The Cold War Atomic Intelligence Game, 1945–70

From the Russian Perspective The Cold War Atomic Intelligence Game, 1945–70

Oleg A. Bukharin

Since its inception in the early impact on the Soviet nuclear 1940s and through much of the weapons program of testing mor- Cold War, the Soviet atomic atoriums and the proposed project was the focus of a mas- limited test ban treaty was criti- sive intelligence effort by the cal when Washington was United States and its allies. Of developing its position on these primary interest were the issues issues in the 1950s and 1960s. of uranium availability; the production of highly enriched In pursuing these objectives, the uranium (HEU) and plutonium; US atomic energy intelligence The USSR’s elaborate nuclear warhead R&D and test- effort was global in scope. It countermeasures were ing; and the nuclear weapons involved a wide range of covert intended to prevent production and management operations, exploitation of open the West from learning infrastructure.1 source materials, and the use of about its nuclear technical collection systems. program. Washington needed such infor- While much has been written mation to assess the Soviet about US operations against nuclear strike capability. Esti- Soviet targets (including in Stud- mates of the Soviet inventories of ies in Intelligence), relatively HEU and plutonium when put little attention has been given to together with data on warhead the USSR’s elaborate counter- designs would allow CIA ana- measures intended to prevent the lysts to gauge the size and West from learning about its composition of the Soviet nuclear nuclear program. Based on pub- weapons stockpile. Information lic information, this article seeks on Moscow’s knowledge of to examine the Soviet nuclear nuclear weapons effects was denial and deception (D&D) cam- needed to evaluate the capability paign from 1945 until 1970. of the Soviet Union to design warheads for air-defense and This period is of particular inter- anti-missile missiles and to est. The 1950s and 1960s were Born in Russia, Dr. Oleg A. develop hardened warheads the formative years of the Soviet Bukharin received his Ph.D. in capable of surviving US ballistic nuclear program. By the end of physics from the Moscow missile defenses. Analysis of the this period, Moscow had a Institute of Physics and mature nuclear weapons technol- Technology. He has been studying ogy base and a thoroughly and writing about the Russian 1 See, for example, “The Soviet Atomic En- integrated and redundant weap- nuclear complex for 14 years. He ergy Program,” National Intelligence Esti- ons complex, the configuration of is currently affiliated with mate 11-2A-65 (Washington, DC: CIA, which remained largely the same Princeton University. 19 May 1965). All US intelligence docu- until the end of the Cold War. In ments referenced in this article were ac- cessed at http://www.ucia.gov or located in many ways, these were also the This article is unclassified in its the US National Archives in College Park, most dangerous years of the Cold entirety. Maryland. War. The 1962 Cuban missile

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Nuclear facilities were built in 10 closed cities that did not crisis and other dramatic events appear on maps. rate, multi-layered system of of that period were of critical sig- denial and deception, the main nificance in shaping approaches elements of which included the to national defense, foreign pol- restriction of access to nuclear icy, and intelligence that served facilities and personnel, strict each country for the balance of information protection mea- the Cold War confrontation. sures, an enhanced established in 1944 as the NII-9 counterintelligence posture, and research institute in the NKVD technical countermeasures. Protecting Nuclear Secrets system—it was not transferred to the broader nuclear program The nuclear weapons program, until October 1945. Denial of Access the crown jewel of Soviet military power, has always been a The pervasive role of state secu- Secrecy considerations were par- closely guarded secret. During its rity organizations in the Soviet amount in the development of the early years, the program was atomic effort was due to the pro- nuclear infrastructure. While directed by the Special Commit- gram’s high priority for national some research and design labora- tee chaired by Lavrenti Beria, security; the requirement for tories were established in the head of the Soviet NKVD absolute secrecy; the ability of Moscow and other open cities, the (People’s Commissariat of Inter- nuclear managers with state more critical fissile material pro- nal Affairs). State security security backgrounds to get duction centers and nuclear generals were appointed to key things done; and the NKVD’s weapons research and produc- management positions at nuclear vast resources, which included tion facilities were built in 10 research institutes and produc- funding, materiel, and a work- closed nuclear cities, which are tion facilities. The NKVD, which force drawn from the GULAG now known by their Russian eventually became the KGB, prison network. acronym ZATO. The construction played a key role in nuclear safe- of the first-line nuclear weapons guards and the physical Beria was executed following the R&D center (Sarov) and fissile protection of nuclear facilities.2 death of Stalin in 1953, and sub- material production facilities The NKVD also was charged sequent purges of many former (Ozersk, Novouralsk, and Les- with nuclear construction and and active NKVD/KGB officers noy) began during 1946–47. had the power to establish and reduced the state security pres- Subsequently, they were joined run its own nuclear R&D and ence in the nuclear complex. The by a cluster of second-line facili- production facilities. For exam- program itself was reorganized in ties (Snezhinsk, Trekhgorny, ple, the Bochvar Institute of June 1953 to become the USSR Seversk, Zheleznogorsk, Zele- Inorganic Materials (VNIINM), Ministry of Medium Machine nogorsk, and Zarechny), most responsible for the development Building (Minsredmash, the pre- located in the Urals and western of plutonium production and pro- decessor of today’s Ministry of Siberia. cessing technologies, was Atomic Power, Minatom), and it started to resemble other minis- To conceal operations from for- 2 In the postwar years, prior to becoming tries of the Soviet military- eign spies and increase the Committee of State Security/KGB in industrial complex. survivability against an atomic 1954, the Soviet state security organiza- bombardment, nuclear cities tion was known sequentially as the NKGB The emphasis on secrecy and were built in densely forested (People’s Commissariat of State Security, security in the nuclear area areas deep inside the USSR’s 1943–46); MGB (Ministry of State Securi- ty, 1946–53); and MVD (Ministry of Inter- remained, however. To thwart land mass. The cities did not nal Affairs, 1953–54). KGB is used in this foreign intelligence operations, appear on maps. In non-secret article for simplicity’s sake. the Soviet Union built an elabo- documents, they were assigned

