Report points to threat of nuclear-plant raids

Press, 9 April 1977, Page 9

Report points to threat of nuclear-plant raids

NZPA-Reuter Washington

A report to President Cari ter of the United States says > that an atomic bomb could : be built within days of the . seizure of a nuclear-reactor fuel installation, but says I that prompt action can re- : duce the risk of such an incident. The report by the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment says that it is not too late to contain the spread of nuclear weapons. It cautions, how-1 ever, that “there are nosingle or all purpose solu-j tions. No short cuts.” Major threats of weapons proliferation are posed by reactor fuel-enrichment and reprocessing plants and by the fast breeder reactor, which produces large amounts of weapons-grade plutonium, the report says. It says that a few terror- ; ists could build a successful, but crude, atomic bomb with) material obtained from such, plants.

O.T.A. prepared the 500page report at the request of Senators Abraham Ribicoff, John Glenn, and Charles Percy. Senator Glenn

[presented it to Mr Carter at the White House.

H The O.T.A. report — one ’(of the most comprehensive JI assessments made of the ! | risks of nuclear proliferation ■[and the ways to combat that' 1 risk — examined nine| issues, including how non-1 • nuclear states might obtain! weapons, the chances of ter-i ’ rorists’ building an atomic bomb, and how proliferation might be controlled. “Given the weapons material and a fraction of a million dollars, a small group ■of people, none of whom I have ever had access to classified literature, could possibly design and build a crude nuclear explosive device,” the report says. “The group would have to include a person capable of searching and understanding the technical literature in several fields, and a jack-of- ] all-trades technician.” It would be hard to predict the effectiveness of : i such a bomb, the report ; ! says, but the device might , prove as powerful as the 20-]< kilotonne bomb dropped by I’ the United States on Hiro-h shima in 1945. ; “It could be a total failures

because of either faulty design or faulty construction • • . ,” the report says. “However, there is a clear possibility that a clever and - competent group could ■design and construct a device which would produce al [significant nuclear yield.” I A nation setting out to! produce nuclear weapons,, perhaps clandestinely, could achieve much higher chances of success within about two years using “perhaps a dozen well trained and very competent persons with experience in several fields of science and engineering,” the report says. It says that the cost would be “a few tens of millions of dollars.”

The report says that the time could be reduced vastly if reprocessing or enrichment facilities were seized by a Government that planned ahead. “An overt seizure of the plant or associated pluto-] nium stockpiles following abrogation of safeguards] commitments could, if preceded by a clandestine I weapons development programme, result in the fabric|ation of nuclear explosives I within days,” it says.