Gloves on an Octopus

The task of making sure that countries adhere to nonproliferation standards is both a routine and a highly delicate business for the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency. The routine aspect involves the inspection work itself, which is carried out by more than 250 specially trained technicians from some 45 countries (come September, the agency hopes to recruit and train up to 30 more). They are charged with ensuring that there has been no diversion of "significant quantities" -- roughly those required to build an atomic weapon -- of nuclear material from the 876 facilities around the world covered by agency safeguards.

The delicacy frequently lies in arriving at safeguards agreements between the agency and countries with nuclear facilities. Each accord is negotiated individually. Country-to-country differences in agreements depend on the plants involved and the specific conditions under which governments consent to inspection. For signatories of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty all major nuclear installations are theoretically subject to visitation (states with nuclear weapons, like the U.S. and the Soviet Union, are treated somewhat differently, in that they dictate the terms of inspection). In countries such as India and Pakistan safeguards apply only to those facilities, or parts of facilities, where I.A.E.A. inspection was a condition of their purchase.

Much of the agency's work focuses on accounting. Officials scan the records of nuclear plants to determine whether all the radioactive material received is either properly stored and used or accounted for as waste. The inspectors also check film from tamper-proof cameras installed at strategic locations in nuclear facilities to discover possible abnormal movements of personnel and equipment and to watch for nonreported alterations in the plants. The frequency of inspection varies from three or four times a year under normal circumstances to sudden visits if an emergency occurs. A few inspections are unannounced. Certain facilities, like uranium enrichment plants, may be kept under continuous supervision. As the number and sophistication of safeguarded installations have grown, the inspectors' task has been described as "putting gloves on an octopus."

The agency's safeguards system has seldom been openly called into question. In 1981, following the Israeli attack on Iraq's Tammuz reactor, two inspectors unconnected with the facility resigned, charging suspicious Iraqi delays in allowing agency visits at the site. But France subsequently revealed that under a secret agreement with Iraq, French technicians had kept a constant eye on the workings of the Tammuz plant. That same year, while negotiating an upgraded agreement with Pakistan over safeguards at its Canadian-built reactor, the agency, without alleging any wrongdoing, said that it was unable to certify the facility. About two years later, after a new safeguards understanding was reached, the I.A.E.A. withdrew the advisory.

The inspection provisions cannot prevent anyone from trying to divert nuclear materials. At best, they provide an alarm system if misbehavior is possible or has already occurred. The system's most important function is that it demonstrates good faith on the part of countries that have agreed to participate. Says a former I.A.E.A. official: "Safeguards are in a way similar to detente. They can only survive if there is mutual trust."