.

But others worry that weapons work

compromises the integrity of these

efforts and diverts resources from halting

the spread of nuclear weapons.

Wanting to probe this question further,

last year we interviewed several

senior scientists and analysts at three

weapons laboratories: Los Alamos

National Laboratory and Sandia National

Laboratories in New Mexico,

and Lawrence Livermore National

Laboratory in California.1 In addition,

we sought out the perspectives

of watchdog groups: Western States

Legal Foundation, the Los Alamos

Study Group, and Tri-Valley Communities

Against a Radioactive Environment

(CAREs). Throughout our

conversations, we wondered: Can the

nonproliferation divisions at the labs

fully serve the greater good if they remain

steeped in a culture that creates

weapons of mass destruction?

SERVING THE GREATER GOOD

At the weapons labs, several hundred

people work on nonproliferation and

homeland security, operating under a

budget that, in recent years, amounts

to several hundred million dollars

annually. The Energy Department?s

National Nuclear Security Administration

(NNSA) remains the nonproliferation

divisions? primary sponsor, although

they also receive support from

the State Department, the Defense

Threat Reduction Agency, the Department

of Homeland Security, and some

foreign government agencies.

The labs have long been at the forefront

of verifying compliance with

arms control treaties by developing

technologies that can detect the signatures

of a nuclear detonation: X-rays,

gamma rays, radio-frequency neutrons,

charged-particle radiations, and

seismic waves. In fact, Los Alamos?s

first major arms control initiative was

the design of the Vela satellite, which

monitored gamma ray bursts to detect

atmospheric nuclear weapons tests

following the ratification of the 1963

Limited Test Ban Treaty.

Since 9/11, Homeland Security support

has allowed the labs to branch

out from their traditional nuclear

nonproliferation work. Los Alamos,

for example, has developed a radiological

emergency response project, which is improving decontamination

technologies and is educating first responders

about preparing for ?dirty

bomb? attacks. Complementing this

project, Livermore makes its National

Atmospheric Release Advisory Center

available to first responders to model

the dispersal of radioactive materials.

In addition, the labs continue to devote

considerable resources to nuclear

security activities, including the Material

Protection, Control, and Accounting

Program to protect nuclear materials

in the former Soviet Union, and forensics

analysis to help trace the origin of

materials used in nuclear or radiological

weapons. Nuclear safeguards training

and analysis are the ?heart and

soul? of Los Alamos?s nonproliferation

work, according to one senior Los

Alamos official. For example, the lab

trains all International Atomic Energy

Agency inspectors in nondestructive

assay techniques and supports export

control analysis at the Nuclear Suppliers

Group. Sandia has used its cooperative

monitoring centers to educate

foreign officials about safeguards, as

well as other security issues. Livermore

has created a computer program that

allows inspectors to understand how

proliferators could try to spoof monitoring

systems in a uranium enrichment

or plutonium reprocessing plant.

Still, lab safeguards groups have

faced funding shortfalls. One analyst

said that his lab had developed

a conceptual model of how to monitor

the uranium enrichment level in

individual centrifuge machines. But a

lack of money has held back further

development of this tool, which could

in theory provide the means for cooperative

continuous inspection of Iran?s

enrichment plant.

AXIS OF PROLIFERATION

These efforts serve U.S. interests by

limiting ?horizontal? proliferation?

the spread of nuclear weapons to

countries that do not already have

them. Yet, there is also ?vertical?

proliferation, more commonly known

as arms races, when nations build up

their existing nuclear arsenals.

Each concept lies on a separate

axis, but they inevitably intersect. The

Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

(NPT) encompasses a grand bargain

whereby nations pledge to foreswear

the development of nuclear weapons

if the existing nuclear weapon states,

including the United States, pursue

complete nuclear disarmament.

The NPT does not specify when

disarmament must be accomplished?

a fact that was a key source of gridlock

at the May 2005 NPT Review

Conference. While many non-nuclear

weapon states wanted to concentrate

on this issue, the United States sought

to deflect attention from the charge

that it has made little or no progress

on disarmament. Lab policy analysts

pitched in by drafting a glossy brochure

that argued the United States

has been fulfilling its disarmament

commitment.

Lab officials we spoke with pointed

to the substantial reduction in the U.S.

nuclear arsenal since the end of the

Cold War as evidence of America?s

good intentions. Around 1990, the

United States had about 20,000 warheads,

and today, it has cut that number

roughly in half. And the Bush administration

has announced plans to further

reduce the stockpile to approximately

6,000 warheads by 2012.



