“SIDE-BY-SIDE AS EQUALS”

2 Los Alamos Science Number 24 1996 An unprecedented collaboration between the Russian and American Nuclear Weapons Laboratories to reduce the nuclear danger

“I’ve been waiting forty years for this”

Academician Yuli Borisovich Khariton Scientific Director Emeritus Arzamas-16 (Sarov)

Number 24 1996 Los Alamos Science 1

“Side-by-Side as Equals”—a round table

emories tend to be short Lugar program was extended to pro- in this rapidly changing mote stabilization of defense personnel world. It has been only and, where possible, their conversion to Mfour years since the So- civilian activities. This visionary gov- viet Union collapsed and separated ernment initiative under DoD leader- into independent states. Yet the ship has made significant progress in U.S.-Soviet superpower struggle and the destruction of delivery systems and the threat of all-out nuclear war are missile silos slated for elimination under the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START I. However, efforts aimed at stabilizing the people and fa- cilities of the Russian nuclear complex and safeguarding the associated nuclear materials initially proved to be difficult. In the context of these highly visible efforts, another smaller and quieter ef- fort was proceeding steadily and with remarkable success. Nuclear weapons scientists from Los Alamos and from Arzamas-16 (the birthplace of the Sovi- et atomic bomb, now called Sarov) began working together on basic sci- ence projects almost immediately after the Cold War ended, and the mutual trust and respect gained through that lab-to-lab scientific effort has become a The photo shows the Directors of Los already matters for historical studies. springboard for a larger lab-to-lab effort Alamos National Laboratory and Nuclear weapons stockpiles are being in nuclear materials control throughout Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory reduced, and the end of the Cold War the Russian nuclear complex. being greeted in February 1992 at the has enhanced global security. Never- What were the seeds for this un- airport of the once secret atomic city of theless, the collapse of the Soviet precedented collaboration, and how did Arzamas-16 by leaders of VNIIEF, the All Union brought forward new dangers, it get official approval? How did it Russian (formerly All Union) Research primary among them being the ulti- grow into the larger effort in nonprolif- Institute of Experimental Physics where mate fate of the old Soviet nuclear ar- eration? How are these lab-to-lab ef- the first Soviet atomic bomb was built. senal and the increased threat of nu- forts affecting the government-to-gov- Front row left to right: Viktor Ivanov, clear proliferation. ernment efforts started under Los Alamos Director Sig Hecker, VNIIEF The United States was able to act Nunn-Lugar, and what are the prospects Director Vladimir Belugin, Livermore Di- quickly: To support agreements by for furthering nonproliferation goals in rector John Nuckolls, VNIIEF Bush and Gorbachev during the fall of the future? Scientific Director Yuli Khariton, and 1991 that their respective countries We asked Laboratory Director Sig Academician Alexander Pavlovskii. would dismantle a large part of the ar- Hecker and other Los Alamos staff in- senals of the Cold War, Congress volved in the lab-to-lab effort to ad- passed legislation to help the Soviet dress those questions. Their experi- Previous two pages: In the fore- Union destroy nuclear, chemical, and ences of interacting with the Russian ground, Director Sig Hecker has dis- other weapons and establish safeguards nuclear scientists through the remark- embarked at the Arzamas-16 airport against proliferation. Department of able changes of the last decade bear and is about to shake hands with Yuli Defense (DoD) funds amounting to testimony to the power of personal ties Khariton, the Soviet“Oppenheimer.” 400 million dollars per year were redi- and trust in the pursuit of shared inter- Shown in the background on the left rected into the so-called “Nunn-Lugar” ests. These interactions may reflect the page is the monastery at Arzamas-16 program (named after Senators Sam universal values of the scientific com- and on the right page, Los Alamos Nunn and Richard Lugar who initiated munity and presage the realization of National Laboratory . the legislation). After the Soviet col- the long-held belief that those values lapse in December 1991 and in subse- are a key to resolving the most difficult quent years, the scope of the Nunn- global problems.

2 Los Alamos Science Number 24 1996

“Side-by-Side as Equals”—a round table

Part I Roots of the Lab-to-Lab Collaboration

The Scientific Roots of and Rurik Trunin from Arzamas-16, the high magnetic fields. Their interaction the Collaboration Russian counterpart to Los Alamos, and provided the initial basis of trust for try- Evgenii Avrorin from Chelyabinsk-70, ing to initiate a lab-to-lab collaboration, Sig Hecker: Many people have ex- the Russian counterpart to Livermore, and their mutual interest, and that of pressed surprise when I tell them of the their junior colleagues, led directly to joint work with our Russian counter- the work in pulsed power that forms the parts from the atomic city of Arzamas- bulk of lab-to-lab scientific interactions 16. The fact that we are working not with the nuclear scientists of Arzamas- only on peacetime science projects but 16. Max, when did it all start? also on the sensitive issues of nuclear materials control strikes them as even Max Fowler: I first heard of Alexan- more surprising. I always emphasize der Pavlovskii in 1965 in connection that much of our success is due to the with Megagauss-I, the first international trust and personal friendship that we conference on using high explosives have been able to develop with the and magnetic-flux compression to cre- Russian nuclear scientists. ate ultra-high magnetic fields. At Los Here we’d like to tell the story of Alamos, we were interested in using how that happened, and to my mind, it this pulsed-power source to initiate con- starts about ten years ago and has two trolled fusion. The Soviet interest was main threads: One is the work associ- presumably identical. Pavlovskii was ated with the Joint Verification Experi- an author on four of eight Soviet ab- ments, an arms control effort that en- stracts submitted to Megagauss-I. We gaged our nuclear weapons testing were looking forward to meeting him, experts with their Soviet counterparts in but none of those authors were permit- a very close technical working relation- ted to attend the conference. Supposed- ship for over two years, and the other is Sig Hecker ly they were from the Kurchatov Insti- the very significant personal interac- I always emphasize tute in Moscow, a civilian institute tions in pure science between people focussed on nuclear reactors. But at from our nuclear-weapons-design labs that much of our success that time, every Soviet nuclear scientist and their counterparts in the Soviet is due to the trust and had to say he was from Kurchatov. Union. John Shaner and Max Fowler personal friendship that Not until Megagauss-V in 1989, when of Los Alamos, for example, have been relationships between the Soviet Union following developments in their fields we have been able to and the United States were thawing, did in the Soviet Union for more than thirty develop with the Russian we learn that Pavlovskii and his col- years. I’ll ask John to begin describing leagues in pulsed power were from a those early years. nuclear scientists. secret city, now known to be Arzamas- 16. Sakharov called it “the Installa- John Shaner: As early as the late tion” in his autobiography, and of 1950s, Soviets at the nuclear weapons did not occur until the 1980s, when course, it is the Soviet nuclear weapons institutes were publishing seminal pa- they finally happened, it was like meet- design center where their first atomic pers in the open literature in my area of ing old colleagues. and hydrogen bombs were made. expertise, which is shock-wave and high-pressure physics. Through the Sig Hecker: A particularly important John Shaner: We should remind peo- 1960s, we got to know each other set of meetings were those between ple that Arzamas-16 and Chelyabinsk- through publications, we referenced Max Fowler and Academician Alexan- 70 were places that weren’t supposed to each other’s work, and since we were der Pavlovskii of Arzamas-16, one of exist and never appeared on any Soviet working on similar problems, we had a Andrei Sakharov’s students. Both Max maps until after the Cold War. pretty good idea of the quality of work and Pavlovskii were pioneers during the on both sides. Although personal con- 1960s in the field of explosively-driven Los Alamos Science: Max, when did tacts with people like Lev Al’tshuler pulsed power for the generation of ultra- you first meet Pavlovskii?

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“Side-by-Side as Equals”—a round table

Max Fowler: We had hopes of meet- of fusion. The Soviets put quite a bit generator to see if it worked as well ing him, as well as Vladimir Cherny- of money into their effort, and in the as you said it did.” In fact, our copy shev, at the second Megagauss confer- early 1980s, the Air Force was so im- worked better than he described in the ence in Washington, D.C., in 1979. pressed with the reported performance literature in one sense and not as well Their papers were actually read at that of one of Pavlovskii’s high-energy gen- in another. And the one I was interest- meeting, but ed in was the one again they were that didn’t work quite not allowed to at- as well. tend. So Pavlovskii and I Krik Krikorian: Dear Dr. C. M. Fowler. didn’t meet until Owing to circumstances over which I have no control we During the lab-to-lab 1982 at a confer- shouldn’t meet at the conference “Megagauss – 5”. I feel somewhat visits, Pavlovskii ence at the unhealthy and doctors don’t recommend me to go to Novosibirsk. I’m once brought up getting well now. Lavrentyev Insti- In spite of this unforeseen situation the preparation of the the fact that we had tute of Hydrody- book shouldn’t be delayed. duplicated his gener- namics in Novosi- If you’ve managed to compilate a variant of plan–prospect of a ator, and he asked, birsk in Siberia. future book, I ask you to send it with Dr. G. A. Shvetsov and to “Why didn’t you just inform about the adress of correspondence. And it was truly There is one more question for discussion. During the last order it from us?” exciting to see years the evolution of explosive method for superhigh fields each other after obtaining by coaxial shells system magnetic flux compression Max Fowler: They allows to obtain a field with intensity of about 16 MOe. On this knowing for sev- way it seems real to achieve the fields reproducibility of 20 Ð 30 actually did offer to enteen years that MOe during the next few years. The reports concerning these sell us one of their we were working problems will be made at the conference. The experiment with such high-field generators on very similar facilities will be both expensive and complicated enough. It seems in June 1989 at that it is high time to think about a joint program of works on things. At subse- both superhigh magnetic fields cumulation and experiments setting Megagauss-V. That quent confer- in such fields. What’s your opinion? was also when ences, we dis- Dear Dr. C. M. Fowler, I wish to thank you once more for Pavlovskii sent me a organization of such a wonderful trip across the USA, which deeply cussed our work impressed me. I send you the book “The Problems of Modern written offer of col- and began to de- Experimental and Theoretical Physics” involving the articles on laboration. A few velop a rather magnetic cumulation, and a small souvenir Ð a box with your months before, strong friendship. portrait in memory of our first meetings in Novosibirsk. The Pavlovskii had made painter used a photograph of year, 1983, that is why it was He had a tremen- difficult to reproduce the versatility as a feature of your his first visit to the dous sense of character. But his main effort to depict you full of strength and United States in con- humor, and it was energy I share completely and wish you health and durable creative nection with a steer- activities. a pleasure to ex- I hope for a successful work on the book, scientific contacts ing committee meet- change ideas with expanding and meetings with you. I ask you to give my sincere ing for Megagauss-V, him even though, thanks to your wife for warm reception. My wife thanks you for and with my help, he souvenirs. or perhaps be- Sincerely yours, had taken a tour of cause, each of us various facilities from was trying to get A. I. Pavlovskii Florida and New information from York to the west the other. coast and places in In the mean- between. Unfortu- time, U.S. intelli- nately, between then gence had been and June, he had his keeping track of the Soviet activities in erators that they asked us to duplicate first heart attack and was unable to at- this area and knew that their effort be- it. That was the LIGA project. Some tend Megagauss-V. But at the confer- came fairly large in the early 1960s. I of the LIGA results were presented at ence, I received a letter from him writ- would guess it was stimulated by our Megagauss-III in 1983. Pavlovskii ten in English in which he wrote, “It 1960 paper in which we reported using happened to attend the talk and started seems that it is high time to think about these magnetic-flux-compression gener- asking the speaker some very embar- a joint program of works [sic] on both ators to create fields in the range of 10 rassing questions. superhigh magnetic fields cumulation to 15 megagauss and stated our inten- I finally interrupted the speaker and and experiments setting in such fields. tion to apply those fields to the problem told Pavlovskii, “Yes, we copied your What’s your opinion?” I brought this

4 Los Alamos Science Number 24 1996 “Side-by-Side as Equals”—a round table

letter back to Los Alamos, but there paper was written by Vladislav Mokhov 16, and Boris Vodolaga and Avrorin was no way to respond. and Chernyshev and outlined a novel were there from Chelyabinsk-70. At that same meeting, we found out approach to controlled fusion involving Evgenii Avrorin, the technical director that he was from the secret city where pulsed power and magnetic flux com- from Chelyabinsk-70 even chaired a the first Soviet atomic bomb was built, pression. My colleagues and I believed session. A Russian friend told me dur- and that it was roughly a few hundred then and still believe that the approach miles from Moscow. is very promising. We now call it mag- netized target fusion. The paper attract- Krik Krikorian: Of course, our intel- ed interest in part because it had been ligence people knew that the name of submitted to the prestigious Soviet their ‘Los Alamos’ was Arzamas-16, physics journal Doklady by Yuli Khari- and that it had been previously called ton, who was the chief designer of the several other names. first Soviet atomic bomb. At Megagauss-V, I tried to discuss that very interesting paper with Cherny- shev. He apparently was not allowed to talk to Americans about fusion, but he was willing to talk about the Russian pulsed-power capability, which was ev- Max Fowler idently very impressive, and he even said, “Maybe some day we can do an experiment in which you and your col- … it was truly exciting leagues design the load and we provide to see each other after the generator.” knowing for seventeen Los Alamos Science: It must have years that we were working been surprising to get offers for collab- on very similar things. oration from scientists who were from At subsequent conferences, the closed city of Arzamas-16. After all, this was 1989 and the Cold War we discussed our work was still in progress. Did either of you and began to develop take these overtures seriously? a rather strong friendship. Max Fowler: Not really. But on a [Pavlovskii] had a Alexander Pavlovskii later trip to the Soviet Union, we tremendous sense of humor, learned that they were quite serious. Los Alamos Science: And do we know and it was a pleasure what the ‘16’ stands for? Sig Hecker: Max, before we get ahead to exchange ideas with of our story, let’s find out from John Steve Younger: The Russians like to how the contacts in high pressure sci- him even though, or joke that the ‘16’ was meant to make ence developed during the 1980s. perhaps because, each us look for the other fifteen. In reality of us was trying to it is a postal code. John Shaner: The first time I person- ally met people from the shock wave get information from Irv Lindemuth: Another interesting groups at Arzamas-16 and Chelyabinsk- the other. event at Megagauss-V was when Bob 70 was at an international conference Reinovsky and I met Vladimir Cherny- on high pressure science in Kiev in shev, who is also from Arzamas-16 and 1987. Well-known people from both of ing the session that six months earlier also a leader in the design of magnetic- their institutes were anxious to meet Avrorin would not have been allowed flux compression generators. I first their U.S. counterparts to discuss as to attend a conference with foreigners, heard of Chernyshev in 1988 when our much as we could of the thirty years of let alone chair a session. He was a International Technology Division technical work that we had been read- leading designer of secondaries, the asked me to evaluate Russian papers on ing about in the literature. Podurets thermonuclear component of the fusion. One particularly interesting and Trunin were there from Arzamas- hydrogen bomb.