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The USSR’s 10 Closed Nuclear Cities

New Name Old Name CIA Name Established Function

Sarov Arzamas-16 Sarova 1946 Nuclear Weapons R&D Warhead assembly/disassembly

Snezhinsk Chelyabinsk-70 Kasli 1957 Nuclear Weapons R&D

Ozersk Chelyabinsk-65 Kyshtym 1947 Plutonium production (Chelyabinsk-40) Nuclear component manufacturing

Zheleznogorsk Krasnoyarsk-26 Dodonovo 1950 Plutonium production

Seversk Tomsk-7 Tomsk 1949 Plutonium production HEU production Nuclear component manufacturing

Novouralsk Sverdlovsk-44 Verkh-Neivinsk 1946 HEU production

Zelenogorsk Krasnoyarsk-45 Zaozerniy 1956 HEU production

Lesnoy Sverdlovsk-45 Nizhnaya Tura 1947 HEU production until late 1950s; then warhead assembly/disassembly

Trekhgorny Zlatoust-36 Yuryuzan 1952 Warhead assembly/disassembly

Zarechny Penza-19 Penza 1955 Warhead assembly/disassembly

the names of nearby towns and a 817 [the code-name of the navigation landmark for numerical suffix. The use of post- Mayak complex] it was estab- aerial reconnaissance. I con- box numbers continued until the lished that water in cooling sider this argument early 1990s. towers would have a tempera- unconvincing because the site ture of about 80o C. The is located in the part of the D&D considerations at times resulting steam, which would Urals, which, within a small were decisive in determining the be inevitably produced in area, contains a very large design and location of new large quantities (especially number of similarly shaped nuclear facilities. For example, during winter), would thereby lakes. I therefore urge you to secrecy was the main factor in compromise the concealment consider moving Plant 817’s moving the first plutonium pro- . . . siting the plant near a lake site to Lake Kyzyltash.3 duction complex (now the Mayak would simplify the problem complex) from the initially pro- considerably because large This was how the closed city of posed remote location near the quantities of water would Ozersk and the plutonium com- Ufa River to its current location allow cooling without cooling plex, a source of several major in Ozersk, near Lake Kyzyltash. towers . . . and steam forma- According to a letter from the tion would be avoided . . . . atomic project’s science director The site near Lake Kyzyltash 3 Letter from I. V. Kurchatov to L. P. Beria Igor Kurchatov to Beria: was proposed to the Special on moving the site of Plant 817 to Lake Kyzyltash, 14 November 1945, [originally] Committee. The [main] argu- Top Secret/ Special Folder,” in Lev Ryabev [I]n considering issues related ment against this site . . . is et al., eds., USSR’s Atomic Project II, Book to the construction of Plant that the lake could serve as a 1 (Moscow: Nauka-Fismatlit, 2000), 354.

