Sverdlovsk The 'he administration has repeatedly charged the Soviet Union with maintaining an offensive biological warfare capability in violation of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention. This accusation rests on a variety of evidence. The 1987 report refers to "continued activity during 1986 at suspect biological and toxin weapons facilities in the Soviet Union, and reports that a Soviet BW program may now include investigation of new classes of BW agents." But "activity" and "investigation" do not necessarily constitute violations of the convention, which allows defensive research. The keystone of the administration's case,⚫ therefore, as described in the Defense Intelligence Agency's 1986 report on the "Soviet Biological Warfare Threat," is the very serious outbreak of anthrax that occurred in the Soviet city of Sverdlovsk in the spring of 1979. In 1980, largely on the basis of an emigre report, the Carter administration expressed concern to the Soviet Union that the The Soviet Union, however, refused to discuss Sverdlovsk, either formally or informally, on the grounds that it was a natural event caused by contaminated meat and therefore not subject to the convention. This Soviet reticence raised further suspicions. Over the last six months, Soviet officials have belatedly begun to provide more information on the outbreak. They now say the outbreak was caused by a batch of anthrax-contaminated livestock feed. According to the Soviet account, the meat from None of the explanations of what happened in Sverdlovsk in 1979 can yet be considered proved. The new Soviet willingness to discuss the incident in detail may eventually provide sufficient evidence to establish their explanation. outbreak could have resulted from an accident at a suspected biological warfare facility in the vicinity. The area where the outbreak reportedly occurred and the reported nature of the cases suggested that the illnesses could have been caused by an airborne cloud of deadly anthrax spores released by such an accident. The convention obligates members "never in any circumstances to develop, produce, stockpile or otherwise acquire or retain" biological agents or toxins in quantities that "have no justification for prophylactic, protective, or other peaceful purposes." The convention also obligated the parties "to consult one another and to cooperate" in resolving problems relating to the convention. the infected livestock was subsequently sold privately, leading to the outbreak of anthrax. The available details of the outbreak itself are contradictory. The initial report was that the anthrax was of the rare pulmonary form, which supported the thesis that the outbreak was caused by an accidental release of airborne spores. However, Soviet doctors who say they treated the anthrax patients in Sverdlovsk now report that the patients died of intestinal anthrax, as one would expect from contaminated meat, not pulmonary anthrax. The contaminated meat explanation would also be consistent with the fact that the outbreak is known to have lasted for several weeks, which would not be expected if it had been caused by a single cloud. Other circumstantial details are also inconclusive. While it is true that there is a complex in the area which had long been suspected of engaging in biological warfare research, it is also true that anthrax has been endemic in the Sverdlovsk area since Czarist times. None of the explanations of what happened in Sverdlovsk in 1979 can yet be considered proved. The new Soviet willingness to discuss the incident in detail may eventually provide sufficient evidence to establish their explanation. Certainly the publicly available evidence does not support the administration's unequivocal assertion of Soviet violations of the convention. 12A This report was prepared by the staff of the Arms Control Association; principal analysts were James P. Rubin and Matthew Bunn. The Arms Control Association is a nonpartisan national membership organization dedicated to promoting public understanding of effective policies and programs in arms control and disarmament. For more information, contact ACA at 11 Dupont Circle, N.W., Suite 250, Washington, D.C. 20036, or (202) 797-6450. Arms Control Today April 1987 Mr. CHAPPELL. Thank you, Mr. Colby. Mr. COLBY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. CHAPPELL. So we may get these issues before us and hear both sides, is there a response from the Administration sid, Mr. Gaffney? Mr. GAFFNEY. If I may suggest, I think it would be useful to take testimony from the Joint Chiefs' representative and Dr. Barker. I don't think it would take too long. Mr. CHAPPELL. Dr. Barker. SUMMARY STATEMENT OF DR. BARKER Dr. BARKER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will not respond to Mr. Colby at the moment except implicitly. As Mr. Gaffney said in his introduction of me, I am currently the Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Atomic Energy and at the same time, as a heritage from my days in the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, I continue to lead the U.S. Delegation to the nuclear experts talk in Geneva from which I returned last Saturday. DEVELOPMENT OF NUCLEAR WARHEADS Let me make comments