Number 24 1996 Los Alamos Science 5 “Side-by-Side as Equals”—a round table

The Joint Verification on the nuclear device can was painted yield of underground nuclear tests. The Experiments and Viktor in 12-inch letters “Eat neutrons Ivan.” Americans had been observing the Mikhailov We should also keep in mind that the treaty for ten years since the signing by SDI work we did in the mid-1980s was Nixon and Brezhnev, and the Soviets Sig Hecker: These technical contacts directed towards shooting down Soviet claimed they were too. But the means in the late 1980s bring us to the second missiles. They were the targets, and by to verify the treaty were not specified, main thread of our story, which in- golly, we studied their vapor trails and and there were many claims of cheating volves the Soviet-American Joint Verifi- all sorts of stuff. by both sides. About 160 such claims cation Experiments of 1988 and the ef- were on file in Geneva, so the status of fort to ratify the Threshold Test Ban Sig Hecker: And then came the Rea- the treaty was fairly shaky. Neverthe- Treaty. In that dramatic effort, the So- gan-Gorbachev summit at Reykjavik in less, Reagan wanted the treaty ratified viets came to the by the Senate before he Nevada Test Site and left office in 1988. The both sides made an on- Joint Verification Experi- site measurement of ments were intended to the yield of a U.S. nu- demonstrate that the clear device and com- methods agreed to by pared the results, and each side to verify treaty then both sides did the compliance could be field- same for a Soviet de- ed effectively and without vices at their test site undue interference with in Semipalatinsk. nuclear experiments. The Those joint experi- activities associated with ments and the associat- those experiments were ed negotiations in the principal Soviet inter- Geneva involved many face that we thought about interactions with their and talked about at that nuclear scientists, in time. I’ll let Don Eilers particular with Viktor tell you about that. Mikhailov. Mikhailov is now the head of MI- Don Eilers: President NATOM, the Ministry Reagan really wanted bet- of Atomic Energy of ter verification of the the Russian Federation, yields of the Soviet tests, and he has become the and he would often repeat primary government the phrase “trust but veri- authority in Russia fy” in both Russian and supporting the lab-to- English. He was being lab effort. Viktor Ivanov and Vern Wetherill (DOE/Nevada) standing in front of a ten- pushed by the hardliners To understand the foot-diameter drill bit at the Nevada Test Site in January 1988 during the in the Defense Depart- unfolding of events, initial exchange visit to prepare for the Joint Verification Experiments. ment who were concerned let’s remember that that the Soviets were test- the Soviet-American interactions of the 1986. I was just flabbergasted. I could ing more powerful devices than the 1980s were not all wine and roses. not believe that these two men were treaty allowed. In 1984 Reagan made a President Reagan often referred to the saying they were going to get rid of all speech at the United Nations in which Soviet Union as the evil empire. In nuclear weapons. But they said it. To he proposed that the CORRTEX tech- 1983, our country had an enormous de- me that was a really significant nology be used to verify the Soviet fense buildup and SDI was born. The change—not completely convincing, yields. That was a startling proposal nuclear weapons resurgence in terms of but still significant. because CORRTEX requires perform- new systems and money flowing back I became Director of the Laboratory ing the nuclear yield measurement at into the program was also enormous. on January 15, 1986, and at that time, the site where the nuclear device is one of the key issues was the ratifica- being tested. In the past, we had deter- Steve Younger: I remember a Liver- tion of the Threshold Test Ban Treaty. mined the yields of Soviet nuclear tests more nuclear shot in the mid-1980s and The treaty set a 150-kiloton limit on the by seismic methods at distances thou-

6 Los Alamos Science Number 24 1996 “Side-by-Side as Equals”—a round table

sands of kilometers from the actual did was basically look at one another were set up for January 1988. The ob- test site, and the Soviets presumably across the table. Nothing happened ject of these visits was to familiarize did the same for us. But CORRTEX until Secretary of State George Schultz one another enough so that we could is a hydrodynamic measurement in and Soviet Foreign Minister E. A. She- more easily negotiate an agreement for which the cables must go down into a vardnadze got together in September carrying out the JVEs. They were real- satellite hole near the nuclear device, 1987 and proposed full-scale negotia- ly kind of exciting times. A delegation and then when the device goes off, tions with the objective of ultimately of twenty of us led by Bob Barker went the speed of the shock wave along doing joint verification experiments, or first to Moscow, where we had a night the cable gives you a very accurate JVEs, in which the two sides would at the Bolshoi Ballet, and went on to estimate of the yield, or explosive made simultaneous hydrodynamic the Soviet nuclear test site at Semi- power, of the device. (CORRTEX-like) measurements of nu- palatinsk in Kazakhstan.

Los Alamos Science: Sig Hecker: We Was the CORRTEX tech- should point out that nology new in 1984? you were the first Americans ever to set Don Eilers: No. Don foot on a Soviet test Westervelt and I had site, and that was con- started working on it sidered a pretty big deal back in 1975, right after by the hardliners in Nixon and Brezhnev Washington. signed the Threshold Test Ban Treaty and during Don Eilers: Right. the negotiations on the The Russians flew on companion Peaceful Nu- the same airplane with clear Explosion Treaty, us, and we landed in a which was signed by rip-roaring snowstorm at Ford and Brezhnev in Semipalatinsk. That 1976. We actually field- evening at dinner, we ed the first CORRTEX met Viktor Mikhailov system in 1976 on one of for the first time. He the U.S. high-yield nu- was then the Director of clear tests. Our Soviet the Scientific Research counterparts in the 1970s Left to right: V. Mikhailov, V. Ivanov, R. Trunin, and N. Voloshin standing Institute of Impulse En- were Vadim Simonenko, inside the surface-casing for the ten-foot drill bit at the Nevada Test Site gineering in Moscow, Nikolai Voloshin, and all during the preliminary visit. The Soviets were very impressed because the institute responsible those guys at Chelyabin- they were limited to drilling three-foot diameter holes at their test site. for many types of nu- sk-70 whom we were to clear testing diagnostics. meet again in 1986 at the Nuclear Test- clear yield and compare results. By He certainly appeared to be leading ing Talks in Geneva leading up to the November, there was an agreement to their technical group, and I thought, Joint Verification Experiments. have preliminary exchange visits to our “Boy, what an intense guy.” He exud- Those talks were a direct result of respective nuclear test sites, and in De- ed self-confidence and pride. It was the Reagan Initiative and were designed cember 1987, Schultz and Shevard- quite obvious that he was well respect- to discuss methodologies for verifying nadze signed an agreement on the con- ed, and everybody and his brother lis- the Threshold Test Ban Treaty. The duct and objectives of the JVEs. tened to him. He even gave some of U.S. delegation was led by Ambassador Now there is some confusion over the technical presentations on their tim- Bob Barker from DOD, and Bob Jef- who proposed those experiments. The ing and firing system during our stay at fries and I were part of that delegation. Russians think they did and Bob Barker the test site. Voloshin and Simonenko The Soviets were proposing seismic thinks that it was done over a cup of were also there. methods to measure the yield, and the tea in Washington. Voloshin asserts in The atmosphere of the visit was United States was proposing COR- an unpublished manuscript that, “It was eerie. Armed guards surrounded our RTEX measurements. In the course of a proposal from the Soviets made dur- hotel, and we were permitted to walk a year and a half, we went through sev- ing the April 1987 ministerial.” only about a few hundred feet down to eral two-week sessions in which all we In any case, the preliminary visits and along the bank of the Irtysh River. continued on page 10

Number 24 1996 Los Alamos Science 7

Chronology of the

¥ 1965 Megagauss-I, the first international conference on ultra-high magnetic fields, reveals first glimpse of Soviet pulsed- power program to Western scientists. Pavlovskii and other Soviet scientists from the secret nuclear-weapons-design city of Arzamas-16 submit abstracts but are not allowed to attend.

¥ 1975 Threshold Test Ban Treaty (TTBT), signed by Presidents Ford and Brezhnev, limits yields of underground nuclear tests to 150 kilotons.

¥ 1982-1989 Fowler of Los Alamos and Pavlovskii develop connection at Megagauss and other conferences.

¥ 1982-1984 Reagan begins initiative to improve TTBT verification and the prospects for ratification. Reagan suggests CORRTEX methodology, which requires on-site verification of nuclear yields.

¥ 1986 Gorbachev starts policy of glasnost. Gorbachev and Reagan hold Reykjavik Summit.

¥ 1986-1988 Negotiations on the verification of TTBT in Geneva. Soviet nuclear-weapons scientists, led by Mikhailov, work with their U.S. counterparts to develop verification technologies and procedures.

¥ 1988 Joint Verification Experiments (JVE)—Soviet and U.S. teams develop consistent methodology and then perform joint on-site yield measurements at each other’s nuclear weapons test sites. Soviet scientists discuss possibility of collabora- tion and present possible list of topics.

¥ 1988-1990 Continuing Soviet-American negotiations on procedures for implementing the TTBT.

¥ 1989 First written offer of collaboration—Pavlovskii sends offer to Fowler.

¥ Fall 1990 Opening of the Soviet Nuclear Design Institutes to American Scientists. In August, Avrorin, chief scientist of Chelyabinsk-70 invites Shaner and Livermore scientists to visit the nuclear weapons design city of Chelyabinsk-70. Avrorin proposes thirteen areas of collaboration. In October, Mikhailov takes Eilers and U.S. delegation to visit Arzamas-16.

¥ September 1990 TTBT ratified under the Bush administration.

¥ 1991 Los Alamos Director Hecker speaks with Alessi, head of the Arms Control and Nonproliferation office of the DOE, concerning the possibility of collaborations with the Soviet nuclear institutes.

¥ August 1991 Unsuccessful coup is staged against the Gorbachev government.

¥ September 1991 Chernyshev and Mokhov present Lindemuth with a written proposal signed by the Director of Arzamas- 16 for joint Russian-American work on magnetized target fusion.

¥ November 1991 Passage of the Nunn-Lugar legislation earmarking 400 million dollars of the DoD budget to help trans- port and store Soviet nuclear warheads and establish safeguards against proliferation.

¥ November-December 1991 At the invitation of Pavlovskii and Avrorin, Dan Stillman and Krik Krikorian are the first American scientists from the U.S. nuclear weapons establishment to visit both Arzamas-16 and Chelyabinsk-70. Stillman de- livers to Hecker a list of possible areas of collaboration generated by Khariton and Avrorin.

¥ December 1991 The Soviet Union collapses and Independent States break from Russia. Hecker proposes to DOE Sec- retary Admiral Watkins that lab-to-lab scientific collaborations with Russian nuclear weapons institutes might address Presi- dent Bush’s concern of a potential “brain drain” of Russian nuclear scientists.

8 Los Alamos Science Number 24 1996

Lab-to-Lab Program

¥ February 1992 Directors’ Exchange visits—Directors Belugin and Nechai visit Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore Na- tional Laboratories. Later in the month Directors Hecker and Nuckolls visit Arzamas-16 and Chelyabinsk-70 and discuss possibility of lab-to-lab collaborations.

¥ May 1992 ISTC program is launched under Nunn-Lugar. International Science and Technology Centers are mandated to help redirect weapons of mass destruction expertise to civilian and peacetime activities.

¥ October 1992 First lab-to-lab contracts signed between Los Alamos and Arzamas-16. Two experimental series are planned.

¥ August 1992-December 1993 Large-scale, nuclear material storage facility is planned under Nunn-Lugar. Augustson and Mullen from Los Alamos and Il’kaev, Yuferev, and Zykov from Arzamas-16 work together to plan modern MPC&A (ma- terials protection, control, and accounting) system for storage facility.

¥ February 1993 Pavlovskii dies.

¥ August 1993 “You are driving us into the hands of the Chinese.” Younger receives Russian complaints that no Ameri- can money has been forthcoming. Younger informs Domenici of the situation. Domenici speaks on the floor of the Senate about the dangers of not supporting the Russians.

¥ September 1993 IPP program launched. Congress allocates 35 million dollars of foreign appropriations money for an industrial partnership program with Russian scientists to help scientific conversion.

¥ September 1993 First Russian-American lab-to-lab experiment performed at Arzamas-16. Russians and Americans “working side-by-side as equals.”

¥ October 1993 Second series of lab-to-lab experiments performed at Los Alamos. Measurement of critical magnetic field of high Tc superconductor. First Russian scientists allowed behind the fence.

¥ December 1993 Efforts on Russian storage facility are suspended.

¥ January 1994 Lab-to-lab umbrella contracts on scientific conversion activities signed by Hecker and Belugin. Proposal to include MPC&A activities under the umbrella contract is presented.

¥ March 1994 Curtis of DOE approves Hecker’s proposal for a lab-to-lab materials control program.

¥ June 1994 Hecker and Belugin sign contract to begin lab-to-lab MPC&A program.

¥ 1994-1995 Scientists from Los Alamos and Arzamas-16 perform six more series of experiments under umbrella contract.

¥ 1994-Present Lab-to-lab MPC&A program grows from 2 to 45 million dollars. Government-to-government program in MPC&A moves to DOE. Participation in lab-to-lab increases from one Russian institute to eight. Similar growth occurs in the government-to-government program.

¥ April 1996 Start of Dirac series. Experiments extend Russian-American lab-to-lab work in ultra-high fields to a larger international community. ■

Number 24 1996 Los Alamos Science 9 “Side-by-Side as Equals”—a round table

John Shaner: In January 1988, after the formal negotiations with the Soviets had started, Bob Jeffries came back from Geneva wanting to add a technical expert in experimental shock wave physics, and he asked me to join the technical experts group. My role was to provide technical support during the meetings and negotiations as well as to advise on the requirements on rock samples and experimental procedures we would need as part of the hydrody- namic yield measurements.

Don Eilers: We were going to use a hydrodynamic yield determination methodology that we had been working with since 1962 and that could be car- ried out by both sides and compared openly. One essential procedure in- volved measuring the shock properties of the rocks taken from the point of ex- plosion, then using that data to con- The Soviets and Americans are installing CORRTEX cables in a satellite hole at the struct a theoretical model of the rock, Nevada Test Site in July 1988 in preparation for the U.S. JVE “Kearsarge.” T. McKown and using the model in a hydrodynamic (second from left), V. Salnikov (third from left), N. Voloshin (third from right), and W. calculation of the shock wave generated Storey (second from right) led the work on this shot. by the explosion. That methodology continued from page 7 was incorporated in the JVE Accord, The first night we had a problem with operating procedures for conducting which was signed by Gorbachev and the guards because we wanted and tests, a visit to the forward area and to Reagan in Moscow in May 1988. needed exercise and were quite irritated a drilling site, and so on. that the guards had set the boundary I want to emphasize that Mikhailov John Shaner: I remember many dis- about fifty yards short of the agreed was certainly somebody to be reckoned cussions with Vadim Simonenko, from walking distance. Fortunately, the issue with. After going through many Chelyabinsk-70, concerning the mea- was quickly resolved by Ambassador months of work on the JVEs, and then surements, procedures, and theoretical Barker and General Ilyenko, Comman- working daily together at our test site, a models. There was some apprehension der of the test site. The nights were friendship developed. One night that our measurements and models cold, about thirty degrees below zero, Mikhailov was talking to me about might be different enough that we and the days were filled with trips to what he used to do and said that, might not agree on the final outcome. the test site, for example, to the forward among other things, he sat on a com- In July, at the Nevada Test Site, we camp where we and our equipment mittee for targeting U.S. cities. Then compared the first experimental results would be housed during the JVEs, and he said, “Don, it makes a big difference on shock propagation in the rocks, and to a site where they were drilling a hole now that I can place faces at those tar- they agreed so well that we were both for a nuclear test and where we were gets.” He meant the job would be relieved. briefed on their drilling and logging op- much more difficult. erations. It was out there in the middle Don Eilers: And then everyone’s con- of nowhere, on a very cold day with the Max Fowler: Did he speak English? cerns turned to smiles several weeks wind howling at fifty miles per hour later when we exchanged the COR- when they brought us into a double- Don Eilers: Very little, but he under- RTEX and the Soviet data from the first walled tent and hosted a great feast for stands a lot of English. JVE explosion “Kearsarge.” The us. We were very impressed. agreement was good, resulting in yields Later that month, they came out to Sig Hecker: John, you played an im- with acceptable uncertainty. The entire the Nevada Test Site, and we recipro- portant role in the JVEs, too. Tell us process was repeated for “Shagan,” the cated with presentations on equipment, about that. JVE performed at Semipalatinsk, and it

10 Los Alamos Science Number 24 1996 “Side-by-Side as Equals”—a round table

gave similar agreement between the two sides. Those successes demonstrat- ed the viability of hydrodynamic-yield measurement technology and methodol- ogy for improved verification of the Threshold Test Ban Treaty.

Los Alamos Science: Sig, what was your experience with the JVEs?

