Center for Science, Technology and Security Policy

SPECIAL EVENT

Breakfast Seminar: A Personal Perspective on the Changing Nuclear Threat Thursday, 3 February 2005 AAAS Auditorium Washington DC The breakfast seminar was organized by the AAAS Center for Science, Technology and Security Policy in cooperation with the Washington Science Policy Alliance (WSPA). The speaker was Dr. Siegfried Hecker, former director of Los Alamos National Laboratory (1986-1997) and currently a Senior Fellow at LANL. Dr. Hecker has been long been concerned about the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Recognized as one of the world's experts on plutonium, he was the last U.S. scientist able to visit North Korea's nuclear program and was given the opportunity to examine what his hosts claimed was plutonium metal. In addition to his current research activities in plutonium science and stockpile stewardship, he works closely with the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Russian Ministry of Atomic Energy on a variety of cooperative threat reduction programs. An abstract of his talk appears below.

ABSTRACT OF DR. HECKER'S TALK

The nuclear threat has changed from the Cold War concern of ending civilization as we know it to one of securing "loose nukes" in chaotic Russia and other states of the former Soviet Union following its collapse. Today's threat is driven by nuclear black marketeering, the resurgence of religious and ethnic conflicts, and the emergence of international megaterrorism. Whereas during the Cold War nuclear deterrence brought an uneasy global peace, the terrorists who unleashed the havoc of 9/11 will show no restraint should they acquire nuclear weapons or the materials necessary for their manufacture.

During his directorship of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Dr. Hecker played an active role in changing the nuclear landscape. During the past seven years, he has been engaged in threat reduction programs internationally. He will provide his views on how to cope with the six greatest nuclear threats we face today:

1. Pakistan,
2. North Korea,
3. inadequately secured highly enriched uranium worldwide,
4. the Russian nuclear complex,
5. Kazakhstan, and
6. Iran.