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plane piloted on 1 May 1961 by Gary Powers over the plutonium complex in Ozersk (and shot down shortly thereafter by an SA-2 surface-to-air missile near Yekaterinburg) was the first air- plane over this facility in the almost 15 years of its operation.

Personnel Isolation

The isolation of construction workers and facility personnel to prevent potential recruitment by foreign spies was another critical security task. The construction force was particularly difficult to control. At least 15 of 114 Entrance to secret nuclear facilities inside mountain at Zheleznogorsk/ GULAG camps supported the Krasnoyarsk-26. (Photo from Russian government brochure) construction of nuclear facilities.6 In late 1947, over 20,000 prisoners were working in environmental disasters in the regime zone, where every resi- Ozersk, and about 10,000 were in Urals, was established. dent had to have a permit and a Sarov. There were over 18,000 passport. Temporary residence— prisoners in Novouralsk during The closed cities represented an even overnight accommodation of 1950–51. Over 27,000 were in integral part of the layered secu- non-residents—was prohibited. Zheleznogorsk in 1953. rity system built around nuclear Non-residents could not even weapons facilities. Each city pick mushrooms and berries or The Soviet government adopted occupied a large restricted area— hunt in the zone. Ex-criminals several measures to minimize the 232 square kilometers in the case and other undesirable elements security risk posed by the prison of Sarov, for example—that was were prevented from residing in labor force. The KGB’s policy was surrounded by double fences. the special regime zones. not to send prisoners with sen- Inside the restricted area were a town for the facility workforce, Critical nuclear facilities were on large wooded areas, and several the government’s priority list for 5 “On Air Defense for Facilities of the isolated technical areas that “active air defense measures.”5 USSR’s GlavStroy and the Academy of Sci- housed primary research and All military and civilian over- ences,” Protocol No. 74 of the meeting of production facilities, testing flights were prohibited. The U-2 the Special Committee of the USSR Coun- cil of Minister (8 March 1949), Top Secret/ areas, and support infrastruc- Special Folder, in USSR Atomic Project II, ture. Technical areas within the Book 2, 353. restricted area were surrounded 4 As of 1947, according to a decree signed 6 These 15 camps contained about 100,000 by their own double or triple by Stalin, 1,400 KGB guards provided se- prisoners out of the 2.7 million in the GU- fences, which were patrolled by curity for the newly established warhead LAG as of 1950. E. Animitsa, N. Vlasova, R&D center in Sarov. See USSR Council of E. Dvoryadkina, N. Novikova, and V. Sa- 4 armed guards. Ministers Decree No. 297–130, “On Securi- fronov, Russia’s Closed Nuclear Cities: Fea- ty Measures for Object No. 550,” Top Se- tures of Development and Management A layer outside the perimeter cret/Special Folder, USSR’s Atomic Project (Yekaterinburg: Urals State Economics was designated as a special II, Book I, 459. University, 2002).

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Prisoners from at least 15 GULAG camps supported the tence terms of less than five Closed cities made the job of years or those with sentences construction of insulating and controlling expiring in less than three years nuclear facilities. nuclear workers relatively to nuclear sites. After completing straightforward. Upon arrival, nuclear construction projects, the new residents received instruc- prisoners finished their terms at tion in security procedures and the Vorkuta camps in Siberia, signed a nondisclosure agree- which were famous for their ment, which, among other things, tually would go home and become remoteness and harsh condi- prohibited them from disclosing accessible to Western intelli- tions. When released from the information about the city and gence organizations. Moscow camps, the prisoners were sent to the nuclear facility; the names of decided to concentrate them to far away regions in the north and the extent possible at NKVD-run nearby towns, rivers, lakes, and to Central Asia. Only in 1955, facilities (such as the Sukhumi other landmarks; the transporta- after several cooling-off years, laboratory on the Black Sea); to tion routes to the area; and other were some of them allowed to exclude German scientists from information that could help in return to central Russia. Accord- work that was directly related to locating the city. New workers ing to a journalist’s account: nuclear weapons R&D and pro- were also encouraged to limit cor- “[T]he news spread quickly duction; and to institute a two- respondence and social contacts throughout all GULAG camps year cooling-off period prior to with people outside the closed cit- that [a nuclear construction repatriation. Even so, German ies. Personal phone contacts with assignment] was effectively the scientists gave the West same as a death sentence.”7 much of the initial data on the facilities, personali- Soldiers comprised the other ties, and technical large segment of the nuclear con- directions of the Soviet struction force. Once they project. completed their service, they all had to sign a 25-year non-disclo- Tens of thousands of work- sure agreement. The KGB, the ers and engineers were agency in charge of construction, required to operate the was directed to retain dis- newly built facilities. Per- charged soldiers and to hire them sonnel selection was under as civilians to work on other spe- the control of the Commu- cial projects. nist Party’s Central Committee, the Council of German and Austrian scientists Ministers, and regional and engineers, who became party organizations. There involved in the Soviet nuclear was a process of double program after World War II, pre- selection of personnel sented the Soviet security based on recommenda- apparatus with a particularly tions by those already delicate problem. The program working in the program needed their expertise. Yet, it and background investiga- was clear that most of them even- tions by the KGB and its predecessor organizations.