Sig Hecker: For me, a key event was going out to the actual experiments at Nevada. Mikhailov was leading the Soviet group, and as Don pointed out, he appeared to be a proud and even ar- rogant scientist type. It was interesting to watch him and the other Russians operate, to see the sense of technical competence and the pride in their work. I remember visiting Mikhailov in the Soviet instrument trailer, and he was very anxious to show me this oscillo- scope that he had developed in his in- stitute in Moscow. The U.S. team celebrates after the Soviet JVE “Shagan” at the Semipalatinsk test site in Kazakhstan in September 1988 with a picnic and swimming at Crater Lake. Al- Don Eilers: Mikhailov had shipped though created by a peaceful nuclear explosion in 1968, the lake was no longer ra- two SRG-7’s—7 gigaherz oscillo- dioactive and quite safe for swimming. Left to right: A. Popov, G. Fauerbach, K. Al- scopes—to our test site. They had a rick, R. Hill, D. Eilers, L. Pirkl, C. McWilliam, W. Storey, and H. Poteet. bandwidth beyond the range allowed for use by the JVE Accord because back to Geneva following the JVEs, Si- We completed the JVEs—both the they were capable of recording classi- monenko, Avrorin, and Voloshin spent U.S. shot Kearsarge and the Russian fied device performance information. the better part of an afternoon in the shot Shagan—by September 1988, but We had nothing similar in capability on Soviet Mission discussing this with the negotiations went on, and the the American side. Mikhailov had John Shaner, Don Westervelt, and my- treaties were not complete until May them sent just to shake up everybody self and presenting us with diagrams of 1990. Many of the issues remaining and to demonstrate that the Soviets had proposed experiments. after the initial demonstration related to good technology. the implementation of the treaty and Sig Hecker: One striking thing about were technical in nature. For example, Sig Hecker: He certainly was very the JVEs was the enormous pressure to Don Westervelt, Keith Alrick, Larry proud of that equipment. But the con- make sure that everything worked. Pirkl and I from Los Alamos, David versation that I remember most was in Clearly it would have been an interna- Conrad from Livermore, Horace Poteet the mess hall with Simonenko. He was tional embarrassment, for instance, if from Sandia, Charles McWilliam from sitting there trying to sell me on the our device hadn’t gone off at all, or if DOE/Nevada, and Bill Summa from the idea that we should really be doing the yield were way over the allowed Defense Nuclear Agency worked with joint underground scientific experi- limit, or if the CORRTEX system had- the Russians on designing devices to ments—JSEs instead of JVEs. And so n’t worked. I had my fingers crossed. prevent classified information from we talked a bit about the type of sci- being picked up by the Soviet and U.S. ence that you could do underground. Don Eilers: Well, we were sure the sensing cables. This technical effort All unclassified, of course. CORRTEX system would work because was very successful, and we were able of the redundancy and safeguards in the to put together a treaty that was not Don Eilers: Simonenko often talked system, but we still worried that the only ratified in 1990 but also imple- about doing underground equation-of- yields be well below the threshold so mented on three U.S. tests. In particu- state experiments and other high-pres- there would be no complaints about vi- lar, Soviet hydrodynamic yield verifica- sure physics. In fact, when we went olating the treaty. tion measurements were done on the

Number 24 1996 Los Alamos Science 11 “Side-by-Side as Equals”—a round table

Junction test in 1992, one of Union Conference held every the last underground tests we year or so by the Russians. did. Attendance at those confer- ences had been restricted to Joe Pilat: Don, I think it is Soviets, and the frankness of important to note that there the discussions was leg- were some very difficult politi- endary. By the late 1980s cal as well as implementation the Soviet scientists thought issues that had to be addressed it would be useful to involve by the Soviet and American Americans, just as we had delegations. For example, the involved Russians in our requirement of notification American Physical Society well in advance of a nuclear conferences. As a result of test and the presence of foreign those discussions, several personnel at the site of a test scientists from the United were real stumbling blocks. States were invited to an But the technical problems All-Union meeting on high- were always addressed in a pressure equation-of-state is- professional, collegial fashion sues to take place near Irkut- among experts who recognized sk in August 1990. About the common backgrounds they two weeks before our sched- shared. uled departure, Evgenii Avrorin, whom we had got- Don Eilers: Very definitely. Don Eilers (left) and Viktor Mikhailov in Geneva in December ten to know well in Geneva, Over a period of two years, 1989 for a TTBT meeting to discuss anti-intrusiveness devices arranged for a few of us to the Russian and American sci- and equipment exchanges. Less than a year later, Mikhailov stop at Chelyabinsk-70 for a entists had been through a peri- invited the U.S. delegation to Arzamas-16. two-day visit on the way to od of initial posturing, particu- Irkutsk. All of us involved, larly by the Russians, that neither side Steve Younger: And he still is. I had including Avrorin, understood that we liked, but had then gone on to develop lunch at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow did not have enough time to get all of a great deal of mutual respect and pride in October 1994, and he came up to me the correct approvals, but we could about the actual technical accomplish- and wanted to talk about the calibration probably get the most important ones— ments. We also developed the level of of neutron detectors in the recent lab- and we did. With less than a week to trust and cooperation that was needed to-lab experiments on fusion. He can spare, three people from Livermore and for successful implementation of the talk about our joint experiments as an I were able to get permission from treaty. expert in the field. Washington to make the visit. We spent the first day of our visit at Steve Younger: Mikhailov has a tro- the original 1955 site of Chelyabinsk- phy table in his office and the biggest Opening Up the Russian 70. There we discussed a wide range thing on it is the JVE plaque. He’s Nuclear Institutes—August of scientific topics including high-pres- very proud of that. 1990 to December 1991 sure science and hydrodynamic instabil- ities. On the second day, we drove Don Eilers: One thing to remember Los Alamos Science: In 1990, several about 15 miles to the north to the pre- is that Mikhailov always headed their of you were invited to visit the Soviet sent site, where we saw facilities for technical group, both at the JVEs and nuclear weapons labs. Was this in the studying hydrodynamic instabilities, at the negotiations in Geneva. Even context of the negotiations for the large pulsed reactors and electron-beam after he became Deputy Minister of Threshold Test Ban Treaty? machines, and an explosive test site. MINATOM, Mikhailov took time out On that second day we were present- to spend three days with us in Moscow John Shaner: The invitations certainly ed with a list of 13 potential topics for in October 1990 negotiating all the grew out of those contacts. For exam- collaboration in areas of nuclear science technical nitty-gritty details of the ple, while negotiating the procedures of and hydrodynamics. That list was very anti-intrusiveness devices. He sat the JVEs, Simonenko and I had occa- similar to one we had received in Gene- there, and he was on top of the issues sion to discuss basic high-pressure sci- va more than a year previously. Then all the time. ence, which is the subject of an All- came the surprise. Chuck MacDonald

12 Los Alamos Science Number 24 1996 “Side-by-Side as Equals”—a round table

The U.S. delegation at a picnic at Arzamas-16 in October 1990. The trip, the first visit by Americans to Arzamas-16, was arranged by V. Mikhailov (standing at far end of table). Seated left to right facing camera: V. Belugin, G. Tsyrkov, U.S. Embassy interpreter, D. Eilers, D. Westervelt, and B. Summa. from Livermore and I were asked to clear weapon design city Arzamas-16. have been working here for forty years, participate in a video-taped interview Such an invitation to Arzamas-16 had and the only reason they were working with Avrorin to discuss our reactions to never been made before, and of course, on nuclear weapons was to make damn this historic visit. Chuck and I were it was not clear to the delegation mem- sure we never had a war.” Similarly, pretty concerned about this as neither bers that the United States would give when we first arrived at Arzamas, of us were very experienced in this permission. Khariton gave us a little speech in the kind of sensitive public discussion. I The approval took some time in House of Scientists, and one of the first never did find out how Avrorin used coming, but when it finally did, they things he said was, “I’ve been waiting this tape. flew us to Arzamas-16 for a most extra- forty years for this.” ordinary day. We were greeted by a While we were in Arzamas-16, Los Alamos Science: Don, didn’t you whole crowd including Khariton, Belu- Chernyshev gave me a letter to bring get to visit Arzamas-16 at about the gin, Trutnev, Pavlovskii, and others. back to the Laboratory. It was ad- same time? They showed us an accelerator, a high- dressed to Denny Erickson and in it he powered laser system, and a few things mentioned Max Fowler’s recent visit to Don Eilers: Yes. While in Moscow at like that, and then we had a wonderful Siberia and the discussions on pulsed the October 1990 negotiations on anti- picnic with a big bonfire, snow flurries power, and then he wrote, “I would like intrusiveness devices, Mikhailov sur- falling, and lots of good food and to raise a question on collaboration in prised us and seized the initiative by vodka. this field.” inviting the U.S. delegation, including At one point, Mikhailov told Wester- myself, Keith Alrick, Don Westervelt, velt, “You are looking at the most Los Alamos Science: Max, what hap- and Larry Pirkl, to visit their secret nu- peace-loving men in the world. They pened on that trip?

Number 24 1996 Los Alamos Science 13 “Side-by-Side as Equals”—a round table

An outdoor feast at Arzamas-16 in October 1990 during the one-day visit by the American delegation.

Max Fowler: As I alluded to earlier, John Shaner: Well, the National Se- back from his visit to Arzamas-16 a during my trip to Novosibirsk in Sep- curity Council stepped in and demand- prospectus in Russian describing what tember 1990, Pavlovskii told me that he ed that Admiral Watkins, then Secre- was going on at their laboratory (called could get my Laboratory Director and tary of Energy, develop a plan for VNIIEF). And a few innocent state- possibly me into his “Explosives Firing future visits. Watkins, in turn, called in ments in that brochure provided clear Area.” In hindsight I would guess this the DOE Lab Directors and demanded confirmation that they were, indeed, was the first indication that Arzamas-16 a plan for future interactions. I drew working on the magnetized target ap- might be opened up to American nu- one up for Sig, dated December 10, proach to controlled fusion that we had clear scientists. Pavlovskii and I ex- 1990, that outlined a step-by-step found so interesting. We then wrote a changed telegrams back and forth about process for starting collaborative ef- letter to Chernyshev, and in addition to this visit and in November he indicated forts. The process would begin with an asking about a paper of his, we also that we could bring even more people. exchange of lab directors, followed by asked if a collaboration was really pos- My return message suggested the a meeting to establish topics and proce- sible. The letter went unanswered, but names of John Birely and John Browne dures, then bilateral technical discus- then Bob Reinovsky and I and several as two high-level Los Alamos people sions to establish details of the collabo- others from Phillips Laboratory and who might have special interest in such rations, and finally the initiation of Livermore had extensive discussions a visit. At that time, I also spoke with active collaborations. Sig really liked with Chernyshev and Pavlovskii at the Don Westervelt about his trip to Arza- the proposal and sent it to the National IEEE Pulsed Power Conference in San mas-16, and we decided to alert Sig Security Council, but they were preoc- Diego in June 1991. Academician that he might receive two independent cupied at that time with the Gulf War, Mesyats, a Vice President of the Soviet invitations to Arzamas-16. so we heard nothing from Washington Academy of Sciences, was leading the for about nine months. delegation, and the Soviets were openly Los Alamos Science: What was the courting collaborative work in pulsed official U.S. reaction to these unofficial Irv Lindemuth: But we did respond power. The discussions were primarily visits and offers of collaboration from to the pulsed-power group at Arzamas- between Los Alamos and Phillips Labo- these formerly secret cities? 16. First of all, Don Eilers brought ratory and the Arzamas-16 people. The

14 Los Alamos Science Number 24 1996 “Side-by-Side as Equals”—a round table

Russians seemed very confident that, if happens.” On the front page of the Alamos. He approached Sig about in- the United States was interested in col- proposal were blanks for Sig Hecker formation on reactor safety, and the laboration, then such a collaboration and others at Los Alamos to sign. next day, there was a stack of paper a was possible. They even indicated that foot high to take back to Moscow. if we expressed interest, Gorbachev Sig Hecker: That brings us to the So- The Lab has always been open to de- would bring it up with Bush at their viet collapse in December and the veloping contacts and exchanges with July summit meeting. That did not breakthrough on our side. But I think the Russians in unclassified areas of happen, but Pavlovskii and Chernyshev the events from August 1990 to De- research. visited Phillips Laboratory and Los cember 1991 are quite important. For The Soviets were also working col- Alamos after the San Diego conference the most part, it was one of fits and laboratively with us on issues of non- and continued discussions about collab- starts and not getting very far. I felt proliferation of nuclear weapons oration. One of the outcomes was the the pressure from you folks coming through IAEA safeguards and the Non- recognition of a common interest and back from Russia, and from John Shan- proliferation Treaty. Los Alamos has an invitation for us to come visit er in particular, that we have an oppor- had a long history of sending Laborato- Arzamas-16. tunity to go over there and learn some- ry staff to the IAEA—the International thing about the Soviets and their Atomic Energy Agency—in Vienna. Los Alamos Science: Did that visit programs. And so I tried to work with And there, you would meet a certain take place before the collapse of the the Washington folks at DOE, princi- side of the Russian technical communi- Soviet Union? pally Vic Alessi who was heading up ty—they were nuclear people, but defi- the Office of Nonproliferation and nitely not nuclear weapons types. The Irv Lindemuth: No, I don’t think they Arms Control. Vic was really one of Soviets set up a support program to the were quite ready. However, I was in- the avant garde DOE people, but even IAEA similar to the U.S. program, and vited by the Soviet Academy of Sci- he didn’t really pick up on this opportu- as part of the exchanges that took ences to teach at the International nity until later. place, Americans got to visit various fa- School on Plasma Physics and Con- cilities associated with their nuclear trolled Fusion in September of 1991 in fuel cycle, nuclear reactors, and such. a resort town on the Black Sea, and I Reaching Out was hoping to visit Arzamas-16 in con- Ron Augustson: I was there in 1988 nection with that trip. You remember Los Alamos Science: What do you be- with the IAEA to help the Soviets teach there was a lot of unrest in the Soviet lieve was the origin of the opening up a course on safeguards in Dimitrograd. Union at that time. The coup attempt of the Russian nuclear institutes and And we got very, very, royal treatment. had been made in August 1991 and the offers of collaboration, and was this At one point, I was left in Moscow for many trips to the Soviet Union were a more general phenomenon? a couple of days, and to my surprise, I being cancelled. But my wife and I de- was completely free to wander all over cided to go anyway. We spent the Krik Krikorian: In Colin Powell’s re- Moscow on my own. The next year, week and a half at the conference and cent autobiography, he describes a con- two of my Soviet hosts from Dimitro- when we returned to Moscow, we were versation he had in Moscow in 1987 grad came to Los Alamos and we did taken to an apartment in Kurchatov In- with Anatoly Dobrynin, Soviet Ambas- some measurements on spent fuel at the stitute. About three hours later, some- sador to the United States during during Omega West Reactor. Now the gov- one came and knocked and said, much of the Cold War. Dobrynin said, ernment-to-government MPC&A pro- “Chernyshev and Mokhov and some of in effect, we finally have a lawyer run- gram will be working with Dimitrograd their people are here to meet with you.” ning this country, and this lawyer is to set up collaborations on improving Chernyshev and Mokhov were very saying to the military, “Why do you tell safeguards of their nuclear material. apologetic that it wasn’t possible to me we have to have this weapon or that take us to Arzamas-16, but they then weapon? I don’t intend to conquer the Hugh Casey: Tech transfer was anoth- presented a written proposal signed by Americans.” I think the winds of er area that started to open up during Belugin, the Director of Arzamas-16, as change started with the book Gor- glasnost and perestroika. In 1988, the well as them selves for joint U.S. work bachev wrote on perestroika in 1987. Soviets started a series of conferences on the magnetized target approach to The idea that the door was opening fil- that they advertised as attempts to bring controlled fusion (they call it MAGO). tered out to the people in Russia and their defense technology to the west. After I read the proposal, my first state- we saw the effects at Los Alamos. For In fact Krik, myself, and Tony Rollett ment to them was, “Wow, I don’t know instance, in 1988 Academician attended what they called a MATec if our government is ready for this. All Vladimir Fortov, who was on the Cher- conference—Materials and Manufactur- I can do is take it back and see what nobyl safety committee, visited Los ing Conference—in Helsinki, Finland.

Number 24 1996 Los Alamos Science 15 “Side-by-Side as Equals”—a round table

Representatives from key Soviet de- through the technology transfer initia- the knowledge of our programs and our fense institutes and the Academy of tive of the early 1990s. It is now an science because we do almost every- Sciences were there, although none on-going project that has been running thing in the open, and so little of their from the nuclear weapons centers. I for many years and will be one of the work made it into the literature. But it was astonished by one presentation in larger success stories in terms of trans- took a long time for us to get over the which they were trying to market the fer of high technology to U.S. industry. intelligence mode and into the outreach very specialized technologies that had Ford Motor Company, for example, is mode. We suspected them of being in- been used for building ICF capsules. I the first major corporation to actually terested purely for the intelligence rea- couldn’t imagine who they thought the have put these to use into production- son. And yet, I think they were inter- buyers would be. scale processing. ested in the partnering outreach mode probably much earlier than we were. Krik Krikorian: At that time it was clear that the Russians had no concept Don Eilers: I believe our 1990 visit to of marketing. They thought if you had Arzamas-16 is an example. When a good product, people would just jump Mikhailov invited us, he explained how on the bandwagon and buy it. Well difficult it had been for him to arrange that wasn’t the case at all. the visit. It involved two discussions with Gorbachev’s deputy and many Hugh Casey: There were only a hand- others. Then, to help the U.S. delega- ful of Americans at the Helsinki confer- tion win consent for the visit, he as- ence, a few western Europeans and a sured us that there were no conditions few Japanese. Most attendees were attached to the visit—in other words, from eastern Europe. Our presence reciprocity by the United States was not drew a lot of attention, and they seemed an issue. But we knew from the dis- to know an awful lot about us. Proba- Hugh Casey cussions at the Nevada Test Site and in bly they had done some background Geneva during the previous two years checks. But the interactions were quite that the possibility of collaboration was demonstrative and very friendly. Most Tech transfer was another of great interest to the Russians. important, we were able to identify area that started to open up some interesting equipment and technol- Krik Krikorian: In the same vein, ogy that subsequently became one of during glasnost and pere- Khariton and Pavlovskii took the initia- the models for the current lab-to-lab In- stroika. In 1988, the tive to give us a list of topics for possi- dustrial Partnership Program. ble collaboration when Dan Stillman Russians started and I visited Arzamas in December Los Alamos Science: What area of a series of conferences that 1991. Dan delivered that list to Sig. Russian technology was so intriguing? they advertised as attempts Sig Hecker: In terms of motivations, Hugh Casey: We were particularly in- to bring their defense Don Westervelt and others suggested in trigued with high-powered gyrotrons technology to the west. their trip reports that the Russian nu- that produce ultrahigh-frequency colli- clear scientists believed working with mated microwave beams. We were in- Los Alamos would give them credibili- terested in some applications involving Los Alamos Science: Was there some ty within their own country and would the sintering of ceramics and had a pro- sort asymmetry during the late 1980s? help them get funding from their gov- posal in to DOE to build our own Were the Russians reaching out while ernment. That was a key driving force. equipment, but it would have been very we Americans were holding back? The Russian scientists were also con- costly. After the collapse of the Soviet cerned with how to keep their people Union, we were able to acquire those Sig Hecker: You are asking whether interested in their programs. Every- original pieces of equipment, and they the Russian nuclear scientists were real- thing was heading downhill so fast for are now installed in an industrial user ly more aggressive in trying to build them, and working with the Americans facility operated by the Laboratory’s bridges with us, and I think the answer offered a ray of hope. That was evi- accelerator division. We actually ended is yes. We were also enormously inter- dent in 1990. But I didn’t experience up getting the equipment free of charge ested and curious because we knew so it directly until February 1992 when through an industrial partner that be- little about their weapons program. I went to Russia for the Directors’ came involved with Los Alamos There was an enormous asymmetry in exchanges.

