Nuclear Proliferation International History Project "Is the Possibility of a Third World War Real?" Researching Nuclear Ukraine in the KGB Archive By Nate Jones NPIHP Working Paper #13 March 2019 THE NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION INTERNATIONAL HISTORY PROJECT WORKING PAPER SERIES Christian F. Ostermann and Leopoldo Nuti, Series Editors This paper is one of a series of Working Papers published by the Nuclear Proliferation International History Project. The Nuclear Proliferation International History Project (NPIHP) is a global network of individuals and institutions engaged in the study of international nuclear history through archival documents, oral history interviews and other empirical sources. Recognizing that today’s toughest nuclear challenges have deep roots in the past, NPIHP seeks to transcend the East vs. West paradigm to work towards an integrated international history of nuclear weapon proliferation. The continued proliferation of nuclear weapons is one of the most pressing security issues of our time, yet the empirically-based study of international nuclear history remains in its infancy. NPIHP’s programs to address this central issue include: the annual Nuclear Boot Camp for M.A. and Ph.D. candidates to foster a new generation of experts on the international history of nuclear weapons; the NPIHP Fellowship Program for advanced Ph.D. students and post-doctoral researchers hosted by NPIHP partner institutions around the world; a coordinated, global research effort which combines archival mining and oral history interviews conducted by NPIHP partners; a massive translation and digitization project aimed at making documentary evidence on international nuclear history broadly accessible online; a series of conferences, workshops and seminars hosted by NPIHP partners around the world. The NPIHP Working Paper Series is designed to provide a speedy publications outlet for historians associated with the project who have gained access to newly-available archives and sources and would like to share their results. As a non-partisan institute of scholarly study, the Woodrow Wilson Center takes no position on the historical interpretations and opinions offered by the authors. Those interested in receiving copies of any of the Working Papers should contact: Nuclear Proliferation International History Project Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars One Woodrow Wilson Plaza 1300 Pennsylvania Ave, NW Washington, DC 20004 Telephone: (202) 691-4110 Fax: (202) 691-4001 Email: [email protected] NPIHP Web Page: http://www.wilsoncenter.org/npihp THE NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION INTERNATIONAL HISTORY PROJECT WORKING PAPER SERIES Christian F. Ostermann and Leopoldo Nuti Series Editors 1. The Elephant in the Room The Soviet Union and India’s Nuclear Program, 1967–89 Balazs Szalontai 2. Between Aid and Restriction Changing Soviet Policies toward China’s Nuclear Weapons Program 1954–60 Zhihua Shen and Yafeng Xia 3. From the Peaceful Atom to the Peaceful Explosion Indo-French nuclear relations during the Cold War, 1950–1974 Jayita Sarkar 4. Russia’s Policy in the Run-Up to the First North Korea Nuclear Crisis, 1991–93 Sergey Radchenko 5. The Persistent Legacy Germany’s Place in the Nuclear Order Andreas Lutsch 6. The Imagined Arsenal India’s Nuclear Decision-making, 1973–76 Yogesh Joshi 7. Tlatelolco Tested The Falklands/Malvinas War and Latin America’s Nuclear Weapon Free Zone Ryan Alexander Musto 8. Prelude to the Euromissile Crisis The Neutron Bomb Affair, the Netherlands, and the ‘Defeat of the Strangeloves’ 1977–78 Ruud van Dijk 9. “Diverting the Arms Race into the Permitted Channels” The Nixon Administration, the MIRV-Mistake, and the SALT Negotiations Stephan Kienenger 10. Bringing Seoul into the Non-Proliferation Regime The Effect of ROK-Canada Reactor Deals on Korea’s Ratification of the NPT Se Young Jang 11. Waiting for the Bomb PN Haksar and India’s Nuclear Policy in the 1960s Yogesh Joshi 12. Interpreting the Bomb Ownership and Deterrence in Ukraine’s Nuclear Discourse Polina Sinovets and Mariana Budjeryn 13. "Is the Possibility of a Third World War Real?" Researching Nuclear Ukraine in the KGB Archive Nate Jones "Is the Possibility of a Third World War Real?" Researching Nuclear Ukraine in the KGB Archive Nate Jones The archive of the Ukrainian KGB is open and full of former Soviet nuclear secrets. In this article, Nate Jones presents new evidence drawn from KGB documents and other eastern and western sources to examine Ukrainian and Soviet nuclear history. These new Soviet intelligence documents show the inefficiency of the early Soviet ICBM program; details of the domestic and international intelligence operations of the KGB; descriptions of Soviet decision- making and American manipulation of the