7 Vladimir Gubarev, “Main Object,” Soviet security poster from 1954, with equivalent of Sovetskaya Belarrusia, 23 August 2003. Western slogan “Loose Lips Sink Ships.”

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Uranium was assigned such codenames as lead, tar, the outside world were prohib- and which were changed periodi- ited. All correspondence was phosphorus, bismuth, cally. In the late 1940s and early censored. Generally, people lived A-9, and BR-10. 1950s, for example, natural ura- and worked behind barbed wire, nium was assigned such names all aspects of their lives pene- as strontium, lead, tar, phospho- trated and controlled by the rus, bismuth, titanium, kremnil, security services. According to A-9, Azh-9, BR-10, and P-9, while Yuli Khariton, a famous war- HEU had the codenames of head designer from Sarov, sessed a credible nuclear kremnil-1 and moist kremnil.10 “Beria’s people were deterrent (including nuclear- everywhere.”8 armed medium-range ballistic Compartmentalization of infor- missiles) against the West. mation and operations was near absolute. Mikhail Gladyshev, Initially, closed-city residents former chief of the plutonium could leave their areas only for Keeping Technology Secret purification shop at the Mayak business. On rare occasions, they complex in Ozersk, has remarked: could go to sanatoriums for medi- Secrecy was a hallmark of Soviet cal treatment or leave for family nuclear science and technology. [A]ctivities of the “regime ser- emergencies. Every such trip had As late as the 1980s: vices,” headed by Beria, were to be approved by the security very stern and bordered on director, and its duration was [C]lassification stamps Secret insanity . . . . Often, there was checked by security officers. and Top Secret concealed a threat to the safety of work- everything even remotely con- ers . . . . As you see, our work In the 1950s, these security rules nected with our activities and had double risks—losing were somewhat relaxed. By 1954, achievements in high technol- health and losing freedom. facility directors, in coordination ogies . . . . The stamp For This was the difficult fate of with the KGB, could grant per- Official Use (DSP) was on those who made the atomic mission to selected workers to every piece of conceivably bomb.11 leave their cities for vacations, interesting science and tech- medical treatment, or study. nology information. Only Information about production Nonetheless, workers willing to after the Chernobyl disaster outputs was particularly sensi- spend their vacations inside a . . . was the censorship sys- tive. According to Gladyshev: city received bonuses amounting tem forced into permitting to 50 percent of their monthly publications in the open liter- [W]e put the [plutonium] salaries. All travelers still had to ature about the real state of paste in a box and trans- have their travel routes approved the nation’s atomic industry.9 ferred it to the consumer and sign nondisclosure agree- plant. How much plutonium ments. Blanket permission to Even within this generally secre- was in that box we didn’t leave the cities was not issued tive environment, the nuclear know and it was not recom- until 1957, when all residents weapons program existed inside mended for us to know. Even were issued passes permitting a cocoon of secrecy of its own. later, when I was the plant’s them to leave for one day any Nuclear materials and opera- chief engineer, the plans for time they wanted. By that time, tions had codenames, which were plutonium production were the Soviet Union already pos- different at different facilities known only to the facility’s

8 D. Holloway, “How the Bomb Saved Sovi- 9 Vladislav Larin, Combine “Mayak”—The 10 USSR’s Atomic Project II, Book 1. et Physics,” The Bulletin of the Atomic Sci- Problem for Centuries (Moscow: KMK, 11 Mikhail Gladyshev, Plutonium for the entists, November/December 1994, 46–55. 2001), 8. Atomic Bomb, (Ozersk: PO Mayak, 1992).