16 Los Alamos Science Number 24 1996 “Side-by-Side as Equals”—a round table

collapse. Research and development concept of when things changed. funds for defense work were drying up, Looking back at the Gorbachev era, and so financial woes also provided there is a tendency to see in its early some motivation to look to the West for years and throughout its existence many new opportunities. of the things that happened only after Gorbachev got ousted from power. For Krik Krikorian: There is another fac- example, the golden age of arms con- tor that needs to be brought out. Irv trol that occurred during the Gorbachev was exposed to it, and so were Danny era, from the INF treaty to START I, Stillman and I. The fact is they had al- was a continuation of classical arms ready started defense conversion. They control. It was an effort to create sta- even gave us a videotape describing it. bility through restraints of various kinds. And although it included un- Don Eilers: Conversion was the main precedented reductions of nuclear arms, Don Eilers topic of the briefing we received on our 1990 visit to Arzamas-16, and it was also the main topic of the prospectus [Defense] conversion was that Irv mentioned earlier. In fact, they the main topic of the told us during the visit that they had al- briefing we received on our ready converted about 15 per cent of their activities to non-defense work. 1990 visit to Arzamas-16… In fact, they told us…they Joe Pilat: With regard to what Don, Krik, and Hugh have said, I think it had already converted would be a mistake to attribute to Sovi- about 15 per cent of their et scientists a free reign during this pe- activities to riod. Prior to the Soviet collapse, I be- lieve they were still operating largely non-defense work. within, or in some cases, at the margins Krik Krikorian of a fairly limited and circumscribed governmental agenda. … Khariton and Pavlovskii Paul White: It’s interesting that the Certainly, the interactions that Max, technical interactions in Geneva during John, and Irv described, and the ones took the initiative to give the Threshold Test Ban Treaty negotia- that Steve Younger and Ron Augustson us a list of topics for tions were, in many ways, the very first will describe later, are an object of total contacts that the Russian nuclear scien- fascination. Ten years ago, one could- possible collaboration tists from the weapons institutes had n’t have imagined the breakthroughs we when Dan Stillman and with the international scientific commu- have witnessed in recent times. But I visited Arzamas-16 in nity. And it was very important for one of the biggest problems in dealing them to try to establish their reputations with historical reflection is reading the December 1991. Dan as bona fide scientists in that communi- future back into the past. Many of the delivered that list to Sig. ty. So, after some initial posturing, issues that are really germane to this they were very forthcoming. discussion are questions that don’t have consensus answers. When did the Cold the agreements were essentially Cold Steve Younger: There was a cultural War end? When did the roles of the War agreements in content, context, element too. For a thousand years in nuclear weapons in the United States and structure. They were bilateral, and Russia, interaction with the West in and the Soviet Union (and then Russia) they were designed to ameliorate a fun- areas of science, literature, and so on begin to change to reflect changes in damental U.S.-Soviet conflict. Gor- has been considered a social distinction. the world? When was this reflected in bachev did put forward proposals for policies and postures in governments total disarmament. But should those Hugh Casey: Economic pressures in and then the laboratories? I think we have been taken seriously? Probably the form of food and medical shortages need to look at the laboratory interac- not. If you look at the long history of and missed paychecks were being felt tions in that broader context. Soviet arms-control negotiations, you in Russia for years before the Soviet For the moment, I will just offer my see these kinds of sweeping proposals.

Number 24 1996 Los Alamos Science 17 “Side-by-Side as Equals”—a round table

In 1946, the Soviet reaction to the believed in communism as a philosoph- party. Even during glasnost, Gor- Baruch plan to put nuclear weapons ical system that was better than capital- bachev’s behavior was often in contra- under international control was, “No, ism. And many of them still do today. diction to the goals of his book. but let’s disarm totally.” The statement Until recently Russians lived in an ele- Glasnost has come before in Russian was meant to create a political high- ment of fear. They were not “just like history, and each time it passed by very ground and at the same time serve the us” in this respect. quickly. All I’m saying is, if one talks political interest of the Soviet Union, about a wind of change, one needs to which was to have their own nuclear be very careful about how you attribute arsenal. causality to it. When put to the test, Gorbachev did not act as if he took these broader goals Paul White: I agree that the direction seriously. If you remember, it took him of the individual technical contacts was two weeks to admit that the accident at very different than the direction in Chernobyl happened. Near the end of which the government was moving at his reign, the United States put forward the time. Certainly the contacts be- the Open Skies proposal, a transparency tween people like Max, and Krik, and measure that had very little negative se- others in a variety of circles, made it curity consequences, but Gorbachev possible for the proposal for collabora- stonewalled on that, primarily in re- tion on fusion research that was made sponse to the concerns of his military. to Irv. It could not have happened I believe the real government-level without all that went before. Those changes didn’t start until the coup, its Paul White contacts built a set of personal relation- failure, and then the collapse of the So- ships and the first beginnings of some viet Union. And for anything that oc- institutional relationships. Then, when curred prior to the collapse that por- I agree that the the political environment changed in tended later changes, one really needs direction of the individual December 1991, those relationships to ask oneself whether or not that was made it possible for a reaching out to the intention. Soviet diplomats and technical contacts was very occur with official sanctions and with a academics, for example, were traveling different than the direction successful outcome. to international conferences and starting in which the government every statement with the words, “Now I Steve Younger: Before the collapse, offer only my personal opinion.” It was moving at the time. … the Russians lived under a system in was somewhat surprising to all of us in Then, when the political which they had just a few very close that era of glasnost that all their person- friends because, if they talked too al opinions were the same! environment changed in freely outside that circle, they could December 1991, those end up disappearing one night, and Steve Younger: I agree with Joe in relationships made it their names would be removed from the many respects. Certainly, information official registers. So I don’t think it’s was tightly controlled until the 1990s. possible for a reaching out possible to overestimate the importance There were some publication of forbid- to occur with official of these personal interactions. The re- den novels, but it was a crime to have lationship between Max Fowler and them, and they were viewed as socially sanctions and with a Pavlovskii, for example, during the ini- unacceptable, almost as pornography is successful outcome. tial stages of starting up the scientific viewed in this country. Foreign maga- interactions with Arzamas-16 was ab- zines and newspapers were available to solutely essential to getting things off only a very limited number of people. Sig Hecker: It’s probably true that the the ground. And Sakharov, the golden boy of their capitalistic system didn’t look very nuclear program, was treated very good to them. After all, what was fea- Sig Hecker: The progress since then roughly, as were some of their other tured in their media year after year was was immensely faster because we hap- scientists. One other thing I’d like to the poverty, the street people, the pened to have a number of people who mention. Sometimes Americans like to crime, and all of that. over the years have been able to build think that the Russians didn’t really like personal relationships, from John Shan- communism and wanted to be just like Joe Pilat: Look at the recent Duma er, to Max Fowler, to Don Eilers, to us. But that’s not true. Many of them elections. The communists are the top Hugh Casey, and so forth.

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Part II The Lab-to-Lab Program in Scientific Conversion and Nuclear Materials Control

The Soviet Collapse and the soon, but by mid-February their Direc- closely with the DOE and the State De- Lab Directors’ Visits tors were here, and by the end of Feb- partment to make the visits happen. ruary, John Nuckolls and I went over to Also, Irv Lindemuth and Bob Sig Hecker: The big opportunity to Russia. Those were the first steps to- Reinovsky made a trip to Arzamas-16 get Washington support for direct col- ward the lab-to-lab program. in January, and we asked Irv and Bob laborations with the Russian nuclear in- to request that Directors Belugin and stitutes came on December 16, 1991 in Nechai extend an invitation to the DOE Leesburg, Virginia. Admiral Watkins, Lab Directors to visit Arzamas-16 and then Secretary of Energy, was holding a Chelyabinsk-70. They evidently agreed retreat for DOE Lab Directors. Many immediately. momentous events had already occurred in the Soviet Union, including the Irv Lindemuth: Bob and I made sure abortive coup attempt and Yeltsin’s that we established, not just interest on heroic stand, and it was clear that the the part of Belugin and Nechai, but also Soviet Union was breaking up into sep- specific dates for the visits. We also arate independent states. President delivered the first formal scientific sem- Bush was worrying about a possible inars to be presented at Arzamas-16 by “brain drain”of Russian nuclear scien- Americans. tists to would-be nuclear proliferants such as Iran and Iraq, and Congress Los Alamos Science: Who was mak- was working on the Nunn-Lugar legis- ing it happen in Russia? lation to help prevent the Soviet nuclear arsenal from being broken up. Sig Hecker: I think Viktor Mikhailov Watkins raised the topic of a brain was a substantial driver. He certainly drain with the Lab Directors, and so we gave his blessing to the Directors’ ex- organized a special evening session at changes, and it appears from all the sto- which Vic Alessi outlined some back- ries we just heard that he may have ground on arms control and nonprolif- “Let me tell you Admiral. masterminded the early visits to Arza- eration. At one point Watkins, showing mas-16 and Chelyabinsk-70 in 1990 obvious frustration and concern, asked If I were in their shoes, and so forth. In all the deliberations us, “What can be done to keep their as a director of one of their that followed the initial Directors’ ex- scientists there?” Of course, I had been changes, their Directors and scientists trying to get Washington interested in institutes, I would have seemed able to call the shots and to letting us work with their nuclear insti- all kinds of ideas about guarantee that Mikhailov would ap- tutes for a year or more. I raised my how to keep my scientists at prove. hand and I said, “Let me tell you Ad- miral. If I were in their shoes, as a di- home. So why don’t we go Los Alamos Science: In the initial ex- rector of one of their institutes, I would ask them?” change, Vladimir Belugin, the Director have all kinds of ideas about how to of Arzamas-16 and Vladimir Nechai, keep my scientists at home. So why the Director of Chelyabinsk-70 visited don’t we go ask them?” Watkins re- Los Alamos Science: Did the DOE fi- Livermore and Los Alamos. sponded immediately with, “Why don’t nally get behind the lab-to-lab effort? you?” And at the end of that session, Sig Hecker: Yes. And for the most Polly Gault, who was his Chief of Sig Hecker: Yes, once Watkins said it part the interactions were quite formal Staff, walked up to me and John Nuck- was important, everyone felt liberated and even suspicious. The friendliest olls and said, “Can you go to Russia and became very supportive from that part was an interaction between Boris before Christmas?” Christmas was too point on. And so our folks worked Litvinov and my wife at our museum.

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My wife speaks Polish, and it turned out his Ukranian and her Polish were close enough that they could actually carry on a conversation.

Steve Younger: But for me there was certainly some scientific excitement during their visit to Los Alamos, espe- cially during the lecture that Pavlovskii delivered. It was the most exciting physics talk that I ever heard. He spoke about nuclear reactors and atomic physics and plasma physics and pulsed power and lasers and everything you could think of, all with the air of some- one who had worked extensively in every area. I knew right then that no matter where he was from, we had to work with him.

Los Alamos Science: Sig, in what way was the visit to Russia different?

Sig Hecker: From the moment we stepped off the plane at Arzamas-16, the offer of friendship was obvious. I Left to right: V. Chernyshev, I. Lindemuth, L. Gerdova, R. Reinovsky, Alevtina, and N. had brought John Immele, then Associ- Bidylo during Lindemuth’s and Reinovsky’s January 1992 visit to Arzamas-16. They ate Director for Nuclear Weapons, and are standing in front of the house once occupied by Andrei Sakharov. John Shaner from Los Alamos, and John Nuckolls, then Director of Liver- more, had brought along George Miller and Chuck McDonald. That evening Khariton gave a talk on the early days of nuclear weapons. He talked about his doctoral work in the UK at the Cavendish Laboratory under Rutherford from 1926 to 1928, and he related the story of why they copied and tested our device when they were first designing their atomic bomb—they knew it would work, and their lives were at stake. The next morning John Immele and I experienced the pleasing irony of being the first two Americans to take an early morning jog in this once secret city. The temperature was a grizzly minus 5 degrees fahrenheit, but we couldn’t turn down the opportunity. The first morning a guard restricted our run to the circumference of a nearby soccer field. But afterwards I com- plained to Belugin, and then John and I Discussions in the House of Scientists at Arzamas-16 during the February 1992 visit by were free to run into town, through DOE Lab Directors. In the foreground, John Immele (right) sits across from Alexander apartment building complexes, and in Pavlovskii and Sig Hecker sits across from Yuli Khariton.

20 Los Alamos Science Number 24 1996 “Side-by-Side as Equals”—a round table

The participants in the February 1992 Directors’ exchange visit are standing in front of the monumental statue of Igor Kurchatov (scientific leader of the Soviet nuclear energy program) at the nuclear design institute at Chelyabinsk-70. their beautiful woods along the river. more! But, then maybe we can learn to Sig Hecker: The scene at Chelyabin- We were also treated to fine dinners work with them as well.” They all sk-70 was fantastic. There we were, every night, and of course, the Russians broke out in laughter—because the rela- people from Los Alamos and Liver- like to drink vodka and make toast after tionship between Arzamas-16 and more, and then Chelyabinsk-70 and toast. The best toast I gave was at the Chelyabinsk-70 is just as competitive as Arzamas-16, sitting around a table big banquet at Arzamas at the end of the relationship between Los Alamos crafting this document in Litvinov’s of- our stay there. I said, “Now after fifty and Livermore. fice with a picture of Lenin on the wall years of competition and being adver- and beside it, a big picture of Kurcha- saries, we are learning to work with the John Shaner: We spent some time at tov, the scientific leader of the nuclear Russians, and we are finding that we Chelyabinsk-70 during this visit to Rus- energy program. have much in common. However, we sia. And while there, we worked out all know that competition is important the beginnings of an agreement for col- John Shaner: It was like the Tokyo to success. So thank God for Liver- laboration with both institutes. stock exchange. People running around

Number 24 1996 Los Alamos Science 21 “Side-by-Side as Equals”—a round table

indication during that first visit or later that their scientists were worried about a brain drain, an exodus of talent and ideas?

Sig Hecker: It was certainly apparent that they were facing economic hard- ship, but they did not approach us on that basis. They made it clear from the beginning that what they wanted from us was collaboration. Pavlovskii, in particular, indicated very forcibly dur- ing the Los Alamos visit that they were not interested in welfare. They clearly felt that they were our equals and did not want to be treated in any other way. And more to the point, they said that being able to demonstrate that they could work with Los Alamos on scien- tific projects would buy them signifi- During the Directors’ exchange visit of February 1992, the tour bus at Arzamas-16 cant credibility with their government. stops at the firing site where several old flux compression generators are on display. That was a key issue. In due time we also realized that they knew a few U.S. dollars went a long way in Russia, and that fact was, of course, very important in all that has happened.

John Shaner: Sig, during that first visit to Russia, we also tried to get them interested in participating in ISTC.