The labs also place tremendous

faith in the Reliable Replacement

Warhead (RRW) Program, which

has spurred considerable controversy

since Congress initiated it in

late 2004. The program is billed as

replacing existing weapons, and officials

claim that it could allow for

further reductions in the stockpile

because the new weapons? high reliability

would lessen the need to keep

a large number of reserve warheads.

The program would also add security

features to the warheads to guard

against terrorist tampering. Officials

believe that the program would not

need nuclear testing to ensure that the

new warheads work. Moreover, they

argue that RRW would strengthen

deterrence by convincing adversaries

that the United States has highly reliable

warheads, theoretically making

use of the weapons less likely.



Today, Energy is pushing toward

an ambitious makeover of the labs.

The plan, called Complex 2030, envisions

completely replacing the current

stockpile with an RRW stockpile

by 2030. If all goes as expected, this

would result in a smaller arsenal and

a smaller number of sites holding

weapons-usable nuclear material that

could be vulnerable to theft. Although

this transformation would require

considerable up-front costs, Energy estimates

that in the long term Complex

2030 would save more money.



A not-so-hidden stimulus for the

RRW program was the perceived need

to provide new work for weapons

scientists. Commenting on the excitement

of an RRW design competition

between Los Alamos and Livermore,

Joseph Martz, the leader of the Los Alamos design team, said, ?I have had

people working nights and weekends.

I have to tell them to go home. I can?t

keep them out of the office.?2



Although the nonproliferation lab

experts we talked to seemed very

dedicated to their work, they did

not exhibit as much unbridled enthusiasm

as their colleagues on the

weapons design teams. Perhaps the

primary difference is that the weaponeers,

after a long dry spell, now

have, to use J. Robert Oppenheimer?s

words, a ?technically sweet? project

to whet their appetites. There is a joy

in having the opportunity to learn

something new. As one of us who has

worked at Los Alamos knows, there

is another thrill at play: Weapons

work bestows a great sense of power.



This situation will persist unless, as

philosopher William James observed

in his 1906 essay, ?The Moral Equivalent

of War,? anti-militarists endow

their labors with the glories and disciplines

associated with preparation for

war. In U.S. society, the value placed

on someone?s labors often correlates

with the money bestowed on their

activities. The Natural Resources Defense

Council estimates that the Bush

administration is spending ?more than

12 times as much on nuclear weapons

research and production activities as

it is on urgent global nonproliferation

efforts to retrieve, secure, and dispose

of weapons materials worldwide.?3



Despite dining off the table scraps at

the weapons complex banquet, senior

lab nonproliferation officials emphatically

told us that their programs have

benefited from having access to weapons

designers and nuclear materials

near their offices. For instance, the

nonproliferation lab groups supplied

technical advisers to the six-party talks

with North Korea and to the teams

working to dismantle Libya?s nuclear

program. Having access to weapons

designers also facilitated a detailed assessment

of the nuclear bomb design

Libya obtained from the A. Q. Khan

network.



BAIT AND SWITCH



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 stockpile

through new warhead designs.



But others see nonproliferation as

inherently incompatible with what remains

the core mission of the labs: developing

weapons of mass destruction.

The debate was thrown into sharp relief

when, in 2000, chemist Andreas Toupadakis

resigned from Livermore. He had

joined the lab with promises of working

on its environmental programs but

soon became disenchanted when he was

drawn into weapons work. In a public

letter explaining his resignation, he

wrote: ?We, the scientists, have tried to

justify our involvement in building and

maintaining nuclear arsenals by claiming

that we are doing it for peace. How

can we have peace when, by our work

on weapons, we are raising fear in the

hearts of those who do not have the

same technology for killing? . . . Those

who work on environmental projects or

nonproliferation projects at the nuclear

labs have not realized that such a thing

is an illusion.?4 One year later, computer

scientist Isaac Trotts also resigned from

Livermore when he learned that a computer

simulation project he was working

on?ostensibly to help prevent nuclear

warheads from accidentally detonating

or polluting the environment with

radioactive material?also supported

efforts to enhance the nuclear-capable

B61 warhead?s ability to penetrate underground

targets.5



While opponents of continued

weapons work recognize that this

knowledge can potentially increase

the effectiveness of programs to prevent

proliferation or nuclear terrorism,

they believe that such activity

would provide only marginal insight

as to how proliferators or terrorist

groups would build nuclear weapons.