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The effectiveness of KGB counterintelligence led, in director, and all documents under diplomatic cover and were prepared in single part, to increasing US agents entering the country via copies.12 reliance on technical such other legitimate channels as collection systems. tourism, scientific meetings, and Supported in large part by the cultural exchanges.16 This fear of punishment—an impor- allowed the KGB to focus its tant consideration, given operational resources on a rela- Stalinist repressions and cam- tively small number of targets. In paigns to unmask spies and 1961, KGB surveillance against saboteurs—the regime of secrecy headquarters in Moscow and “K” Canadian and British diplomats was further cemented by genu- units in the regions.14 The KGB led to the exposure of Col. Pen- ine patriotism and the sense of worked with nuclear facilities to kovskiy, who had provided the purpose among nuclear workers. develop suitable cover stories to West with information on a range conceal their true missions, moni- of nuclear-related matters. Later tored information protection on, according to the KGB’s 1967 Counterintelligence measures, and implemented Annual Report: Operations countermeasures against technical collection systems (see below). [I]n the course of counterintel- The USSR’s Communist Party It also conducted classic counter- ligence countermeasures with and the government called on the intelligence operations involving regard to enemy intelligence KGB to maintain an enhanced the penetration of foreign intelli- officers under diplomatic counterintelligence posture at gence organizations, working cover and other foreigners nuclear facilities. A 1947 resolu- against suspected and confirmed under suspicion of being affil- tion of the USSR Council of foreign intelligence officers in the iated with the enemy's special Ministers regarding security at Soviet Union, and monitoring services, a number of Soviet the warhead R&D facility in nuclear facilities and their citizens who established con- Sarov, for example, directed that, surroundings.15 tact with the aim of passing “[I]n order to prevent infiltra- secret information were dis- tions of Object No. 550 (code- According to KGB analysis, its covered and unmasked. name of the R&D center] by success in preventing the inser- Among those persons brought spies, saboteurs, and other ene- tion of clandestine agents inside to justice were . . . a techni- mies ... the USSR Ministry of the Soviet Union from the late cian [named Malyshev] from State Security (comrade Abaku- 1940s to early 1950s forced West- an installation of special sig- mov) is obligated to step up its ern intelligence services to rely nificance of the Ministry of operational and chekist work at 17 on intelligence officers operating Medium Machine-Building. Object No. 550 and in the areas of Mordov republic and Gorky Technical Countermeasures region adjacent to the special 14 History of the Soviet Organs of State Se- regime zone.”13 curity (KGB Academy Textbook) (Moscow: KGB, 1977), available at: www.fas.har- The effectiveness of the KGB’s In response, the KGB estab- vard.edu/~hpcws/documents.htm. counterintelligence operations, 15 The KGB agent network played an im- lished a Department K in its on one hand, and improvements portant role in monitoring Soviet society. in US signals intelligence, over- In the late-1960s, the network consisted of approximately 166,000 agents, almost head imagery, and nuclear test 12 Ibid. three times the 57,000 officers in the KGB 13 USSR Council of Ministers Decree No. corps itself. The KGB 1967 Annual Report, 297-130, “On Security Measures for Object available at: http://edition.cnn. 16 History of the Soviet Organs of State Se- No. 550,” Top Secret/Special Folder, in com/SPECIALS/cold.war/episodes/21/doc- curity. USSR’s Atomic Project II, Book 2, 459. uments/kgb.report/. 17 The KGB 1967 Annual Report.