Sig Hecker: That’s right. John is re- ferring to the International Science and Technology Center, which was spawned by Secretary of State Jim Baker in connection with the Nunn- Lugar program. The idea was that the United States, the European Union, and Japan would provide funding to help Pavlovskii shows Directors Sig Hecker and John Nuckolls a laser lab at Arzamas-16. keep scientists from the New Indepen- dent States busy working on non-nu- with sheets of paper yelling and was not binding without U.S. govern- clear-weapons-related topics. So that screaming in at least two different ment approval. The list of topics for initiative had some of the same motiva- languages. collaboration began with scientific ex- tions as our lab-to-lab effort (see “The periments and then went down through International Science and Technology Sig Hecker: We would get into road- nuclear materials control, nuclear safety Centers in the Former Soviet Union”). blocks because the same word means and security, and various arms-control- Our government really wanted the different things in Russian and English. related things. We promised to take it Russian defense labs to take advantage The amazing thing is we came up with back to Admiral Watkins for approval, of the ISTC funding mode. I pushed an agreement. And, of course, the and they said they would take it to that pretty hard at Arzamas, but Belug- Russians wanted us to sign it, so we Mikhailov. in and Trutnev were extremely nega- did, but only after including a large tive. They saw working with us as a number of caveats that the agreement Los Alamos Science: Was there any ray of hope and a mechanism for keep-

22 Los Alamos Science Number 24 1996 “Side-by-Side as Equals”—a round table

Sig Hecker: It seems that Directors Belugin and Nechai feel the same way. During our visit they proudly told us that the MINATOM complex is respon- sible for about half of the gold mining in the country and about a third of the fertilizer production. MINATOM also built the 1980s stadium for what was to be the Olympics in Moscow. The rea- son they gave was that the MINATOM complex was an organization that worked, whereas much of the rest of Russia was not functioning very well. Now the gold stems from uranium min- ing, and the fertilizer is closely related to the production of explosives. So those activities are not so surprising. But the MINATOM cities were doing many other things that were not so ob- viously related to nuclear weapons and nuclear power. Pavlovskii shows the DOE Lab Directors his laboratory for ultra-high magnetic field What struck me most, though, was experiments. the enormous commonality we had with the Russians from Arzamas-16 in terms ing their people stable and working, but must have been expecting some finan- of how we treated our jobs, how we felt they saw ISTC as nearly worthless. I cial commitment. about the science we had to do, how told them that if they refused to cooper- we understood the reasons it needed to ate with this international effort, it Sig Hecker: Yes. Before leaving Rus- be done, and the patriotism we felt for would put us in a rather difficult posi- sia, we had a close-out dinner with our country. As I listened to them talk, tion. Their response was interesting. Mikhailov in Moscow and he was al- I could swear, except for the transla- They said that as we get closer to sensi- ready complaining about the lack of ac- tion, that they were telling our story. tive issues such as those associated tion and the lack of money. If I hadn’t Belugin was giving the pitch I used to with nonproliferation, they didn’t mind met him at the test site, I would never give about nuclear testing, and Trutnev sharing with us, but they wouldn’t want have suspected that he was a very dedi- was trying to convince me of why we to share with this kind of broader inter- cated knowledgeable scientist. He can’t possibly have a comprehensive national community. So despite the acted much more like a hard-nosed test ban. I listened and then I said, years and years of being Cold War ene- Russian bureaucrat. Afterwards though, “We’ve made all those arguments. mies, they had a lot more trust and Nechai and Belugin assured us that We’ve lost those arguments. And just more interest in working with us than Mikhailov would support the collabora- like us, you have to start thinking that with any neutral parties. Later on, of tions if we could get approval by the you have to do this job in another course, they did get involved in the U.S. government. way.” And so the feelings about our ISTC program. jobs are just about as identical as you Don Eilers: I’d like to say a few can get. John Shaner: Right now, they proba- words about Mikhailov’s position. As bly have a quarter to a third of the total minister of MINATOM, Mikhailov is ISTC funding, which is about 84 mil- responsible for ten closed cities and The Lab-to-Lab Effort: lion dollars. ISTC didn’t start dispers- twenty-five other cities that make up Getting It Off the Ground ing real money until 1994, but then the the nuclear-weapons industrial complex. scientists at Arzamas-16 and Chelyabin- And he always gave the impression Sig Hecker: On the way back from sk-70 got involved. that it was his personal responsibility to Russia, John Nuckolls and I stopped to make sure that each of the one million see Watkins and presented him with the Los Alamos Science: The Nunn- people who worked in that complex agreement we had constructed with the Lugar program had been announced was supported somehow. He feels a Russians. Just about instantly he gave prior to your trip, so the Russians tremendous sense of responsibility. us the go-ahead to do the scientific col-

Number 24 1996 Los Alamos Science 23 “Side-by-Side as Equals”—a round table

Younger if he would like to be in- volved. Steve, as program manager for ICF (inertial confinement fusion), was already working in the area of pulsed power and was interested in working with Pavlovskii. So he picked up the ball and really started to run with it.

John Shaner: Next, in May 1992, Paul Stokes from Sandia, Bill Dunlop from Livermore, and I had a meeting with Vic Alessi and Bob Galucci from the State Department in which we es- tablished the ground rules for the lab- to-lab process, including getting every- thing briefed in Washington and supporting other State Department ac- tivities such as ISTC. Galucci was the one who led the group trapped in the Baghdad parking lot at the end of the A picnic in a meadow at Arzamas-16 during the June 1992 visit by the Los Alamos Gulf war, and he also negotiated the pulsed-power group. agreement with North Korea to stop re- processing their reactor fuel. We were lucky to get his attention to our projects in between those events. Later in May 1992, Steve Younger and I and others from Los Alamos, Sandia, and Liver- more went to Moscow to meet with the Russians and lay the groundwork for scientific interactions. It took another eighteen months for ISTC to get all the bureaucracy in place and to actually dispense money. Our lab-to-lab effort was able to start right away and included actual contracts to be paid by our own laboratory-directed research and development (LDRD) funds as well as expert exchanges in the topics for which we’d agreed to de- velop proposals.

During the June 1992 visit, Steve Younger (second from left) sits across the table from Steve Younger: At that May 1992 Yuli Khariton and discusses the Los Alamos response to the topics for collaboration meeting, a curious thing happened. Al- proposed by the scientists at Arzamas-16. though I was not the head of the dele- gation nor an expert on Russian sci- laboration. And that was the birth of John Shaner: I guess we had gotten a ence, Pavlovskii singled me out and the lab-to-lab program. He also said little carried away with respect to nu- said, “I want to give you a list of pro- that all the other topics needed to be clear-weapons safety and security is- posed topics of collaboration, and I approved and worked through the same sues, and the National Security Council want you to write comments on it and government interagency process that all said, “There’s no way you are going to give it back to me in the morning.” I Nunn-Lugar programs were subject to. do that without interagency oversight.” was later told that the Russians at So he could not approve nuclear mate- Arzamas-16 had picked me as their rials control and accounting or even the Sig Hecker: When we got back to Los principal representative in the United environmental topics. Alamos, John Immele asked Steve States. Perhaps it was because I was in

24 Los Alamos Science Number 24 1996 “Side-by-Side as Equals”—a round table

charge of the Los Alamos pulsed- only visit to Arzamas-16, and they hon- power effort, which was the area of ored me by letting me push the button. collaboration that Pavlovskii and his Pavlovskii was still alive then. colleagues had been pushing for some time. In any case, I marked up the list Steve Younger: Max was also the first and crossed out huge sections because American to accept payment for work- some of them were very sensitive and ing at Arzamas-16. others were outright classified. It was apparent from their list and from the Max Fowler: Yes, I told Pavlovskii, interactions at that meeting in May that “You know, I’m working for you now, one reason the Russians wanted to and I would suggest payment—maybe work with us was because we were the an extra vodka toast.” They later gave other nuclear superpower, and they me a bottle of vodka as payment, and wanted to work on nuclear things. everyone signed the label. They said, now that the Cold War is over, let’s work together to exploit the Steve Younger: During that trip we peaceful opportunities of nuclear explo- Steve Younger also became acutely aware that many of sives or nuclear energy, but also as the the scientists were facing financial cata- nuclear stewards of the superpowers, We wanted to develop strophe. And I’m not using that word it’s our responsibility to work together. real collaborations, lightly. It’s one thing not to be able to Our response to many of their propos- replace the TV if it breaks. It’s quite als was that we weren’t allowed to talk to work side by side another not to be able to buy insulin for about many of the things on their list, as equals. your kid who is a diabetic and who is but there were some topics that were going to die unless you find some real possibilities. That phrase is very money. That’s the kind of financial important, because there pressure they were facing. Los Alamos Science: When did you were a lot of Americans reach a substantive agreement on joint Irv Lindemuth: Even that past Janu- projects? running around the ary, when Bob Reinovsky and I visited, country… buying Russian we saw that the people were extremely Steve Younger: One month later dur- technology for a song… concerned about their future. Inflation ing our visit to Arzamas-16, we worked had taken off. They had missed a few out a specific agreement. Other mem- Instead, we were pay checks. And they didn’t know bers of the Los Alamos pulsed-power saying, “We’re going to what the future would bring. During group went with me: Max Fowler, Irv the June visit Steve made it clear to Lindemuth, and Bob Reinovsky. The be here this year, we’re them that we wanted a real collabora- week started out in a less than conge- going to be here tion, that we were there for the long nial fashion with Belugin’s saying to next year, term, and that real dollars would be in- me, “I’m tired of Americans coming to volved. We also expressed our concern the Institute and making promises and and if politics allows, on a more personal level, which not delivering anything. Americans we’re going to be eventually grew into an exciting cultur- talk, talk, talk but never do anything. al and humanitarian exchange between Unless this meeting results in something here ten years the Los Alamos and Arzamas-16 substantive, this will be your last visit from now. communities—what we call the sister to Arzamas-16.” Then he got up and city connection. (See “Arzamas-16 walked out of the meeting room. and Los Alamos—The Sister City Pavlovskii then asked to me to give the which projects in pulsed power were of Relationship”) American response to the 11-page list mutual interest. They also demonstrat- of topics he had handed me in Moscow. ed one of their pulsed-power generators, Steve Younger: The week was suc- Khariton was sitting across from me and they invited Max to be the first cessful on a number of levels. By Fri- taking detailed notes as I spoke. We American to press a detonator button at day we had identified six topics in were all in roles we could never have a Russian nuclear weapons institute. pulsed power and had written and anticipated. During the week we car- signed a protocol saying we were going ried out a delicate dance as we explored Max Fowler: Yes, it was my one and to do experiments on two of those

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topics, we were going to find funding for the experiments, and we were going to carry them out within the next fiscal year. When I got back to the United States, I wrote to Mikhailov saying that, in my opinion, a collabora- tion existed between Arzamas-16 and Los Alamos. Then, over the summer we worked out the difficult process of how to fi- nance these activities and how to write suitable contracts.

Sig Hecker: Steve came to me and suggested that LDRD funds would be the most neutral funding source and quite appropriate because we were going to engage the Russians in basic scientific enterprises. But we were on Left to right: I. Lindemuth, S. Younger, V. Chernyshev, R. Il’kaev. and Y. Tuminov visit extremely thin ice in terms of the fund- the new Weapons Museum at Arzamas-16 in September 1993 prior to the first joint ex- ing. periment. The museum was inspired by the Bradbury Science Museum at Los Alamos.

Steve Younger: There were many Since no up-front money was involved, agreement in those first contracts? people in the United States who didn’t there was no way to complain that the want us to work with the nuclear insti- money was being used for some inap- Steve Younger: We formalized what tutes. They were afraid we might be propriate activity. we had agreed to in June, namely, to working on nuclear weapons and giving collaborate on two experiments. One away secrets. Or maybe we were all Sig Hecker: In contrast to the govern- was a test of Chernyshev’s very big spies, or maybe all the money we spent ment-to-government approach, which high-explosive pulsed-power generator would go to the communist party. we will be discussing shortly, we decid- to be done at Arzamas. The second ed not to keep track in detail of what was a series of experiments in which Irv Lindemuth: John and Steve took our Russian collaborators did with that Pavlovskii’s generators would be used many trips to Washington to inform money. We didn’t know whether they to produce the ultra-high magnetic people that we were going to spend had to pay taxes or support infrastruc- fields and apply them to the measure- LDRD money for this purpose. Al- ture. The only thing we knew is that we ment of the critical magnetic fields of though some people raised flags, most got one heck of a lot of return for the high-temperature superconductors. were glad that somebody was doing money that we gave them. That series was to be done at Los something. Alamos in Ancho Canyon (see “Lab-to- Steve Younger: And they feel they re- Lab Scientific Collaborations between Sig Hecker: John and Steve pounded ceived a fair exchange for what they Los Alamos and Arzamas-16 using the pavement until they won the sup- gave us. But that summer of 1992, we Explosive-Driven Flux Compression port of the folks at the DOE. DOE did- had many table-pounding conversations Generators”). n’t come up with any money. We had in which they would say we were pay- The contracts included dollar to go into our own coffers, but the ing them too little, and we would say, amounts for various deliverables. For DOE did back us up so that we could “Hey look, this is how much money we example, to test Chernyshev’s generator get this money to the Russians. have. You claim you have lots other at Arzamas, we agreed to pay 100,000 buyers? Where are they?” And after dollars, and for the second set of exper- Steve Younger: We had another big calling their bluff, we would come to iments at Ancho Canyon, we paid problem, and that was how to move an agreement. Then, in October 1992, 100,000 dollars for five of Pavlovskii’s money because there was no precedent Pavlovskii and Chernyshev came to Los high-magnetic-field generators, and we for this type of collaboration. John Alamos to sign the first contracts be- paid the way for the Russians to come Shaner and I came up with the concept tween Arzamas and Los Alamos. to Los Alamos. The funding for both of deliverables. When they delivered came from LDRD, and all of that the work, we’d give them the money. Los Alamos Science: What was the money went to Russia. At that time

26 Los Alamos Science Number 24 1996 “Side-by-Side as Equals”—a round table

Scenes from the first joint Los Alamos- Arzamas-16 experiment in September 1993. The purpose was to test the DEMG, Chernyshev’s high-current gener- ator. Top left: Lynn Veeser makes final adjustments to Los Alamos diagnostics. Top right: The experimental group poses at the firing site on the evening before the test. Right: Americans, dressed in VNIIEF protective clothing, pose before Chernyshev’s generator.

DOE did not want money that had been appropriated for the U.S. nuclear weapons program to go to Russia. Af- terwards, that restriction was relaxed, and we were able to spend program- matic money. This year we will send about 550,000 dollars to Russia. This money will fund unique science that neither side could do on its own.

Krik Krikorian: As a contrast, it cost us almost 300,000 dollars in 1982-1983 to replicate the Pavlovskii generator for project LIGA.

Los Alamos Science: Pavlovskii died February 12, 1993. Since his relation- ship with Max Fowler was one of the mainstays of trust for building the col- laboration, were you concerned that his death might threaten progress ?

Steve Younger: Yes, very. At the

Number 24 1996 Los Alamos Science 27 “Side-by-Side as Equals”—a round table

He did not see a path to real collabora- tion and worried about our buying tech- nology and walking away. But we spoke intensely through the entire ban- quet—so much so that during one of the breaks (Russian banquets are marathon affairs so they have breaks!), one of the officials at Arzamas said to Trutnev, “You are not allowing Steve to eat. He must be hungry.” Trutnev merely pushed him away. Neither of us ate anything that evening, but by the end we were great friends, and Trutnev understood that we were all dedicated to the national security mission of our respective laboratories and that working together might promote the stability and integrity of both institutions. As to how to do it, that dinner was the origin of the “step-by-step” approach that be- Preparations in Ancho Canyon, Los Alamos in September 1993 for a shot to measure came the cornerstone of the lab-to-lab the critical field of high-temperature superconductors. process. During that week, they began to un- derstand that we were there for the long haul. We didn’t want to steal their technology and run. We wanted to de- velop real collaborations, to work side by side as equals. That phrase is very important, because there were a lot of Americans running around the country touting the fact that they were buying Russian technology for a song, that the Russians weren’t business men, so they were able to rob them blind. Instead, we were saying, “We’re going to be here this year, we’re going to be here next year, and if politics allows, we’re going to be here ten years from now.”