The 60-plus years of weapons

work at the labs is sufficient to understand

those threats. We share that

assessment because 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 in the United States.



Of all the labs? work, the RRW

Program and its associated claims

of reducing the U.S. arsenal has especially

outraged watchdog groups.

Marylia Kelley, executive director of

Tri- Valley CAREs, deems the RRW

Program a ?bait and switch? because,

?It was advertised as making existing

weapons more reliable but in fact

new weapons are being designed.?

She adds, ?The second generation bait

and switch will be the need for a final

proof test.? Trying to counter government

claims, Tri-Valley CAREs commissioned

a report by Robert Civiak,

a physicist who had worked as a U.S.

government policy analyst. Their January

2006 report argues that the RRW

Program might lower the threshold of

nuclear weapon use because ?it is impossible

for this Congress to prevent

future administrations from assigning

those new warheads to new missions.?

6 Civiak further asserts that the

current arsenal is already highly safe,

secure, and reliable.



Watchdog groups are not won over

by claims of spending reductions,

particularly since the Secretary

of Energy Advisory

Board underscored the large

uncertainties in the Complex

2030 cost estimate, which

ranges between $155 billion

and $175 billion.7 That

skepticism is also apparent

in Congress, where Republican

Cong. David Hobson

of Ohio, who serves on

the House Appropriations

Committee, recently issued

a stern warning over the

spiraling costs of Complex

2030. ?RRW is a deal with

Congress, but the deal requires

a serious effort by the

department to modernize,

consolidate, and downsize

the weapons complex,? he

wrote in a letter to Energy

Secretary Samuel Bodman.

?Absent that effort, there is

no deal.?8



In an attempt to rein in the

labs, Tri-Valley CAREs partnered

with Nuclear Watch

New Mexico, another watchdog

group, to submit in 2005

a proposal to become the new management

team of Los Alamos. The coalition

wanted to change the ?overall

direction of future missions? at the

lab by downgrading the lab?s nuclear

weapons programs and subordinating

them under a new associate directorship

of nuclear nonproliferation. The

goal was to ensure that commitments

under the NPT are met. Jay Coghlan,

executive director of Nuclear Watch

New Mexico, and Tri-Valley CAREs?

Kelley would have also discontinued

work on new weapons designs. They

would have shifted substantial resources

toward non-nuclear programs

at the lab and elevated to the highest

priority work on ?resolution of longterm

national security needs such as

energy independence, conservation,

and global climate change.?9 In late

2005, Energy rejected this management

bid, and in January 2007, it disqualified

a more recent proposal that

Coghlan and Kelley submitted to run

Lawrence Livermore because ?their

proposal did not meet the criteria

for running the lab,? according to an

NNSA spokesman.10



Proponents of a robust U.S. nuclear

arsenal would probably not give

the watchdogs? proposal a second

thought because they would view it

as ?anti-nuclear.? But a closer look

may point to some common ground.

While Kelley confirms that she is

strongly in favor of irreversible nuclear

dismantlement, she has accepted

a need for maintaining a ?custodial

role? for nuclear weapons activities

during the transition to a nuclear

weapon?free world.



MIXED MESSAGES



Greg Mello, the director of the Los

Alamos Study Group, a nuclear disarmament

organization based in Albuquerque,

New Mexico, recommends

that the nonproliferation divisions

?hire people who favor nuclear disarmament?

to help the labs ?break out

of a mental straitjacket.? But

watchdog groups also recognize

that changing the culture

of the labs ultimately depends

upon broader changes in U.S.

policies. While lab officials cite

the post-Cold War decline in

U.S. warheads as evidence of a

U.S. commitment to reducing

nuclear tensions, this tells only

part of the story. A more critical

indicator is the value that

the U.S. government places on

nuclear weapons. In this regard,

the Bush administration?s

2001 Nuclear Posture Review

signaled a mixed message.

On the one hand, it called for

more capable conventional

weapons systems to make the

United States ?less dependent?

on nuclear weapons for its ?offensive

deterrent capability.?

