Apocalypse ahead: everyone's talking about the film 'The Peacemaker' - but when it comes to nuclear terrorism, truth is scarier than fiction.

This fall's Blockbuster movie "The Peacemaker" pits actors Nicole Kidman and George Clooney against a Bosnian terrorist headed for New York City with a grudge against the West and a backpack full of nukes. The duo's desperate attempts to prevent the bomb-toting villain from pulverizing the Big Apple make for an over-the-top, nail-biting thriller. But although Hollywood has taken its usual artistic license with the film, "The Peacemakers'"s central premise is less implausible than viewers may suspect--and far more possible than government experts and scientists want the public to know.

"I could build a fifteen-kiloton bomb in my kitchen--certainly powerful enough to kill a million people in the middle of Manhattan," says Ted Taylor, one of the chief weapons designers at the Los Alamos National Laboratories during the days when it was still the primary design facility for U.S. nuclear weapons. Taylor is now a professor at Princeton, and like many who've worked in the nuclear field, he's gravely concerned about the prospects of a real-life Peacemaker scenario.

A decade after the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the progressive dismantling of the Soviet military-industrial complex, Americans bask in the belief that the specter of nuclear destruction is but a vanquished demon, an anachronistic menace that no longer has a place in a post-Cold War world. But although the odds of a strategic nuclear attack may have disappeared along with the former Soviet Union, the possibility that a rogue state or terrorist organization will use weapons of mass destruction in some unconscionable act has, if anything, increased. The growing threat, say physicists, congressmembers, and members of the intelligence community, is the result of the convergence of four key developments: the proliferation of knowledge about how to construct such weapons, the increasing amount of fissile material, the deterioration of the security systems protecting that material, and the changing face of international terrorism.

You Don't Have to Be a Rocket Scientist 

Twenty years ago, a writer named Howard Morland made headlines by publicly unveiling his design for a homemade thermonuclear bomb. Predicated on information gleaned from sources ranging from the Encyclopedia Americana to a host of declassified documents, Morland's 270-pound device bore little resemblance to government photos depicting hydrogen bombs as 20-foot long, 20-ton behemoths. Morland's point in developing the schematic was to heighten awareness of the proliferation of potentially dangerous information, and to debunk the belief that weapons of mass destruction were impossibly difficult to either construct or transport. The viability of his amateur schematic--and the validity of his assertions--was made evident when the U.S. government unsuccessfully sued to prevent its publication. (The design eventually ran in the November 1979 issue of The Progressive.)

Morland's schematic was more conceptual than tactical--precise details were missing--leading some skeptics, including a group of scientists assembled by the Nuclear Control Institute (NCI), to assert that a layman still lacks sufficient information to build a bomb. "The detailed design drawings and specifications that are essential before it is possible to plan the fabrication of actual parts are not available," the group pointed out. Furthermore, "the preparation of these drawings requires a large number of man-hours and the direct participation of individuals thoroughly

informed [about] ... the physical, chemical, and metallurgical properties of various materials to be used, as well as the characteristics affecting their fabrication."

But cut through the scientific mumbo-jumbo, and one finds that such knowledge is a lot easier to obtain than these scientists care to admit. For instance, a key piece of information that would-be nuke builders might require relates to the critical mass of fissile material needed to induce fission under select circumstances. Now granted, this is not the type of technical calculation your run-of-the-mill terrorist can work out by conducting experiments in his bathtub. According to Ted Taylor, however. "if someone gets a hold of the Los Alamos critical-mass summaries, he can see how much material is critical in various forms--various ways of shaping the metal, various reflectors wrapped around it" Not planning a trip to New Mexico anytime soon? No problem. Critical-mass summaries can be obtained by writing to the National Technical Information Service in Washington, D.C. "They cost three dollars," offers Taylor.

In any event, such detailed information may not even be necessary. Luis Alvarez, a physicist of Manhattan Project fame, claims that if one possesses the right material, even imprecise information is sufficient to achieve a nuclear explosion. "With modern weapons-grade uranium," Alvarez points out in a NCI study, "... terrorists, if they had such material, would have a good chance of setting off a high-yield explosion simply by dropping one half of the material onto the other half. Most people seem unaware that if separated U-235 is at hand, it's a trivial job to set off a nuclear explosion.... Even a high school kid could make a bomb in short order."

