The 27,000 nuclear weapons deployed in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan aroused the anxiety of the world public under the unpredictable conditions of the disintegration of the Union. Apprehensions were expressed in the West, and also in our country, with regard to the possibility that atomic weapons could fall into the hands of terrorists. Now the chaotic process of the country's disintegration has been stopped by the creation of the Commonwealth of Independent States. The Alma-Ata declaration stressed the need to retain unified control over nuclear weapons. The so-called 'nuclear button' was turned over to a new master. President B. N. Yeltsin of Russia. The decision to use it will be made after consultations with the heads of the four states where the nuclear weapons are located. These four states reaffirmed their commitment to no-first-use of nuclear weapons. They also reaffirmed their determination not to transfer nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices and technologies to anyone else. Nevertheless, the problem of the Soviet nuclear arsenal is still a matter of major concern to the Western politicians and military leaders, who know much more about it than our own citizens, through whose efforts the nuclear shield was established. We will reveal this mystery to them. Our interview today is with Professor V. N. Mikhaylov, Deputy Minister of Atomic Power and Industry, former 'top-secret' scientist and one of the creators of our country's nuclear weapons.

President Boris Yeltsin in the laboratory of academician A. I. Pavlovsky, 1992
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    Q : Viktor Nikitovich! We once wrote about the so-called 'red telephone', the direct line from the Kremlin to the White House. Now we have learned that the 'red telephone' is just a figure of speech and that the presidents actually communicate by a modem or fax. Much has been said recently about the 'nuclear briefcase' and 'nuclear button'. Does this 'button' really exist?

    A : I have to start by telling you that our missile launching system is extremely complex and does not respond to commands from a single source. As far as I know, the 'briefcase' and 'button' are figures of speech, symbolic terms rather than technical ones. No one can simply push a button, except to make a telephone call or summon a secretary. Our system, just as all of the others in the world, is multiply redundant. We have a complex hierarchy of access to launch systems.

    Q : Now that we frequently hear reports from 'hot spots' about the seizure of combat equipment, is there a possibility that a small nuclear warhead, for instance, might fall into the hands of terrorists or simply incompetent individuals?

    A : From the very start of our atomic programme, the need to preclude unauthorised access to nuclear weapons was a matter of special concern to the leading scientists and engineers. Today everything has been done to solve the problem at our present level of knowledge, which is equal to that of any other nuclear power. Furthermore, this solution is adjusted constantly in line with new requirements and achievements of science and technology. More and more new elements are being incorporated to enhance security. I feel there is no need for the public to worry about the possible seizure of weapons. No one is capable of seizing nuclear weapons, not to mention putting them to use. We have reliable neutralisation systems and security devices for this purpose.

A meeting with US Secretary of State Baker in Chelyabinsk-70, 1991
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    Q : We have heard that thousands "f nuclear weapons do not stay in the same place all the time as a dead stock. Could anything untoward occur during their transport?

    A : No, this would be impossible. The weapons are in a highly safe and secure state during transport. All of the main components are removed. The possibility of their use is virtually excluded. Nevertheless, they are transported only under strict control and under guard. We have developed special equipment for their transport by motor vehicle or rail. We have thousands of weapons, we have transported them more than once, and we have never had any problems.

    The physical features of all of today's nuclear devices absolutely exclude the possibility of spontaneous explosion. Moreover, the contamination of the environment with radioactive materials is precluded by transporting the veapons in special containers, capable of withstanding the most unforeseeable accidents. We are working on something called a safe explosive for these weapons. Some of the nuclear weapon systems in the United States are already using this. The safe explosive does not react to bullets, shrapnel or fire. It can be hit witru hammer, cracked or thrown. Only a special device can activate it.

In the office of Dr B Lown, co-chairman of 'Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War'
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    We have also been doing some work in that direction, but the progress has slowed down in the last five years because we could not conduct any nuclear tests for his purpose. As you know the moratorium on nuclear tests was amounced in October.