On the other hand, the review

recommended reestablishing

?advanced warhead concepts

teams at each of the national

laboratories.? While the review

welcomed the goal of shifting

down to between 1,700 and

2,200 deployed strategic nuclear warheads

by 2012, it warned that ?unexpected

contingencies? demand that the

United States maintain nuclear forces

for the foreseeable future.



The task of cultivating a mindset

that would devalue U.S. nuclear

weapons is made difficult by a revolving

door that allows lab employees

to spend months or years at a

time in Washington helping to write

policy briefs. Mello noted that ?few

people in Congress have power over

the labs? and added that ?the lab

directors are protected? because of

their ties to U.S. Strategic Command

(Stratcom), which has recently expanded

its mission beyond nuclear

deterrence to include combating unconventional

weapons worldwide.

The nonproliferation divisions, he

says, have strayed from ?true? nonproliferation

work and supported

Stratcom?s new mission by doing targeting

and nodal analysis of Iranian

nuclear facilities.



Lab watchdogs believe that arms

control analysis is best done at the

State Department because that agency

has the vested authority to ensure

that the United States is meeting its

treaty obligations. But the State Department?s

elimination of its arms

control bureau during a recent reorganization

has left a vacuum that it

has filled by contracting out some of

this analytic work to the labs. The

critics, in general, would prefer a robust

firewall erected between the labs

and the policy shops in Washington.



The labs, however, bristle at the

accusation of political manipulation.

A senior lab official asserted that the

nonproliferation divisions ?support

policy but do not make it.? He added,

?Management of the lab was set up

to buffer the division from political

leaders.? A lab analyst added that the

labs ?have to remain independent to

tell the customer [government] what is

wrong.? Another scientist believes the

desired relationship between the labs

and government should be that ?the

government tells the labs what needs

to happen and that each lab has its

own mission space to accomplish the

goals government has selected for it.?



Still, some personnel see the current

relationship as too personality driven

and too riddled with micromanagement.

For example, they pointed to

the Material Protection, Control,

and Accounting Program as having

put the labs in an overly competitive

environment. A senior lab scientist

said that Energy ?picked individuals

from separate labs and threw them

together in nonhomogeneous teams,

creating a conflict of interest.? For

decades, the labs have felt the push

and pull of competition and cooperation.

The government formed Livermore

under the belief that competition

with Los Alamos would produce

creative tension and result in better

work. (During the Cold War, a Livermore

scientist posted a sign that declared:

?Remember, the Soviets are

the competition, Los Alamos is the

enemy.?) There are indications that

the competitiveness continues today.



We witnessed a contemporary clash

in perspectives at Los Alamos and

Sandia. Each views itself as doing the

best in working with other nonproliferation

divisions. As the oldest of

the labs, Los Alamos ?sees itself as a

natural leader,? according to a senior

scientist. A Sandia analyst believes

her lab ?is unique in looking at the

interstitial space between policy and

technology? and ?does the best job

at reaching out? to other labs.



However, a senior nonproliferation

official told us that the competition is

?mostly friendly.? While the nonproliferation

divisions at the three weapons

labs overlap in their capabilities,

each has developed special strengths

to tame competitive tensions. For

instance, Livermore has a distinct

advantage in regional analysis of current

and potential emerging threats.

Taking pride in its outreach capabilities,

Sandia has brought together foreign

scientists and analysts in its cooperative

monitoring centers to help

resolve common security problems.

For example, two security experts

from India and Pakistan recently

wrote a Sandia-sponsored paper assessing

how to prevent nuclear terrorism

in South Asia.



But even if the labs maintain an

atmosphere of creative tension, the

larger question remains: What precisely

are they creating? Nonproliferation

specialists are engaged in a

heroic task?stopping the spread of

nuclear weapons. But they see proliferation

as the inherent problem,

not the security dilemma spawned by

continued possession of these weapons

by the United States and other

nuclear-armed countries.



Lab nonproliferation experts are

steeped in a culture that?more than

six decades after Hiroshima and

Nagasaki?still believes the path to

national security lies in maintaining

America?s competitive nuclear edge.

The ongoing paradox of their work is,

in part, the product of a bureaucracy

that seeks to sustain itself with new

missions after the Cold War. But it is

also a product of the larger paradox

of U.S. policy, which simultaneously

denounces the acquisition of nuclear

weapons abroad while seeking to upgrade

the nuclear deterrent at home.

Though the labs share a common

national security mission, it is, ironically,

this very mission that holds

them back from objectively analyzing

whether nuclear weapons will always

be needed for U.S. security. 