Of course know-how is of little use to a bomb-maker if he can't get his hands on the right ingredients. But the actual quantity of fissile material he'll need is pretty small. "The minimum amount of material needed to make a bomb is less than one kilogram of plutonium-239 or three kilograms of uranium-235," notes Taylor. And although a crude bomb constructed by terrorists would most likely require a larger critical mass of fissionable materials, the necessary quantity would still be far from prohibitive. The finished device, says Taylor, would be small enough "to fit in the trunk of a Volkswagen Beetle."

Nukes on the Loose

What's more, rounding up a bit of fissile material isn't as tough as it used to be, particularly in the destabilized states of the former USSR. In testimony before the Senate in March of last year, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) described a report by the General Accounting Office (GAO) that details the depths to which security at Soviet nuclear waste storage facilities has sunk: "A GAO investigator was able to enter one facility without identifying himself, and there was only one guard present, who was unarmed. There are other descriptions of incredibly lax security that even the most inept thief could easily penetrate undetected. It is almost an open invitation. The implications of this are staggering. A grapefruit-sized ball of uranium, which would weigh about 30 pounds, could obliterate the lower half of the city of New York. A lot more uranium than that is already unaccounted for. We do not know whether it is in the hands of terrorists, or where it is. All we know is that it is missing."

The nuclear weapons situation in Russia is no more comforting, with approximately 27,000 nuclear warheads and 1,300 tons of fissile material lying around, providing a tempting smorgasbord for wannabe terrorists. And in the wake of the USSR's collapse, the vigilance with which this stockpile was once guarded has deteriorated precipitously. Russian Gen. Alexander Lebed recently announced that during a routine inventory, 84 Special Atomic Demolition Munitions, or tactical nukes, were found to be missing from the Russian arsenal. All told, Russia has about 17,000 tactical nukes. Small enough to fit into an average-sized suitcase (making them a prime target for thieves), each bomb is capable of demolishing Manhattan. And even though the U.S., through the Material Protection, Control, and Accounting Program, is working with authorities in the former Soviet states to remove or at least secure the nuclear material lying around in research facilities and nuclear power plants, much of this nuclear material will remain vulnerable to theft or sabotage for years to come. The gravity of the situation is evident to the Russians, if not to our own government: Last October, the director of one of Russia's major nuclear weapons research centers killed himself, explaining in his suicide note that he was no longer capable of guaranteeing the security of the nuclear materials under his supervision.

According to William Potter, Director of the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, in the former Soviet Union alone there have been seven documented cases of significant quantities of bomb-grade nuclear materials being stolen (as opposed to simply disappearing) since the USSR's collapse. And, according to a study conducted by the Harvard-based Center for Science and International Affairs, nuclear material is already being traded on the black market. The study revealed that in August 1994, German police arrested two passengers on a flight from Moscow to Munich who were carrying a suitcase containing nearly a pound of 87 percent-pure plutonium-239. Likewise, in December of that same year, three kilograms of highly enriched uranium (87.5 percent pure) were seized in Prague, along with Soviet nuclear documents.

These were not isolated events. According to the CSIS report, "during a three-and-one-half month period in mid-1992, a chemical engineer named Leonid Smirnov stole approximately 3.7 pounds of HEU (90 percent enriched) from the Luch Scientific Production Association at Podolsk, Russia. Smirnov, who had been employed at the Luch plant since 1968, removed HEU from the plant on 20-25 separate occasions, each time using a 50-70 gram jar" And the list goes on.

In a destabilized region undergoing profound economic and social transformations, such acts of theft are inevitable. As Senator Nunn stated in testimony delivered in September 1996, "It is simply unrealistic to assume that the tons of nuclear materials that are improperly secured, along with thousands of out-of-work Soviet weapons scientists and their equipment will never end up in the wrong hands. Add to this new proliferation problem the evidence of possible organized crime involvement in weapons smuggling and you have the ingredients of a full-blown disaster looming on the horizon."

But terrorist groups are not the only ones itching to get their hands on nuclear weapons. Rogue nations like Syria, Iran, and Iraq--many of which are known sponsors of terrorism--are determined to join the nuclear club, even if it requires a little extralegal shopping. For instance, in their new nonfiction book One Point Safe (on which "The Peacemaker" was loosely based), authors Andrew and Leslie Cockburn describe how Iraqi leader Sadaam Hussein's son Qusay leads a special covert unit charged with purchasing nuclear missile parts on the Russian black market.