with my Defense Department hat on. We look to the Department of Energy to provide nuclear weapons for our modern, survivable delivery systems. In many cases we have found that it is indeed the very capabilities of the warheads that we ask the Department of Energy to build that provides us with systems which are credible. In other words, the systems themselves would not be survivable had the Department of Energy not developed new warheads to make those systems viable. We have an example in the progression of new warheads for submarine-based ballistic missile systems in which, as we have increased the range of the missile in order to provide the submarine more ocean area to hide in, we have had a requirement of course to throw the warhead a longer distance. Each time we increased the range we increased the heat load, and increased the vibration load the warhead must survive, so we have had to ask the Department of Energy to design a new warhead for the progression of Polaris, Poseidon, to Trident, with several modifications in each of these systems. TESTING OF NUCLEAR WARHEADS Each time a new warhead has been required, testing has been required to make that warhead a reality. We have needed a new warhead in order to become compatible with the longer range, which relates to the greater ocean area in which we wanted to hide the submarine. So new warheads have literally made weapons systems more survivable and have made our deterrent more credible. The same thing has happened in the case of the B-1B bomber. The B-1B bomber depends on low altitute and high speed delivery for penetration. The weapons we have had in our strategic inventory to be delivered by the B-52 would not and could not survive the delivery profile of the B-1B. In order to make the B-1B a credible, survivable, penetrating aircraft we had to ask the Department of Energy to develop some new warheads to be compatible with that delivery environment to survive the low altitude, high speed delivery of the B-1B. I could go on and on with such a list. For example, in the European theater, we have had to ask the DOE to develop new artillery shells that can be thrown the longer ranges associated with new artillery pieces. We were outgunned literally, in that the Soviets could attack our artillery pieces with conventional artillery at ranges which could not be reached by U.S. nuclear rounds. As a result, we have increased the range of our nuclear artillery and we have gone back and asked the Department of Energy to design nuclear rounds for our artillery tubes that help to restore the deterrent we established several decades ago. MODERNIZATION OF WARHEADS In every single category you will find that we have asked the Department of Energy to develop new weapons in the last several decades purely in order to enhance or to re-establish a deterrent that at one time existed that but was no longer credible because of steps taken by the Soviet Union to negate it. The Soviets have either threatened our delivery platforms themselves, causing us to want to change some characteristics of them; or the Soviets have taken steps to harden the targets that we need to threaten for deterrence to be credible. Therefore modernization has been driven by steps the Soviets have taken to undermine the credibility of our deterrent. In many cases-in fact, in most cases-Soviet actions which have threatened the survivability of our deterrent have not involved Soviet nuclear weapons developmens but rather what they have done in the conventional arena. For example, we have gone to increased ranges for submarinelaunched missiles because of real concerns about Soviet potential improvements in conventional anti-submarine warfare. So we had to modernize our nuclear warheads in response to their potential conventional threat to our systems. We went to the B-1B not because of a nuclear threat against the B-52, but because of conventional air defense capabilities against the B-52. - So we had to go to a new, more survivable nuclear deterrent in an aircraft system because of the threat to the old one posed by conventional weapons. The same is true in the theater. Therefore in many cases nuclear modernization has been driven by conventional measures on the Soviet side or projections of future conventional measures on the Soviet side. Thus, even in an era of no nuclear testing by both sides, we can anticipate a continued erosion in credibility of our deterrent. In the absence of testing we would have no means of responding to that kind of a threat. In the last six years the administration, with the tremendous support from the Congress, has succeeded in modernizing about one third of our total nuclear deterrent. That is an impressive accomplishment. But it means that two thirds of our deterrent can easily and accurately be characterized as a either having been undermined or progressively being undermined by Soviet measures. Thus, we have systems which are no longer as capable as they could be and which need to be modernized. INSENSITIVE HIGH EXPLOSIVES As we have modernized these systems, we have done three very important things. During the last six years we have built warheads wherever possible that incorporate insensitive high explosive. This is an explosive