Nonproliferation specialists are engaged in a

heroic task?stopping the spread of nuclear

weapons. But they see proliferation as the

inherent problem, not the security dilemma

spawned by continued possession of these

weapons by the United States and others.



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 researching

and writing of this article.



66 BULLETIN OF THE ATOMIC SCIENTISTS MARCH/APRIL 2007

FEAR NOT

Continued from p. 37

1. The probability calculation, by astronomer

Alan Harris, is at psweb.sbs.ohio-state

.edu/faculty/jmueller/overblown.html.

2. Bart Kosko, ?Terror Threat May Be

Mostly a Big Bluff,? Los Angeles Times, September

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 of

International Terrorism After 9/11? (paper,

American Political Science Association, August

31, 2006); David C. Rapoport, ?Terrorists

and Weapons of the Apocalypse,? National

Security Studies Quarterly, vol. 5, no. 1, p.

50 (1999).

6. Milton J. Leitenberg, Assessing the Biological

Weapons and Bioterrorism Threat

(Carlisle, Penn.: Strategic Studies Institute,

U.S. Army War College, 2005), pp. 27?28.

Leitenberg notes that those arrested did have

in their possession a readily available book

that contained a recipe for making ricin. If

followed out, the recipe would have yielded

enough poison to kill one person if the substance

were injected.

7. Ron Suskind, The One Percent Doctrine:

Deep Inside America?s Pursuit of Its Enemies

Since 9/11 (New York: Simon and Schuster,

2006), pp. 194?98.

8. Shaun Waterman, ?Cyanide Gas Device

Probably Didn?t Work,? United Press International,

June 25, 2006.

9. Ian Lustick, Trapped in the War on Terror

(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania

Press, 2006), chap. 5.

10. Eric Lipton, ?Former Antiterror Officials

Find Industry Pays Better,? New York

Times, June 18, 2006, p. A1.

11. Bernard Brodie, ?The Development of

Nuclear Strategy,? International Security, vol.

2, no. 4, p. 83 (1978).

12. Clark R. Chapman and Alan W. Harris,

?A Skeptical Look at September 11th:

How We Can Defeat Terrorism by Reacting

to It More Rationally,? Skeptical Inquirer,

September/October 2002, p. 32.

13. Clark R. Chapman and Alan W. Harris,

?Response,? Skeptical Inquirer, January/

February 2003, p. 65.

14. David Gergen, ?A Fragile Time for

Globalism,? U.S. News and World Report,

February 11, 2002, p. 41; James Carafano

and Paul Rosenzweig, Winning the Long War:

Lessons from the Cold War for Defeating Terrorism

and Preserving Freedom (Washington,

D.C.: Heritage Books, 2005), p. 93.

15. Interview with Sen. Richard Lugar, Fox

News Sunday, June 15, 2003; Charles Krauthammer,

?Blixful Amnesia,? Washington

Post, July 9, 2004, p. A19; Charles Krauthammer,

?Emergency Over, Saith the Court,?

Washington Post, July 7, 2006, p. A17.

16. Graham Allison, Nuclear Terrorism:

The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe (New

York: Times Books, 2004), p. 19.

17. Graham Allison, Nuclear Terrorism:

The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe (New

York: Times Books, 2004), p. 191; Michael

Ignatieff, The Lesser Evil: Political Ethics in

an Age of Terror (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton

University Press, 2004), p. 147.

18. Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon,

The Age of Sacred Terror (New York: Random

House, 2002), pp. 398?99, 418.

19. Marvin R. Shanken, ?General Tommy

Franks: An Exclusive Interview with America?s

Top General in the War on Terrorism,?

Cigar Aficionado, December, 2003; Anonymous

[Michael Scheuer], Imperial Hubris:

Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror

(Dulles, Va.: Brassey?s, 2004), pp. 160, 177,

226, 241, 242, 250, 252, 263.

20. Jennifer C. Kerr, ?Terror Threat Level

Raised to Orange,? Associated Press, December

21, 2003.

21. Michael Ignatieff, ?Lesser Evils: What

It Will Cost Us to Succeed in the War on Terror,?

New York Times Magazine, May 2,

2004, pp. 46?48; Michael Ignatieff, The Lesser

Evil: Political Ethics in an Age of Terror

(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press,

2004), p. 146.