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Soviet efforts to reduce venting from monitoring capabilities, on the underground nuclear other parameters. After 1963, other hand, led the US atomic tests made US when the United States and the energy intelligence program to radiological analysis Soviet Union signed the partial rely increasingly on technical col- ineffective. test ban treaty prohibiting lection systems. KGB historians nuclear explosions above the observe that the 1950s marked the beginning of the massive use ground, each country made a of novel espionage technologies. transition to underground In the nuclear energy area, for nuclear facilities and the com- nuclear testing. The end of atmo- example, “[T]o locate Soviet plex’s headquarters in Moscow spheric testing was a major atomic facilities . . . American, were by teletype or telephone and setback to the US intelligence British, and Canadian intelli- involved the use of landlines and effort. According to National gence officers and their agents microwave systems. These were Intelligence Estimate 11-2A-65, were armed with state-of-the-art considerably more difficult to radio-electronic equipment, intercept than short-wave radio “[O]ur estimates of Soviet . . . radio-navigational systems transmissions, the target of the nuclear weapon technology ....Massive application of mod- National Security Agency’s lis- . . . are based almost entirely ern means of science and tening stations at that time. upon analysis of the tests technology was a characteristic Particularly sensitive docu- through 1962 ... and upon feature of activities by imperial- ments, such as production data extrapolation from that analy- ist intelligences during that for the nuclear warhead assem- sis.”22 The radiological method period [1953–58].”18 bly complex, were hand-delivered remained useful to some extent by couriers. because of radioactive venting In response, the KGB “took measures ... to bring to further Radiological analysis of radioac- from Soviet underground explo- perfection the protection of state tive residues from Soviet sions. However, Soviet efforts to secrets from the radio-technical atmospheric tests, collected by reduce venting eventually made and aerial-space means of recon- the US Atomic Energy Detection the US radiological method inef- naissance of the enemy.”19 At a System (USAEDS), was the pri- fective against Soviet targets. test site, for example, operations mary tool for tracking the on nuclear devices in the field progress of the USSR’s nuclear were conducted under a tent to weapons R&D program and its In 1973, the increasing threat prevent visual observation.20 atomic capabilities during the from Western technical collec- Furthermore, “[T]he organs of 1950s and 1960s. Indeed, tion systems caused the Soviet military counterintelligence of benchmarked by US nuclear test government to establish a new the KGB did significant work on data, the analysis of Soviet organization, the State Technical camouflaging . . . depots of nuclear test residues allowed sci- Commission, with the main mis- nuclear weapons and other entists from US national sion of developing and objects from the enemy's space laboratories to determine the implementing a comprehensive reconnaissance.”21 Moreover, Soviet devices’ “design space,” most communications between yield, efficiency, materials, and system of countermeasures against technical espionage.23

18 History of the Soviet Organs of State Se- curity. 22 US National Intelligence Estimate 11- 19 The KGB 1967 Annual Report. 2A-65. 20 Anatoli Veselovsky, Nuclear Shield (Sa- 23 “Information Protection–The Task of rov, Russia: VNIIEF, 1999). National Importance,” Vestnik Voennoi In- 21 The KGB 1967 Annual Report. formatsii (9 January 1994).

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By 1965, US intelligence had correctly identified Gauging the Effectiveness of nuclear warhead component Soviet D&D . . . all Soviet fissile manufacturing facilities and material production R&D institutes in Moscow, Yekat- During the Cold War, US intelli- centers. erinburg, Novosibirsk, and gence agencies invested Nizhni Novgorod. considerable resources and effort to understand and predict Soviet Soviet D&D measures were very nuclear technologies and poli- effective in preventing the cies. Despite the fact that the component manufacturing plant 25 United States from learning United States was off by several in Zarechny. It appears that years in predicting the first some facilities, especially those lacking distinct signatures, Soviet atomic explosion in 25 National Intelligence Estimate 11-2A- August 1949, it subsequently escaped detection. It is not clear, 65. Washington knew of the existence of enjoyed numerous and remark- for example, that the CIA was Lesnoy as of 1959 but did not know the na- able achievements. For example, aware in the 1960s of the non- ture of its activities until later. from the first Soviet explosion through the test series of 1961– 62, US intelligence detected and correctly characterized many milestone designs of Soviet fis- sion and thermonuclear weapons.24 Much of this success was based on the fact that atmospheric nuclear explosions by nature were so powerful that they were physically impossible to contain or conceal.

The Soviet Union also was unable to hide from overhead imagery systems its huge nuclear weapons production infrastructure. By 1965, the US intelligence program had correctly identified and characterized facilities with more obvious nuclear signatures, including all fissile material production centers, some uranium processing facilities, the Sarov warhead R&D center, the serial warhead assembly facilities in Lesnoy and Trekhgorny, and the

24 See, for example, “Current and Future US CORONA satellite image of Soviet uranium enrichment plant in Zele- Soviet Nuclear Weapons Capabilities,” nogorsk/Krasnoyarsk-45 taken on 26 May 1970. (US Dept. of Interior, Geological CIA Report, 18 March 1958). Survey EROS Data Center, Sioux Falls, SD)

