The Book and the Bomb - Reading Into “The Nuclear Express”

“Since the birth of the nuclear age, no nation has developed a nuclear weapon on its own, although many claim otherwise.” The overall theme of “The Nuclear Express: A Political History of the Bomb and its Proliferation,” speaks of information interaction - both consensual and covertly obtained. The authors, Thomas C. Reed and Danny B. Stillman, offer examples and in many cases develop the stories.

My introduction to this book came from “The New York Times” article of Dec. 30, 2008, “Soviets Stole Idea for the Hydrogen Bomb From U.S., Book Says.” The title is lengthy, but the first thing to catch my eye was the face of Andrei Sakharov. It’s a later-life photograph, but he’s still good-looking…still a grownup little boy with sensitive sad eyes, looking into you for an answer.

Andrei Sakharov led a duel life: first as a physicist and brilliant designer (traditionally hailed by the Russians as the Father of the Soviet Hydrogen Bomb)…while in the second half of his life, he fought to stop violations of human rights and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace.

Do those two specialties seem dissimilar? Working on his designs, Sakharov soon developed a growing concern for what he called, “the testing” to include every effort expended to produce a bomb. It was common in Russia to use forced labor - prisoners - in construction projects and nuclear work was especially dangerous. Life was often more akin to a prison, for high-ranking scientists and their families living in a secluded village, as well as for the serf-like workers constructing the projects - all were prisoners. This was the monastery village of Sarov or as “Nuclear Express” disclosed the site as Arzamas-16. Sakharov observed some of the terrible human toll construction of the bomb took. He also speculated on his own health, being exposed to a higher-than-safe amounts of radiation when viewing a test.

Did Sakharov complete his project for the hydrogen bomb with the help of an American - a Communist sympathizer, working for the nuclear weapons program in the United States? The authors of “The Nuclear Express” agree Sakharov was brilliant, and never had the opportunity to meet him, but say he never claimed intellectual rights to the third phase of the design. It could have been. I suggest Sakharov’s memoirs; be close to the man; read his own words.

Stillman and Reed present a compendium of cases for theft of America’s atomic secrets. With the hydrogen bomb, they use the codename PERSEUS, a person who was “…born in the United States, grew up in a foreign country, fell in with communist sympathizers during the depression, a person who worked at Los Alamos during WWII” …then… “became deeply involved in the American effort to develop the H-bomb.” They do not name the man…in order to protect the his surviving relatives.

For years, Klaus Fuchs was the catch-all spy when any suspicion arose in nuclear espionage. He worked at Los Alamos and left in 1946. When arrested in 1949, he confessed but claimed he was only helping to equalize the playing field so all could partake in nuclear technology. For Reed and Stillman in “Nuclear Express,” Fuchs has been eliminated as PERSEUS - didn’t fit their profile.

A better match might be George Koval - he was born in Iowa, at 18 moved to Russia with his parents, then moved back with the singular intention of spying on the United States nuclear weapons program. It was only after his death in 2006 at the age of 93, that Moscow awarded him a hero’s memorial a year later. The match sounds perfect except that he spent most of his lab time in Oak Ridge, TN and Dayton, OH (both projects concentrated on fuel production, not bomb design), but not at Los Alamos.

A plethora of clandestine disclosures is unfolding - from “The Times,” article of Jan. 18, 2009, “Book Claims Julius Rosenberg Recruited a Second Spy,” suggests the codename PERSIAN as being Russell W. McNutt, a New York engineer and Communist sympathizer, who died last year. But this man doesn’t seem to have the cachet needed to run with heads of various atomic projects. One of the authors of “Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America,” is John Earl Haynes. This Library of Congress historian and authority on atomic spying, commented a year ago to CNN after the admission by Russia of George Koval’s massive spying efforts - secret knowledge for 60 years.

Of course if there’s an opportunity to participate in hide and seek, many readers will want to post their “guess.” First to pop into my mind was Neils Bohr. He worked at Los Alamos and the comment has been made, “Bohr believed that atomic secrets should be shared by the international scientific community,” and especially favored sharing with Russia. But he was older and passed away in 1962.

It seems easy to mentally collect a tally of names of atomic scientists who believe information (secrets) should be shared - the raison they so often use for acts of espionage. With high tech, it can be a fine line between “sharing” and industrial espionage? There are some who would ask, why do we need to know what happened in the past, especially at this late date? Yes, but at what point does history stop being just an interesting story, and become a current “today”…for “tomorrow.”

Only just today, I became aware of some probable answers to the "who did it" mystery. Dr. Robert S. Norris is a senior research associate with Natural Resources Defense Council and a contributing writer for Huffingtonpost. He emailed me to say he had a name - Darol Froman. In a profile of 13 items suggested by "Nuclear Express," Mr. Froman was a match for 9, while the remainder was "information unknown." Sounds quite convincing, good work Dr. Norris. 

Reading “The Times” December 30 article, one might conclude that “The Nuclear Express” primarily concerns stolen secrets of the first hydrogen bomb, but a previous article from Dec. 9 shows the broader scope of this book. Two articles about the same book , in “The Times” in one month - looks like “The Times” is saying , don’t overlook this book.

Both authors come from positions of experience - Thomas Reed, as a former weapons designer and consultant at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, and Secretary of the Air Force in the Ford and Carter administrations, he is the author of “At the Abyss: An Insider’s History of the Cold War.”

