Nuclear Proliferation and Accidents
Jun 8, 2017 | Briefing Book
Japan Announces Policy Change on Plutonium Overhang
Possible Turning Point for Nuclear Nonproliferation Efforts
Internal Debates, Media Coverage, Pressure from Allies and Neighbors, and Economic Realities Compel Retreat from Decades-Long Plutonium Delusion
Apr 12, 2017 | Briefing Book
Washington, D.C., April 12, 2017 – The Ford administration had to use a combination of approaches to keep South Korea’s Park dictatorship from going forward with a suspected nuclear weapons program in the mid-1970s, according to documents posted today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University and the Nuclear Proliferation International History Project.
Mar 22, 2017 | Briefing Book
Washington, D.C., March 22, 2017 – President Park Chung-hee reportedly instructed South Korean scientists to build nuclear bombs by 1977, according to a secret report to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger posted today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University. The Ford administration accumulated other evidence that raised worries about proliferation and regional instability.
Dec 6, 2016 | Briefing Book
Washington, D.C., December 8, 2016 - A CIA-sponsored panel of well-respected scientists concluded that a mysterious flash detected by a U.S. Vela satellite over the South Atlantic on the night of 22 September 1979 was likely a nuclear test, according to a contemporaneous report published today for the first time by the National Security Archive and the Nuclear Proliferation International History Project.
Nov 2, 2016 | Briefing Book
The NUMEC Affair: Did Highly Enriched Uranium from the U.S. Aid Israel's Nuclear Weapons Program?
Document collection and introduction by Roger J. Mattson, PhD
Oct 7, 2016 | Briefing Book
Washington D.C., October 7, 2016 -Thirty years ago, a Soviet nuclear submarine with about 30 nuclear warheads on board sank off U.S. shores north of Bermuda as Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan were preparing for their historic summit in Reykjavik, Iceland. But instead of Chernobyl-style denials, the Soviet government reached out to the Americans, issued a public statement, and even received offers of help from Washington, according to the never-before-published transcript of that day’s Politburo session, posted today by the National Security Archive.
Oct 14, 2015 | Briefing Book
Washington, D.C., 14 October 2015 - In July 1984, U.S. customs agents arrested a Pakistani national, Nazir Ahmed Vaid, at Houston International Airport for trying to purchase krytrons--useful for triggering nuclear weapons—and smuggle them out of the United States Some months later, Vaid was found guilty of violating export control laws, but a plea bargain produced a light penalty: deportation. Months later, journalist Seymour Hersh wrote a major article about the Vaid case for the New York Times and quoted a U.S.
Aug 29, 2015 | Briefing Book
Related Materials
Nunn-Lugar Revisited
U.S.-Russian cooperation on threat reduction from the Soviet Union in 1991 to Syria in 2013
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 447
Project Sapphire 20th Anniversary
More than a half-ton of weapons-grade uranium removed from Kazakhstan in 1994
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 491
Photos
1. The Bal Qar Gai conference “yurt.” Tom Blanton at the head of the conference table.
Jul 14, 2015 | Briefing Book
Washington, D.C., July 14, 2015 -- Four decades ago -- in the mid-1970s -- U.S. and Iranian officials haggled over a range of concerns that uncannily prefigured similar clashes that surfaced prior to today’s history-making nuclear accord between the P5+1 governments and Iran, according to documents posted today by the National Security Archive at www.nsarchive.org. The documents from the 1970s record the Shah of Iran’s insistence that his country had “rights” under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) to develop such a program.
Jun 29, 2015 | Briefing Book
Washington, D.C., June 29, 2015 – Long before Iran’s nuclear enrichment capabilities – based on gas centrifuge technology – became the center of international negotiations, the U.S. tried to deny that same technology to any country that sought it. In 1954, Washington prohibited a company in occupied Germany from selling gas centrifuges to Brazil, according to declassified documents published today for the first time by the National Security Archive and the Nuclear Proliferation International History Project (NPIHP).