U.S. Energy Secretary To Tour Russian Nuclear Sites

Updated 7:23 AM ET September 28, 1999

MOSCOW (Reuters) - U.S. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson arrives in Russia Tuesday to tour U.S.-Russian nuclear non-proliferation programs set up to deal with vast stockpiles of nuclear material built up during the Cold War.

Richardson was due to land in Moscow from Vienna Tuesday afternoon and leave immediately for the port of Murmansk on the northern Barents Sea on the first leg of a five-day tour, the spokesman for the U.S. embassy in Moscow said.

The embassy said in a statement that the U.S. and Russia had both amassed huge stockpiles of plutonium and highly enriched uranium, the essential materials for nuclear weapons.

The U.S. Department of Energy, which maintains the nuclear weapons stockpile in the U.S, is now working with Russia to stop nuclear weapons materials and knowledge from falling into the hands of what it calls "rogue nations and terrorists."

Richardson, in Russia at the invitation of the Ministry of Atomic Energy and the Russian Navy, will visit Severomorsk near Murmansk, Dmitrovgrad near Samara on the river Volga, and the formerly closed nuclear city of Sarov, also on the Volga.

He will return to Moscow Friday, and is expected to give a news briefing Saturday to discuss the results of his trip.

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Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), September 28, 1999

Answers

Some two years ago there was a report on ABC news that some 20 short-range tactical missiles in Russia had been stolen, dismantled, and the remains buried in a trench. There was even footage of the lower stages being dug out of the trench by bulldozers. As far as I know there have been no reports that the warheads were ever recovered.

Given the state of the Russian military today, and the fact that nuclear weapons are a half-century old technology, I strongly doubt that even the best efforts of the DOE will prevent the theft of nuclear weapons material. The implication here is that some sort of nuclear terrorism or unconventional warfare is probably inevitable.

The authorities here have admitted as much but have not stressed this point because there seems to be no solution. Not a happy thought, but reality.

-- Forrest Covington (theforrest@mindspring.com), September 28, 1999.