22. Bob Dart, ?Leak Plugged: Toll Estimate

Rises as Water Begins to Fall,? Atlanta

Journal-Constitution, September 6, 2005,

p. 1A. The estimate on September 24, for example,

was that nearly 7,000 had died (New

York Times, September 24, 2001, p. B2)

23. William M. Arkin, ?Goodbye War on Terrorism,

Hello Long War,? Washington Post weblog,

January 26, 2006, blogs.washingtonpost

.com/earlywarning; Gilmore Commission

(Advisory Panel to Assess Domestic Response

Capabilities for Terrorism Involving Weapons

of Mass Destruction), ?First Annual Report: Assessing

the Threat,? December 15, 1999, p. 37.

IN SICKNESS AND IN HEALTH

Continued from p. 44

1. David Harris, The Crisis (New York: Little,

Brown and Company, 2004), pp. 19?21.

2. Steven Erlanger, ?Sharon Suffers Extensive

Stroke and Is Very Grave,? New York

Times, January 5, 2006, p. 1.

3. ?Text of Proclamation Aired on Cuban

Radio,? Miami Herald Online Edition, August

1, 2006.

4. See for example, Jerrold M. Post ed.,

Psychological Assessments of Political Leaders,

(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press,

2003). Dr. Post was the founder of the CIA?s

Center for the Analysis of Personality and

Behavior and has written extensively on this

subject.

5. Leslie R. Pyenson, MD, ?The Physician

and Intelligence Analysis,? (remarks, American

Academy of Psychology and the Law

AAPL 2004 Annual Meeting, Scottsdale, Arizona,

October 22, 2004).

6. Jerrold M. Post and Alexander George,

Leaders and Their Followers in a Dangerous

World: The Psychology of Political Behavior

(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004), pp.

65?67, 80?82.

7. Seth S. King, ?Indonesia Says Plot to Depose

Sukarno Is Foiled by Army Chief,? The

New York Times, October 2, 1965, p. 1.

8. ?The Shah?s 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. 53?63.

12. Features of this dynamic include: the

nature of the physician?VIP patient relationship;

how the demands of high office compromise

the quality of a leader?s medical care;

and political implications of illness in a given

society. See Jerrold M. Post and Robert S.

Robins, When Illness Strikes the Leader: The

Dilemma of the Captive King (New Haven:

Yale University Press, 1993), p. xv.

13. Milos Jenicek and David L. Hitchcock,

Evidence-Based Practice: Logic and Critical

Thinking and Medicine (Chicago: AMA Press,

2005), p. 15.

14. Pyenson, AAPL remarks, October 22,

2004.

15. Pyenson, AAPL remarks, October 22,

2004.

16. Jack Anderson, ?CIA Snoops Study Ailments

of Leaders,? Washington Post, March

1, 1982, p. C13.

17. Walter Pincus, ?Analysts Seek Clues in

Public Silence of Bin Laden; Fugitive May Be

Dead, or Waiting for Dramatic Moment to

Reappear, Timed to Future Attack,? Washington

Post, April 24, 2002, p. A26.

18. ?Bin Laden?s Doctor Disappears,? CBS

News Online, November 14, 2002.

19. James Bamford, The Puzzle Palace

(New York: Penguin Press, 1983), p. 360.

20. Myles Maxfield, Robert Proper, and

Sharol Case, ?Remote Medical Diagnosis,?

Studies in Intelligence, Spring 1979,

pp. 9?14.

21. Ibid., pp. 11?12.

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, ?Impact

of Coronary Heart Disease on World

Leaders,? Annals of Internal Medicine, February

20, 2001, pp. 287?290; Francis X.

Brickfield and Leslie R. Pyenson, ?Impact of

Stroke on World Leaders,? Military Medicine,

March 2001, pp. 231?232; Leslie R. Pyenson,

F. X. Brickfield, and L. A. Cove, ?Patterns of

Death in World Leaders,? Military Medicine,

December 1998, pp. 797?800.

MAKE IT OR BREAK IT

Continued from p. 52

1. Participants were willing to speak on the

record if their names were not cited.

2. ?Labs Compete to Make New Nuclear

Bomb,? Associated Press, June 13, 2006.

3. Christopher E. Paine, principal author,

?Weaponeers of Waste,? Natural Resources

Defense Council, April 2004, p. 8, emphasis

in the original.