Los Alamos Science: Did all go Bob Reinovsky (right) is in the instrumentation trailer at Ancho Canyon giving instruc- smoothly after your March visit? tions to Olga Tatsenko about the next joint experiment in the series. Steve Younger: Not exactly. The first time we received notice of his death, with the inscription “From the Ameri- experiment was set for August 1993 in Carl Ekdahl, Denny Erickson, Jim Go- can colleagues,” and the whole scene Arzamas. But shortly before the sched- forth, Irv Lindemuth, Bob Reinovsky, was recorded by the Russians on video- uled date, I received word that the ex- and I were within a few days of leaving tape. periment would have to be delayed be- for a visit to Arzamas-16. We had to At the big banquet that evening, I cause they were not ready. I lost my postpone the visit, and Irv scrambled to was seated next to Yuri A. Trutnev, the temper at that point and had Irv Linde- reconstitute the visit within a few deputy chief scientist at Arzamas-16 muth call Chernyshev at 1:00 am Arza- weeks. As soon as we arrived in Arza- under Khariton and also a leading de- mas-16 time. I told him that I wanted mas-16, they took our team to see signer of nuclear-weapon secondaries. an explanation and I would be in Pavlovskii’s grave, which was mounded To begin with, Trutnev was extremely Moscow to be picked up at the appoint- with flowers. We added a large basket skeptical about the joint work with us. ed time. During that visit we were

28 Los Alamos Science Number 24 1996 “Side-by-Side as Equals”—a round table

taken, as a kind of consolation prize, to their device assembly area, which is one of the tightest security areas at VNIIEF (the nuclear institute at Arza- mas-16). And there, behind so many fences that I lost count of the number, we saw Chernyshev’s generator. It is a column ten feet tall and is mounted ver- tically. The whole time we were sur- rounded by a ring of Russian techni- cians, each one a huge bear of a person. And when we moved even twenty feet from the generator, they would let us know we were out of line by literally bumping up against us. At one point Jim Goforth stood on a chair to view the top of the generator, and one of those big burly Russians came over, and with a big smile, just picked up Jim at the knees with one arm to give him a better view. One month later, that was September 1993, we were back for the first joint Sasha Bykov gives Steve Younger an enormous bear hug after the first joint shot at experiment. The Russians were clearly Ancho Canyon. very excited about it. They held a news conference before the shot. the statement by former Laboratory Di- Mikhailov, who was out of the country, rector Norris Bradbury that the purpose was being given daily reports about our of nuclear weapons is not to wage war, progress. And three TV crews were but to give the politicians time to solve out at the firing point to witness the ac- the problems. tual test. Chernyshev’s generator out- fitted with American diagnostics was Max Fowler: The next month, a team flanked on either side by a Russian and of eight Russians came to Los Alamos an American flag. The tension was so to do a series of high-magnetic-field ex- high you could have cut it with a knife. periments using a Pavlovskii generator Everyone worked feverishly to get and some of our own as well. We were ready for the countdown, and then five, able to measure the value of the critical four, three, two, one . . . The bunker magnetic field in a high-temperature su- shook and we knew immediately that perconductor and how that value all had gone well. There was a tremen- changes with temperature. I guess I’m dous shaking of hands and congratula- rather proud of that work. It was also a tions and on-the-spot interviews by the … I’m rather proud historic series in the sense that those press. At that very first joint experi- were the first joint Russian-American ment, everyone was aware that we were of [the critical magnetic experiments done behind the fence at making history. field] work. It was also Los Alamos. At the banquet the next night, when a historic series in the all the pressure was off and after the Sig Hecker: After those successes, usual toasts, someone began playing an sense that those were the Steve was able to engineer a major lab- accordion and there developed a most first joint Russian-American to-lab umbrella contract with Arzamas- amazing sight—Russian and American 16 that would allow the two labs to weapons scientists dancing together and experiments done work together on scientific topics of telling jokes and trading family pictures behind the fence at mutual interest. We put a cap on the at what had been the most secret place Los Alamos. amount that could be spent, a total of 2 in the Soviet Union. I was reminded of million dollars, and identified a large

Number 24 1996 Los Alamos Science 29 “Side-by-Side as Equals”—a round table

number of potential topics for collabo- six additional experimental campaigns to help us, we are going to have to do ration. The first task orders were writ- covering a spectrum from pulsed-power something else.” ten in a mid-night meeting in Jim Jef- technology to solid-state physics to On my return, I reported this conver- feris’ office that involved Steve, John, controlled fusion. sation to Senator Pete Domenici. and Valeri Zorya from Arzamas-16. That’s the origin of Domenici’s sum- By then, Steve had been able to deliver Sig Hecker: In retrospect, the end of mary of the plight of the Russian nu- money for the experiments that we just 1993 through the beginning of 1994 clear scientists, “You’re driving us into talked about, the the hands of the first money that Chinese.” He said Arzamas had re- that on the floor ceived from the of the Senate dur- United States, and ing his plea for a so Steve was real- foreign aid appro- ly golden in their priation to support eyes. They trusted to the Russian sci- him and they liked entists. During him. Similarly, in the fall of 1993, January 1994 Irv Lindemuth and when Director Bel- I went all over ugin and Radi Washington to Il’kaev came here drum up money for the big signing and support, and ceremony, a real to sell the idea of friendship devel- scientific conver- oped between Bel- sion, the idea that ugin and me. He we need to sup- was at my home port Russian nu- for dinner, and I A flux compression generator is on its side at Chernyshev’s firing site at Arzamas-16 clear scientists to have photos of in April 1994 and is being prepared to measure the properties of magnetized plasmas. do non-nuclear him watching me scientific work. carve the turkey in my kitchen and later was the time when the lab-to-lab effort John Shaner and I developed the con- singing Russian folk songs in my din- really began to take off. The pulsed- cept of scientific conversions—engag- ing room. power work with Arzamas-16 was se- ing the core Russians nuclear weapons curely established, but also the Industri- experts on topics of basic scientific in- Los Alamos Science: Is the umbrella al Partnership Program was born. terest and integrating them into the in- contract still in effect, and what has ternational scientific community. After been done under it? Steve Younger: The importance of the all, you weren’t going to convert a sec- Industrial Partnership Program (IPP) ondary designer into a designer of bicy- Steve Younger: Yes, it is still in effect and also the umbrella contract were cles. They were proud of their skills. and it has become the mainstay of our highlighted in the August 1993 visit be- Scientific conversion tried to apply collaboration. Rather than having to fore the first joint experiment. During those skills to peaceful projects, sort of hash out all of the legal details on that visit, Director Belugin called me a half-way house in getting them into every contract, the Master Task Order aside for a private conversation with no long term, Russian-funded research pro- specifies this up front so that work can security people present. Only Valeri jects. At the same time, John Hnatio, a begin with as little as a two page task Zorya, senior manager at Arzamas was DOE employee on assignment with order. This is why Los Alamos was there to translate. Belugin said to me, Domenici’s staff, was trying to develop able to move so quickly. Similar “The Americans have made a lot of the concept of an industrial partnership agreements are now in place with many promises, but we have not received any program with the scientists of the for- other Russian institutes, and other U.S. money. We are facing extreme hard- mer Soviet Union. labs have copied our idea. ship. We are not receiving regular salaries from our government, we do Hugh Casey: Yes, this was an ex- Irv Lindemuth: In terms of the pulsed not have money to buy medical sup- tremely fortunate coincidence. John power work, following the initial exper- plies for our children, and we are get- Hnatio was the DOE program manager iments Steve mentioned earlier, we did ting desperate. If America isn’t going who was in charge of the early stages

30 Los Alamos Science Number 24 1996 “Side-by-Side as Equals”—a round table

of the technology transfer program at received the 35 million dollars at the nomic crisis in the New Independent DOE and helped us acquire the gyro- end of fiscal year 1994 and only after States, we are gaining valuable knowl- tron equipment from the Ukraine that great bureaucratic arm wrestling. We edge for modest investments. This fact we had first discussed at the MATec received no funds in fiscal year 1995, is not appreciated by those that dismiss conference back in 1988. He was also but we have 10 million dollars of DOE our efforts as “foreign aid,” and “indus- instrumental in setting up the Special funds for fiscal year 1996, and we ex- trial welfare.” Metals Processing Consortium at San- pect an additional 10 million dollars of dia National Laboratory. Those two DOD Nunn-Lugar funds for this year. programs involved Russian technology, Despite the funding struggles, the pro- Nunn-Lugar and the and when John moved to Domenici’s gram has been most successful, and we Lab-to-Lab Materials Control office, he proposed them as models for are aware of Senate-committee recom- Program partnering among industry, the national mendations calling for increases in labs, and the Russian institutes. funding for fiscal year 1997 and be- Sig Hecker: We are at a point to tell John formed a lab team from Los yond. We are extremely optimistic the nuclear material controls story, Alamos, Lawrence Livermore, Sandia, about the future of IPP. which has been my primary interest Argonne, and Oak Ridge National Lab- from the beginning. Shortly after Sec- oratories to develop a program plan that John Shaner: Along with these ef- retary of Energy O’Leary was appoint- DOE could propose to the State Depart- forts, we have continued to support ed, I wrote a letter to her and identified ment. Domenici initiated legislation to other government programs such as the control of nuclear materials in the provide funds. And those actions re- ISTC. As early as October 1992, we former Soviet Union as the most impor- sulted in the development of the pro- had the first of our topical expert ex- tant national security issue facing the gram (see “The New Independent changes that had been worked out dur- DOE. I did not get much of a response States Industrial Partnership Program”). ing the previous May meeting. Four- from Washington until over a year later IPP differed from ISTC in encourag- teen of us from Los Alamos, Sandia, in April 1994 when Charlie Curtis was ing direct interaction between U.S. lab- and Livermore flew to Chelyabinsk-70, appointed as Under Secretary in charge oratory and NIS institute staff. Also picking up a contingent from Arzamas- of national security programs. Our in- the IPP concept involved an ‘exit strat- 16 on the way, for a week-long confer- troductory meeting happened to be on egy’ whereby the funding responsibility ence on environmental science. As a the day after he had been taken to task would transfer from the government to result of that conference, we not only at a Congressional hearing on reported private industry over the life of the pro- got to know a new set of faces, but we thefts of nuclear materials in the former ject. Technology transfer and commer- also worked out a set of twelve propos- Soviet Union. The hearing was insti- cialization were to be used as a nonpro- als for joint work. To date, seven or gated by Tom Cochran of the Natural liferation tool to prevent “brain drain.” eight have been funded through ISTC. Resources Defense Council and other We have also held technical meetings antinuclear watchdogs. There were John Shaner: The congressional lan- on reactor safety, applied math, and complaints that the government-to-gov- guage stated that the program was to computer science. ernment efforts in nuclear material con- address institutes and scientists with trol under Nunn-Lugar were bogged knowledge of weapons of mass destruc- Hugh Casey: It’s interesting that we down, that we were at loggerheads with tion. The other criterion was that funds have experienced spontaneous integra- the Russians, and that nothing much be used for projects that were potential- tion of ISTC and IPP projects. That in- was being done to prevent theft of these ly self-sustainable economically. IPP creases the possibility of funding larger dangerous materials. has an end game of self-sustainability. projects and also brings industry in as a When I walked in to see Curtis, I full partner in the early stages of these started giving the speech on materials Los Alamos Science: What level of projects. control that I’d been giving for almost a funding was obtained for IPP? One last point. In all my experience year. Curtis responded immediately with international exchanges, including with, “What do you want to do?” And Hugh Casey: Domenici succeeded in those with the British, the French, and I had a plan in my back pocket that had getting an appropriation of 35 million the Japanese, the Russian exchanges been laid out at the Los Alamos meet- dollars for fiscal year 1994, which was provide the only example in which ing in January 1994 when Belugin and intended to grow to 50 million dollars technical information is flowing pre- I had signed the lab-to-lab umbrella for fiscal year 1995 and continue for a dominantly into, as opposed to out of, contract. At that time Mark Mullen, period of five years at which time we the United States. The former Soviet Ron Augustson, and some of the folks hoped that projects would be supported Union is our technological equal in from Arzamas-16 had suggested that a entirely by private industry. In fact, we many areas, and because of the eco- lab-to-lab materials control component

Number 24 1996 Los Alamos Science 31 “Side-by-Side as Equals”—a round table

to be included in the lab-to-lab umbrel- The program got off the ground in systems for the storage facilities. Mate- la contract. They were very frustrated March of 1992 at a big meeting with rials control and accounting systems for with the lack of progress on the big the Russians involving 60 representa- civilian nuclear facilities were also dis- storage facility they had been working tives of the United States. Some of the cussed at that time. on through the Nunn-Lugar channels, framework agreements under which and they also explained that the Nunn- Nunn-Lugar assistance would be pro- Los Alamos Science: Was there any Lugar effort to institute materials con- vided were crafted at that meeting. The indication that the Russians were wor- trol at civilian institutes was flounder- movement of missile systems and war- ried about the security of their nuclear ing. Consequently, the lab-to-lab materials? channel looked like a much more hope- ful route to improving materials control Krik Krikorian: By that time the So- in Russia. Don Cobb, Program Direc- viet Union had become a confederation tor for Nonproliferation at Los Alamos, of independent states, and nuclear discussed this possibility with Belugin weapons were in the Ukraine, Belarus, and myself at that January meeting, and Kazakhstan and so on. Somehow those we all agreed that it was a good idea. weapons had to be brought into Russia But remember, we were under some and put somewhere and disassembled. restrictions set by DOE. John Birely, But the physical security forces were Paul White, Ron Augustson and many no longer reporting to one government, other folks at the Lab were working in so there were inherent problems of ma- the government-to-government mode terials control. since 1992 because Watkins had told us that all topics other than pure science Paul White: Actually separate agree- had to be considered through the intera- ments were crafted with Ukraine, with gency process associated with the Kazakhstan, and with Belarus. The Nunn-Lugar legislation. agreement with the Russian Federation really emphasized a new look at the ex- Los Alamos Science: Before we go isting system of government security forward with the lab-to-lab materials Shortly after Secretary and accounting for nuclear materials story, let’s backtrack for a moment and of Energy O’Leary was and then the development of appropri- ask Paul White to give us a little back- appointed, I wrote a letter ate changes to accommodate the new ground on the purpose of the Nunn- political situation. There weren’t really Lugar program. to her and identified the any discussions about weaknesses in control of nuclear materials the basic security. But during informal Paul White: The Nunn-Lugar effort conversations, one of the first questions grew out of a meeting in September of in the former Soviet Union some Russians asked me was how to 1991 between Bush and Gorbachev. as the most important deal with the question of personnel reli- They were proposing literally unprece- national security issue ability at their nuclear facilities. dented reductions in nuclear warheads, especially tactical warheads, some of facing the DOE. John Shaner: And in the less formal which were agreed to under START I lab-to-lab context, I remember one of or planned under START II. They also the chief designers at Arzamas-16 say- began talking specifically about disman- heads back to Russia would increase ing, “You Americans are lucky. Your tlement of those warheads. Noting the the exposure of these systems to the borders have always been permeable economic burden involved, Bush of- possibility for an accident, so emer- and your military not very well disci- fered U.S. assistance for the dismantle- gency response equipment was one area plined, so you had to design these ma- ment of those strategic and tactical sys- of assistance that was on the table. terials controls into your system. We tems. The official implementation of Other areas for assistance included stor- had impermeable borders and a well that offer came in November of 1991 age facilities for putting the materials disciplined military until a few years with the so-called Nunn-Lugar pro- that would come out of dismantlement, ago, and now we have neither, and we gram, which authorized the use of 400 containers for moving the materials, in- don’t have those controls designed into million dollars of Department of De- creased security and protection for the our system.” So the scientists already fense funds, funds that had already warheads while they were in transit, knew that there was a potential problem been appropriated for other things. and material control and accounting there.

32 Los Alamos Science Number 24 1996 “Side-by-Side as Equals”—a round table

Steve Younger is flanked by Radi Il’kaev and his wife Lydia after a late night meeting at Arzamas-16. To the right of Lydia are Yuri Romanov, who wrote the computer code for the design of the first hydrogen bomb, and Vladimir Rogatchev, the deputy director of the theoretical division. Their friendship was instrumental in helping to start the lab-to-lab materials control program.

Sig Hecker: John’s comments hit the nail right on the head in terms of the overall security problems of both the weapons and the materials. But the materials control and accountability issue was one of the most difficult things to get the Russians at Arzamas- 16 and Chelyabinsk-70 to talk about. During our February 1992 visit, I asked questions and essentially got no an- swers. At Arzamas-16, I told them I had a personal interest in plutonium, and I kept asking, “Where do you do the plutonium work?” At Arzamas-16 they said they do it someplace else. In Chelyabinsk-70 they actually toured us through their plutonium lab, which was up on the third story of some building. In June 1994, Directors Belugin and Hecker sign contracts to build a materials control demonstration at Arzamas-16 as Il’kaev (seated), Augustson (standing at back left), and John Shaner: Right above the tritium others look on. The demonstration was up and running by January 1995. lab. curity system that they constitute a very rials Protection, Control, and Account- Sig Hecker: It’s clear they would not difficult area for them to talk about. ing system, for the facility. It turns out have passed inspection by Admiral The initial contacts on materials control that our Russian counterparts for this Watkins’ Tiger Teams that had just were at the government level under task were Radi Il’kaev, Sergei Zykov, been through Los Alamos. I would ask Nunn-Lugar. And they weren’t about and Vladimir Yuferev from Arzamas- them, “Suppose there was some sort of to admit officially that they had diffi- 16. We first met them at the meeting a threat in the country and you would culties. So progress was agonizingly held by the U.S. Corps of Engineers in have to ascertain within a couple of slow, particularly in that area. Omaha, Nebraska in August 1992. At hours whether you have all of your plu- that time they expressed their commit- tonium. How would you respond to Ron Augustson: Mark Mullen and I ment and responsibility regarding the that kind of question.” I just got this participated in the government-to-gov- retirement and disposal of nuclear stony silence. ernment program to design and build a weapons. Il’kaev said very earnestly to storage facility for retired nuclear war- Mark and me, “Arzamas-16 and Los Paul White: These materials control heads, and our job was to design a Alamos have caused this problem, and issues are so closely tied with their se- modern MPC&A system, that is, Mate- it is up to us to solve it.”

