If the Devil doesn’t make work for idle hands, some would-be nuclear warlord might do it for him - Muammar Kaddafi, say, or Saddam Hussein. Both Russia and the United States are deeply concerned that unemployed Soviet nuclear-weapons scientists may try to sell their skills to unscrupulous bidders overseas. So far, there’s no evidence that a brain drain has actually begun. But the CIA has heard that countries like Iran, Libya and Iraq “have been making attempts to try to get these people,” says an intelligence source. “This is an extremely dangerous situation,” says Rep. Bill Richardson, a member of the House Intelligence Committee,‘more dangerous than terrorists getting their hands on nuclear weapons directly."
That could happen too. Recently, a topsecret U.S. National Intelligence Estimate warned there was at least a 10 percent chance of some disgruntled former Soviet officer trying to sell a relatively portable tactical nuclear warhead to foreigners. Energy Department analysts added a footnote estimating the danger at 30 percent. Since the abortive coup last August, Soviet scientists at international conferences have inquired whether their American counterparts were interested in buying military products, including spy-satellite photos of the United States and a giant SS-18 strategic missile (minus the warhead). U.S. experts also worry that Russian scientists may try to peddle laboratory instruments or software overseas. “There are export controls on all this stuff,” says Gary Milhollin, director of the Washington-based Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control. “But the bad guy only needs to find one weak spot. Now there’s a gigantic weak spot in the former Soviet Union.”
The Soviet nuclear arsenal is particularly vulnerable to tampering just now. Under Secretary of State Reginald Bartholomew has told Congress that, before the end of the century, all of the long-range missiles deployed in Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan will be eliminated, leaving Russia as the only republic with strategic weapons. Tactical nuclear weapons scheduled for destruction already are being moved to Russia from other republics; a U.S. official says spy satellites have spotted “a massive movement” of weapons. Although Russia’s increasing control over the nuclear arsenal is reassuring, safety experts say theft is most likely while the weapons are in transit.
The potential traffic in human commodities is even more worrisome. To keep scientists content, Russian President Boris Yeltsin has promised them a fivefold pay increase. But that works out to a maximum average salary of about $75 a month, hardly enough when prices are soaring. Morale is scraping bottom for other reasons. “The problem with these scientists is that they feel their talents are no longer needed,” says Sergei Kortunov, an arms-control expert at the Russian Foreign Ministry. “They no longer feel in demand.”
Pride, patriotism and strict controls on emigration all help to prevent defections by nuclear scientists. Moscow and Washington are anxiously casting about for other inducements. Congress has appropriated $400 million to help the new Commonwealth of Independent States secure and dismantle its nuclear missiles and chemical weapons. Many congressmen think part of the money should be used to keep Soviet weapons scientists at home and help them find civilian jobs. “Considering the threat of nukes on the loose, this could be described as a sound way to stop a lot of bang for the buck,” says Sen. Joseph Biden.
Another proposal is to pay commonwealth scientists to dismantle nuclear weapons. “This can be done only by those who manufacture them, which is us,” says Viktor Mikhailov, Russia’s deputy minister for atomic power and industry. But Kortunov says the dismantling effort is stymied by several costly problems, notably a lack of adequate storage space for plutonium, the most dangerous of the materials left over when nuclear warheads are destroyed (chart).
When Secretary of State James Baker visits Moscow this week, he and Yeltsin will discuss a U.S. proposal to set up a clearinghouse that could help former Soviet scientists find jobs, preferably at home, with foreign commercial or academic employers. The Americans also may explore the possibility of U.S.-Russian space projects, possibly using powerful Soviet booster rockets. Other new jobs might be generated by Yeltsin’s proposal for a joint U.S.-Russian program to build a global missile-defense system, a sort of universal Star Wars. “Baker will have to determine if Yeltsin is being serious, or merely clever,” says a senior U.S. official. “If he’s serious, we would be, too.”
Even if such projects pan out, nonmilitary jobs also will have to be found. Scientists could be put to work on commercial or environmental projects, such as nuclear waste disposal. The problem is that, after decades of military domination, the former Soviet Union has almost no high-tech civilian economy. And many of the scientists aren’t ready for free enterprise. “They don’t bargain well, and they don’t understand supply and demand,” says an American scientist who knows many of them.
Last week the Bush administration appointed a special coordinator for the braindrain problem: Robert Gallucci, who had worked for the U.N. commission that is trying to find and destroy Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. He and his colleagues will have to pick their way through a minefield of potential contradictions. Washington wants to encourage free emigration from the commonwealth, but not by nuclear scientists-unless, presumably, they choose to go to America or Europe. And as it tries to find satisfying work for unemployed bomb makers, Washington will be honing skills that could conceivably be used, under some future Russian regime, to put Moscow back into the nuclear weapons building business. The Waste From Weapons
Material, amount Treatment options on each side’ PLUTONIUM The most lethal residue of destroyed 24,000 years nuclear weapons. So difficult to dispose half life of that some scientists have studied the US: 100 tons unlikely option of launching it into the Ex-USSR: 120 tons sun. Could also be stored, very carefully, for later use-peaceful or military. ..L1.-
URANIUN+ Valuable material can be diluted for use 700 million years in civilian reactors. Russians hint they half life may sell it; theoretically, each of their US: 550 tons 20,000 or more warheads is worth $300,000. Ex-USSR: 120 tons ..L1.-
TRITIUM Has a few industrial uses, as in 12.5 years half life luminescent paint, but fades away US: 155 pounds relatively quickly. Best Ex-USSR: 65 + Ex-USSR: 65 + pounds strategy for postwarhead disposal: put it in storage until it disappears naturally. * ESTIMATES + HIGHLY ENRICHED