Danny Stillwell is a nuclear weapons intelligence specialist.

In 1991, Mr. Stillwell was invited to the Sarov installation by Yuliy Khariton, the original developer of Russia’s entire nuclear program from the 1930s - Stillman was told he was the first American ever to visit this most secret site. Reed and Stillman concluded: “[the visit] was part of a campaign to mask the very extensive and continuing role of technical intelligence in the Soviet nuclear weapons program.” Khariton told Stillman, “Fuchs was our only spy.” Stillman was not convinced. Khariton didn’t want to divulge anything new; he did want to show off, and finally be recognized for his important work.

What was apparent was that the Russians were “excellent scientists doing incredibly good work, but publishing nothing…receiving no recognition from the Russian public nor from the world at large." Secrecy does not have it’s own rewards. Now in the Putin era, the move toward scientific openness in the 1990s has in many aspects slipped backwards - they don’t want to share. While the U.S. works on electronic weaponry EMP, the Russians see biotechnology as the “new frontier of science,” but it's still a matter of fuel and delivery.

During the 1990s, Mr. Stillman experienced another first. Both Reed and Stillman had been hosting a variety of Chinese scientists at Livermore Laboratory and at Los Alamos. Prof. Yang Fujia, the director of Shanghai Institute of Nuclear Research was visiting Los Alamos. He and Stillman were talking; a friendly conversation of sorts led to Stillman’s questions of this and that, and then, “Where was that (particular) site?” And then, “Can you arrange an invitation for me to visit that facility.” This led to several visits starting in 1990. In trying to determine “the likely reason for this Chinese hospitality, it was probably a yearning for scientific respect.”

This part of “Nuclear Express” is extremely interesting with details of the various sites visited, to include both the foreign-ness and the world-expanding experiences for both sides .

These close-up visits would continue until 1999, when a diplomatic/political riff occurred - the Chinese believed America was accusing them some hidden agendas. Hu Side, the director of the China Academy of Engineering Physics announced at a banquet in Beijing, “You have accused us of spying…We don‘t need you.” That same year brought the Wen Ho Lee espionage accusation in Los Alamos. At this point, sharing stopped, right there, right then.

Did the original “Nuclear Express” book project start out with a China-only theme? Danny Stillman wrote a 500 page tome, “Inside China’s Nuclear Weapons Program” in 1999. Since he worked at Los Alamos Laboratory from 1965 to retirement in 1993 (as technical intelligence director), then continuing on as a guest scientist until September 1995, he was required to sign several nondisclosure documents. In 2000, he submitted his manuscript for prepublication review. According to a document filed 3/30, 2007, a “…judgment shall be entered in favor of defendants (C.I.A.) and against the plaintiff (Danny B. Stillman).” Apparently most of the work was approved but a considerable portion remained redacted.

Mr. Stillman has now had the personal experience of intellectual censorship; he knows what it is like to be censured by his government. We can only presume, “Inside China’s Nuclear Weapons Program” appears now in “Nuclear Express” unfortunately in a much reduced form.

The Chinese would say, “We never found it necessary to steal any U.S. nuclear weapons secrets.” There may be a fine line between “steal” and “share,” or perhaps a matter of translation - they can always claim an issue of language. And too, an issue of compensation - most spies have been paid. Having a spy-star celebrity is not the style of a country where the individual plays an insignificant role. Thousands of young Chinese students of science flock to the United States for an education; they learn and they take that knowledge home.

At this very moment, what do the Chinese want? They want respect and acknowledgement, just as the Russians did and do…only with different ways of getting it. Stillman and Reed frequently heard the Chinese say they are antinuclear, “they want to rid the world of nuclear weapons.” And, from a PLA general, “China will never proliferate nuclear weapons technology to other countries.” You read these comments, then jump to the study of standup comedy routines - in this book, on page 232, you come to a section of 8 pages of photos. Text picks up on the top of the next page…with, “that is utter bunk.”

Consistent through this book is the theme that the youth of China do not want a nuclear holocaust. It’s the elders that cling to strident authoritarianism. But what do the young people of Russia want? Stillman and Reed don’t know. And for Iran? “The younger citizens of Iran would be horrified at the prospect of nuclear war, but their opinions don’t count.”

Reed and Stillman see the real danger as “the irrational hater” in places all over the world. They think of Iran as the Soviet Union of the past, broken but aggressive. Or Iran, as another China, “centrally controlled and exceedingly dangerous,” but the authors still hold hope for Iranian young people at the elections of June 2009. They say the Iranian people support “the idea of going nuclear,”…but it isn’t clear how they interpret this. It could be nuclear for weapons, or power for power…or both. They also worry about Israel taking a bold/erratic first step.

They consider a scenario - if some fanatic took out New York, the Chinese would rush in to help; the Chinese anticipate the fall of the US government and the fall of the dollar…in the role of savior of civilization, the Chinese would get to be what they want - "last man standing." They aren’t entirely convinced it will be an instant cataclysm. They are willing to be last man standing one day at a time. There is a headline in bold, in Chapter 17: “What should we do about the coming confrontation?” Merely to ask the question shows Reed and Stillman believe it will happen.

I don’t, but that’s another book.

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