4. Andreas Toupadakis, ?The Reasons for My

Resignation from Lawrence Livermore National

Laboratory,? available at www.trivalleycares

.org.

5. ?Lawrence Livermore Lab Scientist

Quits Over Weapons Work,? Disarmament

Diplomacy, March 2001. MARCH/APRIL 2007 BULLETIN OF THE ATOMIC SCIENTISTS 67

6. Robert Civiak, ?The Reliable Replacement

Warhead Program: A Slippery Slope to

New Nuclear Weapons,? Tri-Valley CAREs,

January 2006.

7. Secretary of Energy Advisory Board,

Nuclear Weapons Complex Infrastructure

Task Force, ?Recommendations for the

Nuclear Weapons Complex of the Future,?

Draft Final Report, Energy Department, July

13, 2005.

8. James Sterngold, ?Key Legislators Threaten

Funds for Nuclear Weapons Overhaul;

Bush Administration Abandoning Effort to

Consolidate, They Say,? San Francisco Chronicle,

January 14, 2007, p. A4.

9. Nuclear Watch New Mexico and Tri-Valley

CAREs, ?A Joint Proposal for Management

of the Los Alamos National Laboratory,?

July 18, 2005.

10. Ian Hoffman, ?Feds Can Activists? Bid

to Run Nuke Labs,? Oakland Tribune, January

6, 2007.

NUCLEAR NOTEBOOK

Continued from p. 64

1. Essential references for following Russian

strategic nuclear forces include: the START

memorandum of understanding released by the

U.S. and Russian governments twice a year; the

U.S. Foreign Broadcast Information Service;

Pavel Podvig?s website on Russian strategic

nuclear forces, www.russianforces.org; and the

database ?Russia: General Nuclear Weapons

Developments,? maintained by the Monterey

Institute of International Studies? Center for

Nonproliferation Studies (CNS), www.nti.org/

db/nisprofs/russia/weapons/gendevs.htm.

2. ?Baluyevsky Says Russia To Have ?Thousands?

of Nuclear Warheads by 2010,? Interfax,

July 7, 2006. Yury Baluyevsky is also first

deputy defense minister.

3. Vladimir Putin, ?Annual Address to the

Federal 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? Command

Staff,? Moscow, November 16, 2006, www

.kremlin.ru/eng/.

5. Vladimir Putin, ?Speech at Meeting with

the Ambassadors and Permanent Representatives

of the Russian Federation,? Moscow, June

27, 2006, www.kremlin.ru/eng/.

6. ?Russia to Re-Equip Its New Mobile

ICBMs with Multiple Warheads,? RIA Novosti,

December 15, 2006.

7. An English translation of the paper is

available from CNS, cns.miis.edu/pubs/other/

rusfed.htm.

8. ?Russia Might Tear up ISR [INF] Missile

Treaty?Defense Ministry Source,? RIA Novosti,

August 28, 2006.

9. ?Russia Complains of U.S. Missile Defense

Plans,? Associated Press/International

Herald Tribune, December 13, 2006.

10. ?Russia: Missile Reduction Treaty Will

Not Harm Russia?s Nuclear Potential,? Interfax,

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 That

Does Not Care,? RIA Novosti, February 14,

2006.

13. ?Baluevski: Rossiiskie Rakety Budut

Preodolevat Luybye PRO? (Baluevski: Russian

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. 26?28, www

.wmdinsights.com.

14. Nabi Abdullaev, ?Russia Delays Joint

Exercise, Tests ICBMs,? Defense News, September

18, 2006, p. 4; ?Russian Defense Minister

Reports Successful ICBM Test-Launch,?

Mosnews.com, September 11, 2006.

15. ?Tu-160 Bomber to Remain Core of

Russian Long-Range Aviation,? RIA Novosti,

December 13, 2006.

16. Ibid.

17. ?Russian Strategic Bombers Launch Series

of Cruise Missiles,? Mosnews.com, August

24, 2006.

18. ?Russia Will Not Discuss its Nuclear

Weapons With U.S.?Official,? Mosnews.com

(ITAR-TASS), June 14, 2006.

19. An English translation of the paper

is available at, cns.miis.edu/pubs/other/

rusfed.htm.

20. Vladimir Putin, ?Annual Address to the

Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation,?

May 10, 2006, www.kremlin.ru/eng/.

ALL PHOTOS: CORBIS/JIM SUGAR

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