    Q : Nuclear weapons were born in he minds of scientists, people distinguished by vast knowledge md by a particular sense of responsibility to society and to the world. Do scientists have any control over nuclear weapons today or are all of them under the control of the politicians and the military alone?

    A : I think there should be a closer cooperation between scientists, specialists and the military today. Fhere should also be a closer cooperation between the Ministry of Atomic Power and Industry and the Ministry of Defence, as there is in the United States where these two agencies are accountable for anything connected with the nuclear-arms complex and report to the President. People in our country, however, have expressed the opinion, especially in recent years, that the military can make many of these decisions itself. This is a mistake. Soldiers cannot assemble or disassemble the weapons themselves. This can only be done by people who have been doing this for years in special plants. The dismantling technology is equally sophisticated. Several operations are even more dangerous and require more effort than the assembly of weapons. Obviously, only the people who built the devices are qualified to do this.

    Anyone who knows this is wary of the report that the Ukraine plans to invite our colleagues from the United States to participate in the dismantling of nuclear devices. As a specialist, I can assure you that an expert is unlikely to agree to dismantle a 'strange' nuclear device; this would be too much of a risk. Even for an experienced field engineer the disposal of mines and munitions left on a battlefield is a major ordeal. In comparison with a nuclear weapon, however, the conventional weapons are like a single-celled creature - a protozoan - in comparison with the human organism.

    Q : A sizable arsenal of nuclear weapons has been created over decades in our country. Now part of it is supposed to be destroyed in line with the Soviet-American agreements. How will this be done? What is the technology of destroying nuclear weapons?

    A : In general, it will entail the following. After the nuclear warheads are removed from the carriers, they will be put in a state of heightened safety. This means that combat systems can be transported with relative ease to the site of their destruction under reliable guard. It is possible that the uniform use of the facilities of the plants for the dismantling operation will require intermediate storage facilities. In the plant, all nuclear components - plutonium and highly enriched uranium - will be removed from the warheads and put in a storage or used in national economy. Other components will be fed into a compactor. Conventional explosives will be used for the production of artificial diamonds, and those which are not suitable for this purpose will simply be burned in combustion chambers.

    Highly skilled specialists are developing appropriate dismantling techniques. The longer the warheads are stored, the less practicable their dismantling becomes. In some cases it will be necessary to resort to demolition by segmentation. The appropriate research is being carried out to evaluate all options.

    We already have some experience in this field. The nuclear weapon is a sophisticated device consisting of electronic elements, generators, radioactive nuclear materials - uranium, plutonium and tritium - and conventional explosives. It also has a limited service life - ten to fifteen years, for example - after which it is dismantled. For this reason, we have always performed dismantling operations. The volume of work related to the recycling of nuclear weapons and their destruction is increasing in connection with the INF and START treaties and the tactical nuclear arms initiatives. In fact, our plants are occupied more with the elimination of old weapons than the manufacture of new ones even at this time.

    Q : Is cooperation with the USA in the elimination of nuclear weapons possible?

    A : Cooperation in this area is a delicate issue. Our specialists believe that the elimination processes should not be subject to verification, but the exchange of information about these processes is obviously necessary.The elimination itself, however, should be conducted by each side separately.

    Of course, there is one area in which we would accept American assistance. We discussed this with several senators in Washington recently, including Robert Kasten, Ted Stevens and Edward Kennedy. We discussed measures to speed up the elimination of our tactical nuclear weapons, artillery shells and mines which could take as long as ten years.

    The problem is that the lack of adequate storage capacity for nuclear materials - weapons-grade plutonium and uranium - is a bottleneck in the elimination of our tactical nuclear weapons, artillery shells and mines. Because of our financial difficulties, the construction of new storage facilities could take up to five years, and this is certain to delay the implementation of the initiatives for up to ten years.