Nor is the Soviet Union the only source of nukes for these nations. The raw ingredients they need to construct a viable weapon are often as close as the nearest nuclear power plant--located either within their own borders or in neighboring countries. Certain types of nuclear reactors, known as "breeders," produce a surplus of plutonium in a form that can be readily converted into weapons-grade material. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is supposed to ensure that the nuclear material these plants use and produce is directed toward peaceful purposes only. But as Paul Leventhal, founder of the Nuclear Control Institute and former staff director of the Senate Nuclear Regulation Subcommittee, points out: "The IAEA acknowledges in its technical safeguards documents that, due to measurement uncertainties, its nuclear-accounting system cannot with confidence defect the diversion of bomb quantities of nuclear materials."

The technology is out there, the raw materials are plentiful--so just how worried should we be? Would a terrorist group that got its hands on a nuclear weapon actually dare to use it against us? Recent events speak for themselves: The World Trade Center bombing, the Aum Shinrikyo attack on the Tokyo subway, and the destruction of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City all point to a major shift in the sophistication and tactics of the world's fanatics. Bruce Hoffman, an analyst for the Rand organization, suggests that these events are a portent of what is to come: "The March 1995 deadly nerve gas on the Tokyo underground marks an historical watershed in terrorist tactics and weaponry. Previously, most terrorists had an aversion to the esoteric and exotic weapons of mass destruction popularized in fictional thrillers or depicted in action-hero movies and television shows. Indeed, the pattern of terrorism over three decades suggests that many groups are impelled by an inner dynamic, an organizational imperative, towards escalation."

Not only has the terrorists' modus operandi changed, but so, too, have their capabilities. Heretofore, it was erroneously presumed that terrorist organizations lacked the requisite infrastructure or resources to engage in nuclear terrorism. Yet the Aum, who were actively exploring the use of nuclear weapons, built an organization with 50,000 adherents, $1 billion in assets, and a staff of elite scientists--all without raising alarm. A congressional permanent subcommittee on investigations was shocked to find "that the Aum and their doomsday weapons were simply not on anybody's radar screen."

The Battle Plan

The proliferation of nuclear material and weapons, the destabilization of the Soviet regime, the vulnerability of American targets, and the growth of fanatic groups and rogue states have all combined to move us ever closer to nuclear disaster. So what's a conscientious superpower to do? The first, most important step: place greater emphasis on the control of fissile material.

To its credit, the Clinton administration has taken a stab at addressing the problem. It has convinced the former Soviet republics of Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan to give up their nuclear weapons (though not all their nuclear materials) in exchange for economic assistance. And it has helped physically remove more than 1,300 pounds of highly enriched uranium from Kazakhstan. There remains, however, much to be done. Our only hope of preventing an apocalyptic terrorist event is through a multi-step program that first moves to secure the existing stockpiles of fissile materials, then works to develop organizations with the skills and infrastructure to prevent terrorist attacks. Among the actions the U.S. should take:

1) Develop a systematic method of providing physical protection for existing stockpiles of fissile materials that exist throughout the world. This method may include rendering this material "inactive" through innovative encasement procedures, or in the case of highly enriched uranium, through dilution with non-fissile uranium isotopes. The United States must also insist that such standards for containment are adopted by the global nuclear community; otherwise, they will be of little value.

2) Develop a set of international protocols for the transfer of fissile materials that includes a method of tracking their whereabouts during transit.

3) Create an international intelligence organization capable of monitoring and responding to threats of nuclear terrorism.

Unfortunately, at present, U.S. leaders seem more excited by the pursuit of pie-in-the-sky missile defense systems (which scored a whopping $3.8 billion in the latest defense budget) than in the more pedestrian task of safeguarding fissile materials. As the Harvard Center for Science and International Affairs study concluded: "Despite the serious threat of loose nuclear weapons and fissile materials and despite the existence of a panoply of measures that could help reduce the likelihood of leakage from the deadly arsenal of former Soviet weapons and fissile materials, at present there appears to be little prospect that America's leaders ... will take the lead in crafting a more ambitious and potentially effective anti-leakage effort. No new initiative, however vital to the interests of the United States, has much prospect of getting a serious hearing in the climate of massive deficits, deep budget cuts, partisan rivalry, electoral calculations, and shrinking imagination."

But such misplaced priorities are too dangerous to be left uncorrected. Congress, and the American people, need to fully awaken to the challenge and the danger that face us. Nuclear terrorism is a global threat that will require a coordinated international response. The United States released the nuclear genie; it has an obligation to take the lead in stuffing it back in the bottle.

John Leifer is a consultant and writer based in Kansas City, Kan.