Number 24 1996 Los Alamos Science 33 “Side-by-Side as Equals”—a round table

However, progress on the storage fa- a good process, they’d have more plu- consequences would be grave if some- cility was extremely slow. Meetings tonium than they needed and they’d put one tried to do this.” And I pressed were held through 1992 and 1993, but that aside in case they ever had a need further, “But how do you know that everything was bogged down in the for it. After a while, they would lose they’re not getting any out? And then politics and administrative requirements track of where they put the stuff. he finally said, “It’s a problem.” It of working with the Department of De- Through the fall of 1992 and into 1993, took that long for them to really admit fense. There was no money to pay the we were definitely getting the picture they would not know if someone had workers in Russia to build the facility that they didn’t have a good idea of stolen some material. They were pretty and no money to buy Russian materials how much plutonium or highly en- well protected from the outsider threat. and equipment. The DOD wanted all riched uranium they had at any given After all, they still do have the double the money to be spent here in this location. fence around the whole town, not just country. On the other side, the Rus- their facilities. But with Russia falling sians did not admit the importance of apart, the insider threat became worri- our particular interests, which were [Under Secretary some and that’s what finally got them safety analysis and protecting materials to agree to working with us on the from insider threats. Charlie Curtis] had been problem. It was all very discouraging, but we challenged by Congress did continue to talk with Il’kaev and on the issue of theft Ron Augustson: Before that, in the particularly with Zykov and Yuferev. fall of 1993, Mark and I had developed For example, Mark met them in Octo- and on the fact that the a close working relationship with ber of 1992 at a Nunn-Lugar-sponsored Nunn-Lugar effort was Il’kaev, Yuferev, and Zykov, and that’s seminar in St. Petersburg on MPC&A. not getting anywhere. when we decided to ask Sig if we could There were about a hundred Russian include the materials work in the um- participants, but Mark spent most of his So when I suggested a brella contract of January 1994. Sig time with the folks from Arzamas-16 lab-to-lab materials told us he couldn’t do it without DOE and started to communicate more in- approval. tensely. He also began describing to control effort, he jumped them the components of a modern com- at the chance and said Los Alamos Science: Sig, how did you puterized material control and account- that he would come up finally break through this bureaucratic ing system and even drew one on a barrier and get the materials control paper napkin that would be suitable for with some money if work off the ground? a storage facility. Mark was gratified we could make the to see how quickly Sergei Zykov Sig Hecker: It started with that intro- picked up the concepts, and he and arrangements ductory meeting with Under Secretary Sergei were able to discuss specific de- Curtis in April 1994. As I said earlier, signs and problems almost immediately. he had been challenged by Congress on Sig Hecker: In April 1993, Trutnev the issue of theft and on the fact that Los Alamos Science: Did the Rus- was here, and he also started to open up the Nunn-Lugar effort was not getting sians finally admit that they needed a little bit on this issue. It wasn’t until anywhere. So when I suggested a lab- such systems? I was at Arzamas-16 in June 1994 to to-lab materials control effort, he sign the lab-to-lab agreement on nu- jumped at the chance and said that he Ron Augustson: During the spring of clear materials control, more than two would come up with some money if we 1992 and through the summer, we still years after I had first broached the sub- could make the arrangements. How weren’t hearing that there was a prob- ject, that Belugin admitted they had that much did we need? I said about two lem. But as the contacts grew, not only kind of problem. We went to visit the million dollars for fiscal year 1994 and with the folks from Arzamas but with famous convent at Divejevo, about maybe ten million for the next year. others as well, we learned that the Rus- twenty kilometers outside of Arzamas- Charlie said he would find the money sians have a tremendous system of 16, and we went through a double one way or another and we should just paper records, but nobody checks those guarded fence. And I asked, “How do go do it. And we decided it would be records, and they were never meant to you know that someone doesn’t get out included under the lab-to-lab umbrella be used to draw an inventory. The em- of this place with plutonium in their contract that we had signed in January phasis was on putting product out, mak- lunchbox?” And he said, “It can’t hap- with Arzamas-16. I then went to Steve ing a certain number of weapons from a pen.” And I said, “How do you know Younger and the next key moment was certain amount of material. If they had it can’t?” And he said, ”Because the when Steve called Il’kaev on the tele-

34 Los Alamos Science Number 24 1996 “Side-by-Side as Equals”—a round table

days to get a plan organized that we could present to Charlie Curtis. Sig then told Charlie that it was a “go” with the Russians, and Charlie carved out two million dollars for fiscal year 1994. Six weeks later Sig was at Arzamas-16 to sign the first six con- tracts for a lab-to-lab nuclear material control program. And within two months a demonstration of MPC&A was being constructed at Arzamas-16. Half of the equipment at the demonstra- tion was Russian and half was Ameri- can. Everything about the demonstra- tion was planned together, and the plan was written in Russian and English.

Los Alamos Science: How did all this The assembly/disassembly area at the MPC&A demonstration at Arzamas-16. All happen so quickly? equipment is hooked up to central computers, and when unauthorized changes are de- tected, an alarm appears on the monitor (see circled image in the inset photo) and is Ron Augustson: Well, we had been broadcast throughout the system. discussing materials control systems for the storage facility, and specifically the Russian capabilities in that area, for al- most two years with Zykov, Yuferev, and Il’kaev. So it was rather easy to develop plans that would involve the Russians as real partners with us. The idea was to create a demonstration of control and accounting systems at Arzamas that could be viewed by offi- cials at other institutions in MI- NATOM. It would demonstrate the value of modern computerized systems to counter threats from insiders.

Paul White: We need to recognize that this lab-to-lab agreement on doing materials control was a tremendous breakthrough. The government-to-gov- ernment process was completely para- The Kurchatov Institute in Moscow houses some nuclear materials, but not until the in- lyzed by a collection of difficulties: the stitute joined the lab-to-lab MPC&A program were appropriate safeguards installed. sensitivity of the issue, the questions of pride, the organizational questions with- phone and proposed that we do a joint Is that possible?” Il’kaev, of course, in the Russian government of who’s re- MPC&A program. That’s when the had to get guidance from Moscow, sponsible for what. But while these trust we had built up through the scien- from Mikhailov I assume, but it took difficulties were occurring, discussions tific interactions really paid off. only one weekend of telephoning back were going on between Mark Mullen and forth and we had approval from the and Sergei Zykov and others. And per- Steve Younger: I called Il’kaev and Russian side. After that Mark Mullen, sonal friendship and trust with people said, “Look, I know it’s an issue of na- Gene Kutyreff, and Ron Augustson like Il’kaev were being established tional sovereignty, but my government took over and did the enormous job of through the scientific interactions, and considers it important that we begin a planning the actual program. I think both of these allowed the breakthrough lab-to-lab program on materials control. they worked round the clock for several to occur.

Number 24 1996 Los Alamos Science 35 “Side-by-Side as Equals”—a round table

Steve Younger: As we’ve stressed, the Regulatory Commission. proach, we have expanded to other in- issue of personal trust is extremely im- For those organizations, we again stitutions that have significant amounts portant in Russia. I still remember built on the personal contacts that Ron of weapons material. when Sig and Belugin signed the first and his whole crew had developed nuclear materials control contracts in through many years of work in the Ron Augustson: Actually, our con- June 1994. There was a pause as Belu- IAEA. For example, Ron and Mark tacts at Kurchatov are doing us a big gin picked up his pen. He looked over Mullen had friends at Kurchatov who favor right now, because they served as at Sig, and you could see him thinking, had participated in IAEA activities and an entree into the Russian naval fuel “I’m taking a hell of a risk here. And actually understood materials problems. storage facilities for ship and submarine you had better be telling me the truth.” So during the June 1994 trip, we went reactors. And this week, as we speak, Not only their careers, but also their there is a group of lab-to-lab people families’ reputations and their chil- over at Kurchatov showing the navy dren’s’ education were at stake. They people how we do vulnerability assess- all remembered what happened to peo- ments. ple after Khruschev’s thaw froze again. Los Alamos Science: What is the pre- Sig Hecker: Belugin gave me his pen sent status of the materials work? after the signing. Ron Augustson: It’s been going re- Krik Krikorian: It’s clear that the markably well. First, I should point out lab-to-lab science programs were the that, although Los Alamos is the lead confidence building programs in dealing laboratory for this activity, five other with those folks. I think that’s the bot- DOE national laboratories are now par- tom line. Money was transferred, good ticipating: Lawrence Livermore, Sandia, faith was transferred, the products actu- Ron Augustson Brookhaven, Oak Ridge, and Pacific ally came out, and the respect was de- Northwest. Together we've developed veloped. a working relationship and a program We should also point out that appar- With this experience plan with eight MINATOM institutes, ently Mikhailov has been behind the and we plan to add two more to the list MPC&A from the beginning and his and expertise under our this spring. Within the program, the endorsement opened the door to fast belts, the United States Russians are working busily on imple- implementation. and Russia will be in a menting MPC&A systems, integrating U.S. equipment into the systems, and Los Alamos Science: How did Los position to provide leader- gearing up to produce Russian equip- Alamos expand the MPC&A activities ship to the world in global ment to use at the most sensitive loca- beyond MINATOM to Kurchatov and tions within their facilities. In the the other civilian institutions? management of nuclear process of implementation, hundreds of material. Russian technical people are becoming Sig Hecker: Most important was that MPC&A experts. Those experts are Charlie Curtis had given me clear juris- needed to operate, maintain, design, diction to make decisions, saying, to Kurchatov to establish an agreement and update the MPC&A systems in the “Look Sig, Los Alamos should lead the on MPC&A. While at Kurchatov, we near future. So together, we're imple- labs in doing this and you should do witnessed their security problems in menting and building infrastructure for the right thing.” So we were able to real time. We went into their reactor short- and long-term improved safe- assure the Russians at these institutions where they have a lot of highly en- guards (see “Russian-American that we were the lead laboratory and riched uranium, and there was a guard MPC&A: Nuclear Materials Protec- could determine the way things were on duty, but he didn’t even have a rifle. tion, Control, and Accounting in going to happen. Il’kaev definitely The institute is right off the streets of Russia”). wanted Arzamas to take the lead in the Moscow. There were not even bars on Our success in this area led to the MINATOM complex, and he thought some of the windows. And so it was transfer of the government-to-govern- Mikhailov would support that approach, brought home that materials protection ment effort in MPC&A from DOD to but Kurchatov was run independently, and control really is a serious issue. DOE. That transfer became official in and then there was their GAN, which is We signed an agreement with Kurcha- fiscal year 1996. The understanding the Russian equivalent to our Nuclear tov, and then through the lab-to-lab ap- was that DOE would operate the pro-

36 Los Alamos Science Number 24 1996 “Side-by-Side as Equals”—a round table

gram in the manner of the lab-to-lab Sig Hecker: Bureaucratic difficulties sians and everything must be done with program, which included the ability to notwithstanding, I personally think that U.S. people and materials—has now write contracts to pay for work by Rus- Nunn-Lugar was one of those visionary been dropped, at least in principle. In sians and the ability to buy Russian as pieces of legislation. It provided the practice, our government still has to well as American equipment. So the umbrella for us to do the lab-to-lab ef- learn how to do this, but things have government-to-government effort is fort in stabilizing both people and ma- changed. Since the start of the Nunn- now proceeding in parallel with the lab- terials. Otherwise, we would have been Lugar program, over a million U.S. dol- to-lab effort. accused of making policy. The Nunn- lars have been authorized to be spent Funding levels are also on the rise. Lugar program has proceeded in the directly in the former Soviet Union. This year the lab-to-lab effort, includ- fashion in which you make treaties— (This is in contrast, however, to the ing the work with the Russian naval hundreds of millions spent on U.S. storage facilities, has 5 million dollars goods and services provided to the for- in funding; the DOE-to-GAN program mer Soviet Union.) Also, working in has 10 million dollars; and the govern- … I personally think collaboration with the Russians rather ment-to-government MPC&A program that Nunn-Lugar was than imposing our will is now part of for the civilian institutes has 30 million the program. The discussion we are dollars. Moreover, DOE is asking for one of those visionary having here has pointed out the impor- an increase in fiscal year 1997 and is pieces of legislation. tance of the psychological aspect in hopeful that they’ll get it. It provided the umbrella making things work. The policy kinds In terms of the program’s future, of things have to be in place. But to we're heading toward including all MI- for us to do the lab-to-lab lubricate the process, these personal in- NATOM facilities with inventories of effort in stabilizing both teractions are very important. highly enriched uranium and plutonium. people and materials. That means, for example, dismantle- Ron Augustson: It’s interesting that at ment facilities as well as the naval stor- Otherwise we would the meeting last week in Washington, age facilities. With this experience and have been accused of Mikhailov and O’Leary signed a simple expertise under our belts, the United one-page joint statement on MPC&A States and Russia will be in a position making policy. that was not possible until very recent- to provide leadership to the world in ly. It listed six new facilities that global management of nuclear material. Mikhailov is opening up to the very slowly and painfully arguing about MPC&A program, including Krasno- Sig Hecker: That’s truly exciting. every single word. We were able to yarsk-26 and Sverdlosk-44, which are The thing to remember about the tunnel underneath the bureaucracy and part of the nuclear weapons complex, MPC&A program is that it had to be do the direct lab-to-lab but still under and four other facilities that are part of done. Whatever the Russians do later the auspices of the U.S. government. the government-to-government activi- on, if they themselves know where their Also, we thought the lab-to-lab sci- ties. So the government-to-government materials are, the world will have entific collaborations were a jump start and lab-to-lab programs are meshed to- gained immeasurably. and eventually would merge with ISTC. gether in the one document. At first, the Russians at Arzamas-16 preferred to deal with us on a one-to- Los Alamos Science: What progress Lab-to-Lab versus one basis rather than to deal with us has been made in the government-to- Government-to-Government through this much larger bureaucracy, government program but now both avenues are working. Joe Pilat: I want to raise an issue Similarly, we always thought that our Paul White: Over one billion dollars here. In looking back at the early years program in materials control would has been spent on the overall program. of Nunn-Lugar MPC&A, we’ve implied eventually merge with the government- The vast majority of that money has a lot of criticism of the U.S. bureaucra- to-government program because we had gone for demilitarization of delivery ve- cy, but it would be wrong to create the the same people working on both, and hicles and filling up silos with concrete. impression that the Russian bureaucra- as Ron just pointed out, that is coming And generally, the money was spent to cy, which includes representatives from to pass. purchase U.S. material for delivery to government, MINATOM, and the Min- Russia. istry of Defense, wasn’t equally or Paul White: The restrictions of the more responsible for the stalemate in government-to-government program— Sig Hecker: An approach needed to the government-to-government sphere. wherein no money could go to the Rus- get public support . . .

Number 24 1996 Los Alamos Science 37 “Side-by-Side as Equals”—a round table

Paul White: Right. We may occa- ing its support of this effort with analy- Successes and Future sionally quibble about some of the dif- sis of facility safety and the review of Prospects of the Lab-to Lab ficulties of working within the govern- the Russian design for the facility’s nu- Program ment-to-government framework, but it clear material protection, control and would be wrong to underestimate the accounting system. Los Alamos Science: What are the significant progress made by this more successes of the lab-to-lab program in formal aspect of our cooperative efforts terms of nonproliferation goals? For with the Former Soviet Union. example, is scientific conversion work- We’ve already mentioned U.S. assis- ing, and is it a realistic goal? tance to facilitate the destruction of the delivery vehicles, including ICBMs, Sig Hecker: We have contributed to scheduled for elimination under the the stability of the scientists at the nu- START I agreement. In many cases, clear weapons institutes and to their in- the silos that held those missiles are volvement in non-military projects. being destroyed as well, with Secretary But did we convert them? I don’t nec- of Defense Perry being on hand for one essarily think so, nor is this a realistic well-publicized such event. Under goal. If we didn’t have the nuclear ma- agreements with Belarus, Ukraine, and terials MPC&A project, then I would Kazakhstan, warheads stationed on say it would be way too early to judge Joe Pilat these territories have been, or are being, the ultimate effect of this lab-to-lab ef- transported back to the Russian Federa- fort. On the other hand, I believe the tion for dismantlement, and U.S.-pro- … right now we’re materials control effort is a real contri- vided equipment has helped to ensure plugging our fingers bution to nonproliferation objectives. It that these transfers are accomplished represents a quantum jump in the over- safely. In partnerships between the in a dike. The all world security because the real issue DOD and the DOE labs, the United question is whether is nuclear weapons proliferation We States has supplied flexible armored would have liked to have started earlier, blankets to shroud warheads during we’ll be ultimately but the double fences around Arzamas- transportation. Accident response successful in helping 16 and many of the other nuclear instal- equipment has been provided to ensure the Russians and others lations are still pretty impressive. So I effective assessment and remediation in think we might have gotten through this case of any accident during such trans- from the former window of opportunity just in the nick fers. Rail cars used for such transfers Soviet Union to safeguard of time. have been upgraded with U.S. assis- The danger of losing the scientists to tance, and containers for fissile material their nuclear materials. Iraq or Iran has always seemed quite are being supplied for shipment and small to me because those folks are pa- storage of the nuclear materials result- triots. Given the way they grew up in ing from the dismantlement of the war- We should also note that there are those closed towns, they’re not likely to heads themselves. With help from this some non-nuclear aspects of the Nunn- go live in Iraq. But in a very short pe- program, the Soviet nuclear arsenal has Lugar Program—for example, assis- riod of time that could change because been moving steadily on its course back tance is being provided to the Russian they won’t have to leave their country to Russia. Kazakhstan has already re- Federation in the demilitarization of to design a bomb for a rogue nation. It turned all of its nuclear weapons, and chemical and biological weapons. Fi- will require only a few scientists Belarus and Ukraine are expected to nally, we need to point out the impor- hooked up through the Internet to the become non-nuclear states by the end tance of the cooperative working rela- leader of that nation. Then the serious- of 1996. tionships that have developed between ness of the threat increases significant- Right now, in one of the biggest ef- personnel of the Russian Ministry of ly. But for the time being, I think forts under the Nunn-Lugar program, Defense and the U.S. Department of we’ve made some contribution through the DOD is working productively with Defense. Those relationships are at scientific conversion as well. MINATOM on the design and con- least as significant to the reduction of struction of the large storage facility tensions and the creation of a new, co- Joe Pilat: I would share Sig’s impres- that Ron and Mark Mullen were in- operative atmosphere between our two sions on the nonproliferation benefits of volved in at the very beginning of the countries as those between our nuclear the lab-to-lab programs. But there’s effort in 1992. Los Alamos is continu- laboratories. one element that I would like to ex-