    In view of the unique possibility of the substantial reduction of nuclear arsenals, we asked the Americans to consider the joint construction of these facilities and the allocation of US$500 million for this purpose. The American side could order evaluations of the design of the facilities, observe the progress of the construction projects, and participate in the joint control over the storage of weapons-grade nuclear materials in the storage facilities. None of this would be connected with any national secrets. If we get help in building the storage facilities, we can expect to shorten the amount of time needed for the elimination of tactical nuclear weapons. We have also calculated that up to 30% of the allocated funds should be used for improving ecological conditions and for solving consumer problems of everyday life in the regions of the joint construction projects and in the locations of the elimination of nuclear warheads.

    A bilateral commission could be set up to carry out this programme. The members on our side should include representatives of Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus and Ukraine, as well as representatives of the Ministry of Atomic Power and Industry and the Ministry of Defence. We have to take advantage of this unique opportunity and reduce our nuclear arsenals. I feel that we have accumulated enough nuclear weapons, and I know that the reduction of these stockpiles has always been a cherished dream of scientists and specialists. We have to leave only the quantity of nuclear warheads needed for defence, and no more.

    Q : Recently we have been hearing about more and more of the previously 'closed' cities that worked for the nuclear complex. We have heard that a whole secret archipelago existed under the auspices of the former Ministry of Medium Machine Building . .. Now that the closed cities have lost their privileged status, now that the processes of arms reduction and conversion are under way, what kind of future will they have?

    A : These cities are not on the map. They are surrounded by a barbed-wire fence, security checkpoints, and the appropriate warning devices. Most of the woods adjacent to the cities are surrounded by the same kind of a fence. Work areas, also protected by a special barrier, are suited in the woods. Experiments are carried out in some of these work areas, accompanied by the detonation of highly precise charges of conventional explosives in combination with various devices. In essence, these are models of nuclear devices for the purposes of pure research.

    I have to stress that the cities became restricted areas not because they had to be hidden from the public or kept secret, but because of the need to observe safety regulations during the performance of certain operations. There are zones or areas in these cities where dangerous operations are conducted, for example, and outsiders naturally have strictly limited access to those areas. Obviously, the models of weapons that are designed and built for subsequent delivery to nuclear test sites are a source of danger. That is why it is extremely important to limit the access to the closed cities for people who have no connection with this work. In view of today's rising crime rate, if these cities were unrestricted, we could not insure ourselves against attacks by vandals or even by extremists who might create serious hazard. Therefore, we should not be in a rush to open all 'closed' cities although the -standards of secrecy certainly have to change.

    The think tank of our domestic nuclear-arms complex - large research centres in Arzamas-16 and Chelyabinsk-70 - are our counterparts to Los Alamos and Livermore National Laboratories.

    The Research Institute of Experimental Physics is located in Arzamas-16, a closed city with a population of 100,000 in Nizhni Novgorod Region. The city is in a place which was known as Sarov before the revolution and was of great religious significance. There was a monastery there where the famous anchorite Serafim, who was later canonized, lived in the last century. Tsar Nicholas II went there with his wife and his retinue to pray for an heir at the beginning of this century. In fact, the Tsar's successor did make his appearance a year later, and this added even more to the appeal of this location, which was destined to become the birthplace of our atomic bomb.

    Our other national laboratory for the development of nuclear weapons was established on the shore of Lake Sinara in Chelyabinsk Region. The city of Chelyabinsk-70 and the institute -the Research Institute of Technical Physics (VNIITF) - were established at the same time.

    In essence, these are huge research and production centres, where research, design and production represent a single, continuous cycle and where unique experimental, computer and production bases have been established. The activity of these institutes has played a decisive role in securing the balance of USS and US nuclear arms. The potential of these scientific teams will enable the resolution of major problems in the scientific and technical support of nuclear disarmament processes as well. Within a relatively short time, these institutes grew into the country's largest scientific centres, and today they are also important at the international level. They are particularly well-known for their research in such fields of science as theoretical nuclear physics, mathematical physics, super high magnetic fields, powerful X-rays, and powerful pulsed reactors.

    The proportional amount of research and development projects in the fields with no military applications in these institutes is around 25% and is growing. Some are already being used widely in medicine, artificial diamond production, fibre-optic systems for the transmission of all types of information, environmental monitoring, and computer engineering.

