Foreword
“With a screwdriver.” That was how Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the American
atomic bomb, answered the question of how a nuclear weapon smuggled into the
USA in a crate could be detected. His answer, given in 1946 during congressional
testimony, suggested a screwdriver would be necessary to open every crate and look
inside. As some experts in the field are aware, Oppenheimer’s answer led to the first
US report on preventing nuclear terrorism, the so-called screwdriver report, which
remains classified.
The number and type of tools we have developed to prevent nuclear terrorism
have expanded greatly since 1946. Opening crates with a screwdriver to look inside
has certain advantages, but is of course implausible on a large scale. To deal with this
challenge, we have created an array of new radiation detector materials and devices
that can help to detect illicit nuclear materials. A lightly trained police officer can
now use a handheld detector to identify nuclear or radiological materials that only
a trained scientist with a laboratory full of equipment could accomplish at the dawn
of the nuclear era. Moreover, not far ahead, networked detectors using advanced
anomaly detection algorithms will provide a detection capability many times more
effective than the same number of individual detectors.
Of course, technology development is the only one element of an overall strategy
to prevent nuclear terrorism, and notwithstanding important technical improvements
in our capabilities, basic laws of physics will always work against detecting nuclear
materials at a distance.
Technology has changed, but so has the risk. Nuclear and radiological materials
are now used around the world in a variety of applications. In the early days, just
a handful of countries produced nuclear weapons usable materials. The number of
counties that possesses nuclear weapons usable material has grown substantially.
Though the growth has not been as rapid as some feared, as reflected in JFK’s
1963 prediction that in the 1970s “15 or 20 or 25 nations may have these [nuclear]
weapons”, the growth has continued. And even countries that do not seek nuclear
weapons, such as Japan, possess substantial amounts of nuclear weapons usable
material in civil stockpiles. Moreover, the technologies useful in the production of
nuclear material and nuclear explosives have become much more easily accessible.
Finally, with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, small, but still alarming
vii
“With a screwdriver.” That was how Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the American
atomic bomb, answered the question of how a nuclear weapon smuggled into the
USA in a crate could be detected. His answer, given in 1946 during congressional
testimony, suggested a screwdriver would be necessary to open every crate and look
inside. As some experts in the field are aware, Oppenheimer’s answer led to the first
US report on preventing nuclear terrorism, the so-called screwdriver report, which
remains classified.
The number and type of tools we have developed to prevent nuclear terrorism
have expanded greatly since 1946. Opening crates with a screwdriver to look inside
has certain advantages, but is of course implausible on a large scale. To deal with this
challenge, we have created an array of new radiation detector materials and devices
that can help to detect illicit nuclear materials. A lightly trained police officer can
now use a handheld detector to identify nuclear or radiological materials that only
a trained scientist with a laboratory full of equipment could accomplish at the dawn
of the nuclear era. Moreover, not far ahead, networked detectors using advanced
anomaly detection algorithms will provide a detection capability many times more
effective than the same number of individual detectors.
Of course, technology development is the only one element of an overall strategy
to prevent nuclear terrorism, and notwithstanding important technical improvements
in our capabilities, basic laws of physics will always work against detecting nuclear
materials at a distance.
Technology has changed, but so has the risk. Nuclear and radiological materials
are now used around the world in a variety of applications. In the early days, just
a handful of countries produced nuclear weapons usable materials. The number of
counties that possesses nuclear weapons usable material has grown substantially.
Though the growth has not been as rapid as some feared, as reflected in JFK’s
1963 prediction that in the 1970s “15 or 20 or 25 nations may have these [nuclear]
weapons”, the growth has continued. And even countries that do not seek nuclear
weapons, such as Japan, possess substantial amounts of nuclear weapons usable
material in civil stockpiles. Moreover, the technologies useful in the production of
nuclear material and nuclear explosives have become much more easily accessible.
Finally, with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, small, but still alarming
vii