The Mushrooming Nuclear Menace

The nuclear genie stubbornly refuses to return to its lamp. International conferences and agreements have tried to stem the spread of atomic weapons, but the nightmare of potential nuclear holocaust persists. Recent events, in fact, suggest that the dangers from nuclear proliferation and the atomic arms race are probably greater now than at any time since the first mushroom cloud rose over New Mexico's desert near Alamogordo three decades ago. Last week, for instance, West Germany agreed to sell Brazil facilities and technology that could enable Brasilia to develop nuclear arms. Meanwhile, both the U.S. and the Soviet Union are pushing ahead with the development of new weapons that could undermine whatever progress may be made at the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT), which are scheduled to resume in Geneva this week after a recess of nearly two months.

PROLIFERATION. Washington is deeply disturbed by the Bonn-Brasilia agreement. Over the next 15 years, Brazil will pay from $4 billion to $8 billion for a "full cycle" nuclear complex, giving it all the facilities needed to assemble an atomic power industry completely independent of foreign supplies. The package includes up to eight nuclear power reactors, a uranium enrichment plant, a fuel-rod fabrication plant and a fuel-reprocessing facility.

As a commercial transaction, this may well be the atom deal of the century, as many West German businessmen boast. But it has ominous implications for international stability. Endowed with plentiful uranium and thorium deposits, Brazil could use the enrichment plant not only to obtain a concentration of radioactive isotopes sufficient to fuel a nuclear power station, but also to produce the higher concentrations required for bombs.

The U.S. unsuccessfully tried to block, and then delay the Bonn-Brasilia deal. Washington argued that because a full cycle complex had never been sold to any nonnuclear nation, West Germany would be setting a dangerous precedent that could only increase the chance of nuclear proliferation. So far, only the U.S., the Soviet Union, China, France and Britain possess the costly, complicated plants to produce enriched uranium. All other nations must come to these powers for nuclear fuel for reactors. Washington pointed out that U.S. firms are strictly prohibited from selling enrichment plants abroad; Brazil, in fact, would like to have bought the full cycle from U.S. manufacturers but was unable to because of the ban.

On the other hand, Washington is quite willing to sell enriched uranium to nations that can use it properly. Last week President Ford proposed that private industry, and not just the U.S. Government, should be allowed to produce and sell enriched uranium round the world. To head off critics who worry about the weakening of controls over nuclear materials, Ford insisted, in his message to Congress, that "all necessary controls and safeguards will be maintained in all arrangements with private firms."

To counter Washington's arguments, Bonn contended that if it did not provide Brazil with all elements of the full cycle, then another country, meaning France, probably would. Bonn also emphasized that it had obtained Brazil's promise that the German-supplied facilities will be used solely for peaceful purposes and will be open to inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Vienna-based organization that polices the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

American experts fear the safeguards are inadequate. The IAEA is understaffed and lacks experience in inspecting full cycle systems. Washington also worries that Bonn may have as little success monitoring reactors in Brazil as Ottawa did in India; the Indians were able to divert nuclear materials from a Canadian-supplied power reactor in order to explode their first atom bomb a year ago last May. Moreover, Brazil's professions that it would use its nuclear facilities only for peaceful purposes encounter some skepticism; Brasilia has not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and there have been persistent reports that it plans to develop nuclear explosives.

Sales Agreement. Even as Bonn and Brasilia were putting the finishing touches on their sales agreement in late May, most of the 94 nations that have ratified the Non-Proliferation Treaty were meeting in Geneva to review its first five years. When it was drafted, the treaty seemed to offer some hope that nations possessing nuclear weapons would pledge not to give them away or assist other nations in producing them, while countries without the arms would promise not to accept or manufacture them.

Disappointingly, only three of the nuclear powers --the U.S., the Soviet Union and Britain--have ratified the treaty so far; France, China and India have not even signed and give no indication they will. The treaty has also not been approved by several states with nuclear potential:

Argentina, Japan, Pakistan, Israel and South Africa, as well as Brazil. Thus most experts rate the treaty a failure.

Moreover, the danger keeps mounting. At the Geneva meeting, British Diplomat David Ennals pointed out that in 1970 there were 101 known nuclear power reactors in the world; by 1978 the total will have risen to at least 329, all of them producing as a byproduct deadly plutonium, which can substitute for uranium in making atomic weapons.