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The USSR prevented US intelligence from detecting its transition what was going on inside the Immediately upon his return buildings it could easily see from to the more advanced from the USSR, Gernot Zippe space. For example, US intelli- centrifuge uranium [a talented engineer from gence had a hard time assessing enrichment Austria] . . . patents in the the Soviet program to produce technology. West the Soviet invention [the enriched uranium for nuclear design of a subcritical centri- weapons and reactors. According fuge] . . . . Having learned to a 1954 National Intelligence about this plagiarism, the Estimate: Soviet atomic management decided not to react to this Only meager evidence is information—to keep quiet in available that is relevant to Perhaps even more importantly, order not to give any indica- the isotope separation phase the USSR succeeded in prevent- tion that the USSR was of the program . . . . The ing US intelligence from working on a new, progres- absence of sufficient evidence detecting its transition to the sive method of uranium from which to estimate more advanced centrifuge ura- enrichment. Let them think installed or planned isotope nium enrichment technology. A that the USSR . . . continued separation capacity contin- 1964 National Intelligence Esti- using the inefficient gaseous ues to be one of the most mate judged that “[T]he present diffusion method. Indeed, serious gaps in intelligence size of the Soviet gaseous diffu- that was the price of the con- information on the Soviet sion complex . . . tends to indicate cealment for over 30 years of atomic energy program.26 that significant U-235 produc- the industrial deployment of tion by the ultracentrifuge and a new economic uranium More than 10 years later, in other methods is unlikely.”28 In enrichment technology in the 1965, US intelligence observed fact, a pilot centrifuge facility USSR.29 that while it had reasonably had begun operation in accurate estimates of power Novouralsk in 1957. By 1962, the Another participant in the centri- inputs into the Soviet gaseous initial phase of a much larger fuge program adds bitterly that diffusion plants—based on data complex at that site had com- “the damage to morale and eco- obtained from overhead imagery menced operations, and by 1964 nomic damage done by the and electric grid analysis—its the entire industrial centrifuge notorious regime of secrecy, assessments of plant efficiencies enrichment facility had been which did not allow the USSR to and, as a result, production capa- completed and was fully patent abroad the Soviet centri- bilities, were very uncertain.27 operational. fuge design, was [enormous].”30 Reliable estimates of plant efficiency would have required The Soviet government worked In Conclusion detailed knowledge of the Soviet hard to keep the centrifuge effort gaseous diffusion technology and secret. The critical point was the Throughout the Cold War, the plant operations, which stand-off repatriation of the German scien- United States and its allies collection systems simply could tists who had participated in the mounted a massive atomic not deliver. project. According to Nickolai Sinev, the Soviet chief centrifuge 29 N. M. Sinev, Enriched Uranium for 26 “The Soviet Atomic Energy Program to designer during the 1950s: Atomic Weapons and Power, (Moscow: Ts- mid-1957,” National Intelligence Estimate niiAtomInform, 1991). 11-3A-54 (Washington, DC: CIA, 16 Febru- 30 A. Plotkina, “The Development and Im- ary 1954). 28 “The Soviet Atomic Energy Program,” provement of the Centrifuge Method to 27 National Intelligence Estimate National Intelligence Estimate 11-2-64 Separate Uranium Isotopes in Russia,” 11-2A-65. (Washington, DC: CIA, 16 July 1964). AtomInform, no. 6, 1996, 50–53.

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The score of the US-USSR atomic intelligence energy intelligence effort against material processing, yielded the Soviet Union. It was coun- competition is unlikely important data on the develop- tered with a highly effective, ever to be ment of Soviet nuclear weapons defense-in-depth system of coun- established. science and technology. Because termeasures. The precise score of of denial and deception counter- this competition is unlikely ever measures, however, the USSR’s to be established. It is clear, how- nuclear program was an excep- ever, that long-range, stand-off tionally hard target. The lack of technical systems proved to be detection and analysis of critical reliable on-the-ground intelli- the best collection sources for the elements of the Soviet nuclear gence made it difficult for the United States, allowing for suc- infrastructure. The USAEDS sys- West to understand important cessful tracking of many aspects tem, designed to monitor developments inside the Soviet of the Soviet nuclear program. radioactive effluents from nuclear complex, which resulted Overhead imagery enabled the nuclear explosions and nuclear in significant intelligence gaps.

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