that is so insensitive that it can survive the most violent accident we can imagine and will not explode, will not therefore disperse plutonium. Some of you will remember in the late 1960s we had two B-52 accidents, one in Palomares, Spain, one over Thule, in Greenland, in which there was no nuclear detonation, because we learned long ago how to prevent that. But what happened, as a result of those aircraft accidents where the high explosive went off, was that plutonium was scattered. As a result we ended up plowing up a fair number of acres in Spain, and we ended up with a big clean-up operation in Greenland as well. Insensitive high explosive makes that kind of thing impossible. We are one third done in that job. Two thirds of the stockpile contains the kind of high explosive in which that kind of an accident can take place under proper circumstances and in which a terrorist might be able to cause dispersal of plutonium. That, to me, is the most serious thing we can redress with nuclear testing. We need nuclear testing substantially above one kiloton in order to accomplish this modernization and implementation of insensitive high explosive. COMMAND DISABLE TECHNIQUES In a similar way, we have improved and implemented so-called command disable techniques, techniques which will allow a commander to destroy a weapon in the face of a potential attempt to take over the weapon without scattering plutonium. Today, the techniques available to our military under the threat of a takeover of a nuclear weapon is literally to blow up the weapon and scatter plutonium. Again, modern design has enabled us to incorporate into the physical package itself a means of nonviolently destroying it. The cessation of nuclear testing-in the one kiloton limit-would prevent redressing that problem. MODERN LOCKS We have also been able to provide modern locks to these systems which are an integral part of the nuclear design. Another feature which makes it impossible for an unauthorized person to utilize the weapon. Mr. AUCOIN. Could that be tested with depleted uranium? Dr. BARKER. The locks? It is a sequential step. Certainly you can test it without real nuclear material. The question is, can you accurately predict what the impact would be had real nuclear material been present. Mr. AUCOIN. To know whether the locks work, you don't need the uranium? Dr. BARKER. But you need to know the impact of the lock on the performance of the weapon. Mr. AUCOIN. It is like the safety on a rifle. You can test the safety to see if the trigger will pull without having a live round in the chamber? Dr. BARKER. Let me go into a little more detail, but under the current ground rules I still can't go into the restricted data area. One of the ways in which these, we will call them locks, have been improved involves the concept of security features internal to the weapon, that if anybody should try to circumvent the lock-in other words, if you go around the other side of the lock, you may be able to defeat it-we have added these features so that if you try to get around to the back side of the lock, the weapon will basically self-destruct. In order to measure, to understand the performance of these features on nuclear performance, we need to test full yield with the presence of these internal features because they are heavy enough that they literally can affect the performance of the nuclear device. You are quite right, Congressman; it is more than the lock but it is still within the same concept which we call enhanced security features. Maybe I have gone on long enough on this particular aspect but the point is that from the prespective of DoD, we are one third of the way toward establishing a credible nuclear deterrent which incorporates the most modern safety and security features, and nuclear testing substantially above one kiloton, is critical for that process to continue. NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE SOVIETS Let me stop for a moment and put my other hat on. I said I came back Saturday night from meeting with the Soviets. This is the fourth session in which I have met with them and maybe this was the most interesting of all. It started on the 22nd of January. We took a rather lengthy working break in the middle in there, but all in all, we met 20 times in 18 days, which is 18 working days. That is a very extraordinary pace as far as the negotiation process is concerned. During those 18 days, it was my position representing the United States, that as a Government our position was that which the President of the United States had laid down in Reykjavik on the 10th of October. It was the position which had been coordinated with the Congress before the President went to Reykjavik and that position was that for the United States, our first order of business was to negotiate and approve effective verification measures for the existing Threshold Test Band and Peaceful Nuclear Explosion Treaties. As soon as those measures had been negotiated and ratified by the Congress, and in association with a program to reduce and eventually eliminate nuclear weapons, we would immediately undertake negotiations on intermediate limitations, and ultimately lead to a negotiation of a cessation of nuclear testing. |