The Geneva conference adjourned without taking any concrete steps to strengthen the treaty. Nonetheless, tougher measures to monitor the spread of nuclear technology may still be possible. In mid-June representatives of the U.S., Soviet Union, Britain, France, West Germany, Japan and Canada (the so-called nuclear suppliers club) secretly gathered in London for their second meeting this year. The Bonn-Brasilia full cycle deal was apparently on their minds; it is believed they reached a consensus for drafting new controls for the transfer of nuclear supplies and technology. A new code, for instance, might force nuclear equipment buyers--like Brazil--to permit very strict inspection of all their atomic facilities. Moreover, representatives of the suppliers club decided to meet every three or four months until a new system of tightened safeguards is developed.

SALT. Limiting strategic arms remains the elusive goal of the SALT talks. At the semiweekly plenary sessions, the American and Soviet negotiating teams will be trying once again to hone an accord from the general guidelines adopted by Ford and Soviet Party Chief Leonid Brezhnev at their Vladivostok summit last November. There the two leaders agreed to limit their nations' arsenals to 2,400 strategic weapons each, of which 1,320 could be armed with multiple warheads, or MIRVs (multiple independently targeted re-entry vehicles).

Since Vladivostok, however, the diplomats at Geneva have been deadlocked, primarily by their inability to agree on the method by which the number of MIRVs will be calculated. The nub of the problem is Moscow's new SS-18 monster missile. More than six times as powerful as the U.S. Minuteman III, the SS-18 can carry a single warhead delivering a 50-megaton explosive punch (creating a fireball 36 miles in diameter and blasting a 300-ft.-deep hole in granite), or it can be fitted with up to eight MIRVs.

Inside the Tip. The Soviets want to retain the option of arming some of their SS-18s with single warheads and some with MIRVS. The U.S. argued that such a mix makes policing the SALT agreement nearly impossible. Reason: the satellite photos both sides use to count the number of missiles are unable to "peek" inside the tip of the missile to see if it has a multiple warhead. The U.S. position has thus been that once a class of missile has been tested with MIRVs, all units of that class must be considered MIRVed.

In recent weeks, however, there have been indications that the U.S. may be prepared to back away from this position. Washington has hinted that satellite photos may now be able to distinguish a group of MiRVed missiles from a group of single-warhead missiles. Although few details are available, it is believed that the extra ground equipment required by the MIRVs is detectable from the air. If so, only those SS-18s located near facilities used for MIRVS would be counted as carrying multiple warheads.

The negotiators at Geneva are under pressure to break the impasse in order to have a SALT II agreement ready for signature when Brezhnev visits Washington later this year. A new treaty will supersede the 1972 SALT I accord, which temporarily froze the total number of strategic missiles but gave the Soviets an advantage in the absolute number of missiles. That agreement was made, despite strong Pentagon opposition, to offset the commanding MIRV lead the U.S. then enjoyed. SALT II will, among other things, limit the U.S. and U.S.S.R. to one anti-ballistic missile site each, instead of the two ABMs permitted by SALT I.

At best, SALT II will be no more than a holding action; rather than calling for a reduction, it merely places a relatively high ceiling on the number of strategic weapons the U.S. and Soviet Union deploy. Moreover, both Moscow and Washington are spending enormous sums to increase the punch their warheads deliver and improve missile accuracy by refining initial guidance mechanisms and the controls that enable a warhead to be maneuvered after it is launched. There is great danger in this research. New breakthroughs in missile accuracy, for instance, might render an adversary's land-based missiles vulnerable to first-strike attack. That kind of development would seriously tilt the nuclear balance upon which SALT--and much of detente--has been based.

In addition, the U.S. and Soviet Union are working on exotic new weapons, such as air-transported laser systems. This might have been what Brezhnev was referring to when he recently warned of the "serious danger of the development of weapons even more frightful than nuclear arms." Not until progress is made on a SALT III treaty, aimed at actually reducing the quantity of nuclear weapons and curbing their qualitative improvements, will there be some hope that a start has been made on containing the nuclear genie.

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