    Q : There has been some apprehension recently in the West concerning the possibility that the Soviet nuclear scientists with a knowledge of 'sensitive' technologies might move to countries with a strong craving for nuclear weapons of their own ...

    A : The non-proliferation of 'sensitive' technologies is one of our prime concerns. I have to say that we have not seen any indication of a 'brain drain' from the enterprises and research centres of the nuclear-weapons complex to foreign countries. Of course, some people have left the country, but they had no connection with the main aspects of the technologies and had not worked at our enterprises for around five years. You must know that science and technology do not stand still. They are constantly advancing, and a person who cuts himself off from these advances no longer has the necessary potential. The backbone of our staff with the knowledge of 'sensitive' technologies is still in place.

    We cannot secure the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons technology without keeping our national professionals in this field and establishing the appropriate working and living conditions for them.

    We were able to compensate for our considerably inferior financial base, namely the annual expenditures on our national laboratories - 500 million roubles in comparison with US$1. 4 billion allocated for the Los Alamos, Livermore and Sandia national laboratories in the United States, and for the underdevelop-ment of our laboratory and computer base, only with the ingenuity of our scientists and designers and, what is most important, with nuclear tests in approximately the same numbers as the American tests. These tests are the main means of checking and improving the performance of nuclear weapons and the only method of obtaining experimental information about the physical processes occurring under the extreme conditions of a nuclear explosion.

    Q : How do you see the future of your ministry?

    A : Its exact status has to be defined. After all, it is working in two fields of major importance - nuclear weapons and nuclear power installations, including power units for nuclear power plants, submarines, surface ships, and so forth. In view of the importance of these fields, and the nuclear hazards associated with the design and development of these systems, and in view of the need for designer supervision and a unified technical and scientific-technical policies, it is clear that the nuclear sector cannot be left hanging for long, and that its problems must be solved.

    By a decision of the earlier agencies, our ministry was granted inter-state status. Now the situation has changed, and the position of the nuclear sector in the Commonwealth of Independent States is still not clear. We do know that 80% of our enterprises are located in Russia, and therefore I think that it would be appropriate to make it a Russian ministry. It should be under the President's jurisdiction. Why? The world has already an example of this. The comparable American department is subordinate to the President of the United States and prepares documents, in conjunction with the Department of Defence, for the President on the most important issues connected with the development of new types of nuclear weapons and their quantity production, storage, reliability and efficiency. The President considers, approves and makes decisions on the congressional funding of specific programmes.

    Incidentally, the American department and its regional administrations have a staff of around 15,000. The Nevada Test Site is a part of this department. In our country, as you know, the test sites are under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Defence.

    Of course, the support of industry and science within the confines of the ministry will require large expenditures - about 10 billion rubles a year - and all of the members of the Commonwealth of Independent States should contribute a share of this. After all, we have a common strategic defence and strategic space, as well as common interests in power industry, including nuclear power industry. It would be impossible for Russia to carry the whole heavy burden by itself.

    Q : What are the prospects for the nuclear-arms complex?

    A : I think that nuclear weapons, despite the present attitude of people toward these weapons, will guarantee their security for many years to come. The question of how many weapons we need is a different matter. Recent events have fostered the numerical reduction, and this is welcomed by everyone. The preservation of our scientific potential is the main concern. The important thing, after all, is not the number of weapons to produce, but the knowledge which gives us the ability to respond to any nuances in this area. That is why I think that a minimal number of nuclear tests must be conducted. Physics is an experimental science, and nothing can be accomplished by sitting at a desk in an office. The simulation of a nuclear explosion without tests is impossible. They are also needed to keep physical science on the proper level. If all countries stop testing, we will be on an equal level, but when one country has an opportunity to experiment and another does not, the latter is certain to lag behind the former, sooner or later.

    We all want a world without weapons and wars. This is a dream of mankind, but I think we will still be living with this dream for a very long time.

The interview was taken by Yu. Popov and L. Chemenko.