KAL 007 civilian aircraft shoot down; documentation of Yuri Andropov’s secret announcement of the creation of Operation RYaN, a nuclear intelligence gathering operation based on the theory of preemption; nuclear warning signs known by the KGB preceding the Chernobyl disaster; and provide information for the reevaluation of the dissolution of the Soviet Union and denuclearization of Ukraine in light of Russia’s 2014 invasion. The only declassified data on US nuclear targeting during the Cold War shows that in 1956 the United States had identified 101 potential sites throughout the territory of Ukraine to strike during a nuclear war with the Soviet Union.1 Despite the irrationality of nuclear war, such a focus upon Ukraine by American’s nuclear planners was, in a narrow sense, rational. Kharkiv’s Ukrainian Institute of Physics and Technology was the preeminent facility for Soviet nuclear research before the Second World War. In 1932, the Institute was the first to reproduce the results of the British experiment which demonstrated the phenomenon of splitting a lithium nucleus by bombarding it with fast protons. Ukrainian physicists played key roles in early Soviet uranium enrichment. Igor Kurchatov, the father of the Soviet atomic project, specifically requested and relied upon the expertise of at least one Ukrainian physicist.2 1 William Burr, “U.S. Cold War Nuclear Target Lists Declassified for First Time,” National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book 538 (December 22, 2015), and, Alex Wellerstein, “Mapping the US nuclear war plan for 1956,” Restricted Data: The Nuclear Secrecy Blog, May 9, 2016. 2 Oleksandr Cheban, “Ukraine and Soviet Nuclear History,” Nuclear Proliferation International History Project, August 12, 2015. The British experiment was conducted by John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton on April 14, 1932. Researching Nuclear Ukraine in the KGB Archive NPIHP Working Paper #13 In fact, there is evidence that the uranium hexafluoride (UF6) used to enrich the fissile material for the first Soviet atomic bomb may have been produced by the Prydniprovsky Chemical Plant in Dniprodzerzhynsk, Ukraine.3 Although Kharkiv’s nuclear physics program was decimated by Stalin’s purges and the Second World War, Ukraine continued to be key to the Soviet nuclear weapons program throughout the Cold War.4 Ukrainian mines produced uranium and Ukrainian plants produced the heavy water used to manufacture Soviet nuclear warheads.5 Dnipropetrovsk’s 1000-acre Yuzhnyi Machine-Building Plant (YUZHMASH) produced at least fourteen of the most fearsome ballistic missiles in the Soviet arsenal ranging from the German V2 clone SS-1 Scunner to the SS-18 Satan and the SS-26 Iskander.6 At the Cold War’s end, Ukraine stationed 130 six-warheaded SS-19 ICBMs, 46 10-warheaded SS-24s, and 44 nuclear-cable Bear and Blackjack bombers. By 1991, there were an estimated 1,240 strategic nuclear warheads and 1,081 nuclear cruise missiles on Ukrainian soil which would be used to destroy the West in the event of a nuclear war.7 The danger of nuclear war was best exemplified in one key question quoted in a newly unearthed 1982 KGB report: “Is the possibility of a third world war real? Will the nuclear conflict between the US and the USSR be prevented? Is their collision inevitable?”8 *** This paper will use newly available documents from the Ukrainian KGB archive, officially known as the State Archives Department of the Security Service of Ukraine (GDA SBU), as well 3 “Uranium Mining and Processing Industry,” Uaton.org, cited in Polina Sinovets and Mariana Budjeryn, “Interpreting the Bomb: Ownership and Deterrence in Ukraine’s Nuclear Discourse,” Nuclear Proliferation International History Project Working Paper 12 (December 2017): 20. 4 See “Nuclear Prehistory” in David Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy 1939-1956 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994) for a discussion of the early years of the Ukrainian Institute of Physics and Technology. Additionally, eleven volumes of published primary source documents on the Soviet atomic project from 1938 to 1954 and a large selection of Russian language publications on Soviet nuclear history are made available by the Russian state energy company ROSATOM at the website biblioatom.ru . 5 Robert S. Norris, “The Soviet Nuclear Archipelago,” Arms Control Today, January/February 1992, 28-29. 6 A declassified 1966 Central Intelligence Agency Photographic Interpretation Report shows that the United States had ample imagery and “collateral information” about the production capabilities of YUZHMASH. 7 Nuclear Threat Initiative overview. For an alternative breakdown see William H. Kincade, “Nuclear Weapons in Ukraine: Hollow Threat, Wasting Asset,” Arms Control Today (July/August 1993), 13-18. 8 The