38 Los Alamos Science Number 24 1996 “Side-by-Side as Equals”—a round table

plore. I think we’ve done the right we’re really not done. And that’s why whereas Los Alamos and Livermore things in the lab-to-lab MPC&A, but I drew up what I call a plutonium road were multi-program laboratories en- right now we’re plugging our fingers in map. The road map outlines some pos- gaged in issues of nonproliferation, ma- a dike. The question is whether we’ll sible ways to get to an end state in terials control, and other scientific ap- be ultimately successful in helping the which there is significantly less Russians and others from the former weapons-grade nuclear material in the Soviet Union to safeguard their nuclear world. And the ways to reach that state materials. The extent of the Russian can be productive in the sense that they political drift to the left (or right), the extract a good amount of the energy funding from the Russians themselves from the nuclear material as it is being that is ultimately needed to make mate- transformed. Only when we reach that rials control successful and operational end state can we rest easier. We’re over the years, and whether, in fact, we talking about a very long-term, maybe a can continue to push the process in 100-year, problem. And if we let up at Russia are all open issues or questions. any point along the way, we will have We’ve done as well as we can at this still opened the flood gates. stage, but it’s still too soon to tell how these unprecedented experiments in co- Paul White: This long-term problem operation will pan out. of how to deal with nuclear materials is another area where we are having very constructive engagement with the Rus- Irv Lindemuth sians through official government chan- nels. For example, there is a Joint We’ve certainly started U.S.-Russian Steering Committee on Plutonium Disposition. Several techni- the process of integrating cal working-groups under this commit- their laboratories into the tee are cooperatively examining a vari- ety of methods for long-term material world-wide scientific disposition. community.

Sig Hecker: On the front page of the New York Times a couple of years ago, plications. Now, through the lab-to-lab there was a picture of Mikhailov and effort, Arzamas-16 and Chelyabinsk-70 O’Leary, and O’Leary is quoted as say- are very actively engaged in supporting ing that plutonium is not only a security MPC&A technology in their country John Shaner liability but also an economic liability. and are also actively looking for ways And Mikhailov says plutonium is for in which they can apply their knowl- We believe that stabilizing my children, which is exactly the view edge of radiation detectors and materi- that the Russians have. And that’s one als analysis to other problems of non- the institutes, although of the reasons that my vision for the proliferation. They are branching out it’s a debated topic in long-term plutonium road map includes and finding activities other than just the Washington, has to be a the importance of international collabo- design and manufacture of nuclear war- rations. I doubt that our government heads, and so MPC&A is actually play- good thing. will bury our plutonium if the Russians ing a role in science conversion. keep theirs above ground. There’s just no way. John Shaner: And all these scientific Sig Hecker: Let me just add to Joe’s conversion activities increase their concern. Whatever we do to secure nu- Paul White: I would definitely agree prospects for getting a broader support clear materials, we are still going to be that the aspect of nonproliferation that base within their own government. Ul- faced with the fact that the material is deals with the nuclear materials ques- timately, the U.S. government is not there. And so future political upheavals tion is far more important than science going to underwrite the whole Russian could result in the wrong people getting conversion. On the other hand, Arza- nuclear weapons complex. The conver- their hands on this material and using it mas-16, and Chelyabinsk-70 were, by sion activities are providing work that’s for aggressive or terrorist purposes. So and large, single-purpose laboratories, not directly related to weapons of mass

Number 24 1996 Los Alamos Science 39 “Side-by-Side as Equals”—a round table

destruction. It also gives a chance for a So, in the long term, MPC&A is one Los Alamos Science: Are the employ- little bit of stability while the economy part of it, but we need to continue to ees of the nuclear institutes subject to has a chance to recover. look for other ways of stabilizing the black market temptations? situation. Los Alamos Science: Is there a hope One avenue is the Industrial Partner- John Shaner: I think they are subject. that the nuclear institutes will become ship Program, which is a wonderful Although there is no questioning the integrated into the larger scientific program with an end game to accelerate patriotism of our Russian colleagues, community? Russian entry into an international eco- catastrophic economic conditions can nomic regime. At first it ran into prob- make anything possible. Irv Lindemuth: Yes. We’ve certainly lems in Washington because it involved started the process of integrating their both foreign countries and private in- Krik Krikorian: There’s always the laboratories into the hundredth of one per world-wide scientific cent of people, and community. I’ve al- it doesn’t take very ways felt that the best many to mess up a thing that we could system. But there hope for with Arza- has not been a uni- mas-16 is that some- versal threat from how they evolve into a that so far. laboratory something like ours. Joe Pilat: I think Krik’s right. It’s Joe Pilat: Clearly, we just like the brain don’t want to see a drain. That threat catastrophic collapse was initially exag- leading to a brain gerated and the theft drain and the like, but scenarios are also we need to be careful exaggerated. There here. Many people in is a concern, there our country would say are problems that that the maintenance need to be resolved. of healthy nuclear And John gave an weapons labs in Rus- excellent overview sia is not necessarily in the U.S. inter- dustry. Now that has turned around. of what we can do to help, but ulti- ests. On the other hand, the goal of We need a long-term consistent policy mately the Russians have to resolve scientific conversion or integration is of continuing to accelerate the engage- their own problems. certainly in our interests. ment of the Russians into a world econ- omy. If we have difficulties with that Irv Lindemuth: Do you see other John Shaner: The point is that stabi- idea, we raise the risk that people could countries trying to foster a long-term lizing the materials through MPC&A be driven by desperation to do unpoliti- relationship with the Russians? won’t do the whole job. We need to cal, unpatriotic things. stabilize people as well. That’s going Sometimes we’ve been criticized John Shaner: Arzamas-16 is working to require making their economic situa- when the MC&A program has given with France and Germany on a number tion good enough that this very small the Russians equipment and systems to of science and technology projects. minority of people who know about nu- control and keep track of these things They are certainly developing short- clear weapons are not driven to desper- even though they do not allow us to in- term relationships. I know that indus- ation. We believe that stabilizing the stall them ourselves. Some say that trial firms trying to work in Russia are institutes, although it’s a debated topic means the program is a failure and indeed taking a long view of this issue in Washington, has to be a good thing. should be cut off. On the other hand, if of integrating Russia into the world As long as they have nuclear weapons you watch the enthusiasm of the direc- economy, both for what they can con- to worry about and nuclear materials to tor of that facility grow as he sees these tribute and for the potential market worry about, we think it would be real- MC&A systems installed, it gives you a down stream. ly foolish to get rid of all the people warmer feeling than if you never got to that know how to worry about them. talk to him at all. Joe Pilat: All the nuclear-weapons-

40 Los Alamos Science Number 24 1996

“Side-by-Side as Equals”—a round table

states’ laboratories and institutes are notch scientists who don’t have much through the lab-to-lab programs that we very interested in how they could diver- interest in MPC&A as a technical topic are discussing today. But we will have sify their portfolios. And the sooner but are interested in ultra-high magnetic to see how the new political situation we can look carefully at those issues fields and topics like that. And in turn, created by the Duma elections affects and try to find a means of addressing those people are listened to by people both the lab-to-lab efforts and the them broadly, the better off we will be. within the government. broader government efforts that they serve and on which they are based. Sig Hecker: In a sense the lab-to-lab Krik Krikorian: One of the funda- program has been a means to jump start mental problems is that Russian science Steve Younger: We should not be this process of conversion from work and funding for Russian science are de- surprised if there are some problems on weapons of mass destruction to clining. For instance, the number of along the way. Don’t forget that get- work on projects that are not weapons- people employed by MINATOM has ting the first contract signed, doing the related. gone from roughly a million down to first scientific experiment, and getting 800,000 or 700,000. That’s a severe the MPC&A program going were all Los Alamos Science: Is Los Alamos change. Their science is so big that very challenging at the times that we trying to use the lab-to-lab approach to they really can’t afford it all. MI- did them. Now we want to work to- promote nonproliferation in other parts NATOM has one empire, the Russian gether on improving the security of real of the world? Academy is another empire. And guys weapons material. Despite the prob- like Velikhov have wangled their insti- lems, I am encouraged by the determi- John Shaner: China obviously is an- tutes away from both. nation on both sides to get this impor- other player in this nuclear future. In tant job done. If we and the Russians our little way, we are trying to lay the Joe Pilat: I would share John’s assess- don’t do it, who will? groundwork for a small group of people ment that the likely political path in to establish technical respect and trust Russia is a continued drift to authoritar- Sig Hecker: Thank you all for partici- at their nuclear institutes. From there ianism, and that the MPC&A activities pating in this round table and sharing we would hope to build a growing rela- should survive that drift. Scientific col- your views on how our collaborations tionship and take advantage of opportu- laborations, so long as they’re not too with the Russians began. The views nities like we did in the case of nuclear close to sensitive areas, also have a de- presented tell the story from a Los material control in Russia. But it’s a cent chance of survival, in part because Alamos point of view. Today, five much more complicated phenomenon they represent a source of funds. other Department of Energy laborato- when you start adding more and more The areas that concern me most are ries are contributing to efforts designed countries to the playing field and you’re the more far reaching, especially the to help Russia control its nuclear mate- not exactly sure where they’re headed. prospect of major collaborative efforts rials. It would also be very interesting in dismantlement and further arms con- to hear the Russian version of this Los Alamos Science: What effect will trol. A continued drift to the left (or story. Since all along we have worked a more conservative Russian regime right) is going to create a climate more side-by-side as equals, maybe we’ll have on the lab-to-lab efforts? hostile to those activities. In terms of hear their story some day. the issues we’re interested in, there is a I can’t predict which way Russian John Shaner: These efforts are so significant minority in Russia that has politics will turn in the future, but I clearly in the interest of both sides that viewed as treasonous all of the arms will sleep better knowing that they are I’m confident that even a more conserv- control and collaborative activities with in greater control of their nuclear mate- ative regime will look relatively favor- the United States since the time of She- rials today than they were just two ably on it. The material control pro- vardnadze (former Soviet foreign minis- years ago. This dialogue recounts a gram has started to engage the most ter, and now president of Georgia) and story that is a testament to what can be sensitive nuclear institutes, but that en- Gorbachev. accomplished when scientists and engi- gagement is very controlled, and it Nevertheless, we are likely to see neers are encouraged by a courageous could probably be made acceptable some level of cooperation. Even during government official, Charles Curtis even to a very conservative regime. the Cold War, we had some shared ob- in this case, to help solve a crucial jectives, so there is no reason we international problem. ■ Ron Augustson: I would hope that the shouldn’t have them now. I think it is scientific conversion activities would of particular interest that the Laboratory also continue. They provide a very has been able to supplement, comple- necessary foundation and they engage ment, and push a relatively well-defined the academicians and the really top- government-to-government agenda

Number 24 1996 Los Alamos Science 41 “Side-by-Side as Equals”—a round table

Sig Hecker is the Director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, a position he The has held since 1986. He joined the Laboratory as a technical staff member in the Physical Metallurgy Group and has served as Chairman of the Center for Materi- als Science and as Division Leader of the Materials Science and Technology Di- Participants vision prior to becoming Director. Sig began his professional career as a senior research metallurgist with the General Motors Research Laboratories in 1970 after two years as a postdoctoral appointee at Los Alamos.

Steve Younger is the Director of the Los Alamos Center for International Securi- ty Affairs (CISA) and is responsible for overseeing Los Alamos interactions in Russia, China, and elsewhere. In 1992, he organized the first scientific collabora- tion between the U.S. and Russian nuclear laboratories and has participated in many joint experiments involving our counterpart institute at Arzamas-16. Previ- ously, Steve was Deputy Program Director for Nuclear Weapons Technology. He maintains an active research interest in atomic and molecular physics and has ex- tensively published in these fields.

John Shaner is a Laboratory and American Physical Society Fellow and has been the Deputy Director of CISA since its inception. His responsibilities include oversight of active programs involving Los Alamos and sensitive technical institutions in sensitive countries. John is currently involved in joint projects with institutions in the republics of the Former Soviet Union, and has responsibility for developing a lab-to-lab program with the institutes of the China Academy of Engineering Physics, the agency responsible for the Chinese nuclear weapons. In 1993, John was the recipient of the E.O. Lawrence Award for National Security.

Max Fowler joined the Laboratory to organize a team to develop and apply ex- plosive-driven magnetic flux compression devices. Over the years, he and his col- leagues have used this technique to generate energy sources to power a number of plasma-producing devices, lasers, imploding foils, electron-beam accelerators, and rail guns. This early work influenced subsequent megagauss solid state research, liner implosion of plasmas, and the initiation of the “Megagauss” Conferences. Max is a Laboratory Fellow and has recently been awarded an Honorary Doctor- ate from Novosibirsk State University for his work in high-energy density physics and in furthering scientific relations between the United States and Russia.

Donald Eilers has served as a CORRTEX technical expert on the U.S. delegation to the bilateral Nuclear Testing Talks whose goal was improving verification of the Threshold Test Ban Treaty. He held the position of U.S. Scientific Team Leader on both the U.S. Kearsarge and the Soviet Shagan Joint Verification Ex- periments whose sets of experiments successfully demonstrated the CORRTEX verification technology at those nuclear test sites. Don had the distinction of being among the first scientists to visit the Soviet nuclear weapons test site in Semipalatinsk and the nuclear design facility of Arzamas-16. Don received the Laboratory’s Distinguished Performance Award and the Department of Energy’s Award of Excellence.

Nerses (Krik) Krikorian currently is a Laboratory Fellow who began his career as a physical chemist with the Manhattan Project. During his career, Krik was Deputy Group Leader and Group Leader of the Critical Technologies Group of the International Technology Division. He has visited over fifteen Russian labo- ratories as well as the nuclear weapons design laboratories and several Chinese scientific laboratories Through Krik’s numerous publications on rare earth and

42 Los Alamos Science Number 24 1996 “Side-by-Side as Equals”—a round table

refractory carbides, intermetallic phase relationships, thermodynamics, crystallog- raphy, and superconductivity, he has developed an international reputation in high-temperature chemistry.

Hugh Casey is the Project Leader for the New Independent States Industrial Part- nering Program (IPP), located in CISA. In his current assignment, he is the Chairman of the IPP Inter-Laboratory Advisory Board (ILAB), representing the ten DOE multi-program laboratories responsible for implementing the cooperative projects with the weapons institutes in the former Soviet Union. Hugh's technical expertise and interests include joining, net shape processing, rapid solidification processing, advanced materials, and applica- tions of modeling of materials synthesis and processing.

Irv Lindemuth is currently Project Leader for International Col- laboration in Pulsed Power Applications with responsibility for providing technical leadership for the pulsed-power/magnetized- target fusion collaboration between Los Alamos and its Russian counterpart, the All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Ex- perimental Physics (VNIIEF), located at Arzamas-16 (Sarov). His areas of expertise include thermonuclear fusion, advanced numerical methods for the computer simulation of fusion plas- mas, and related pulsed-power technology. He received the Dis- tinguished Performance Award in 1992 for his work in the formative stages of the LANL/VNIIEF collaboration.

Paul White is a member of CISA where he has been applying his experience to the development of technical collaborations between the U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons laboratories. Paul has long been interested in issues at the intersection of technology and national security policy and was, for several years, Deputy Di- rector and later Acting Director of the Center for National Security Studies. Paul was involved as a technical expert on the U.S. delegation to the Nuclear Testing Talks in Geneva .

Ronald H. Augustson is the Project Leader for the US-Russian Lab-to-Lab Nuclear Material Protec- tion, Control, and Ac- counting (MPC&A) Pro- gram at the Laboratory. Ron is a member of the Lab-to-Lab Steering Group. His duties in- clude oversight of the LANL technical support activities to the program, establishment of strong working relationships with our Russian collaborators, and providing program support to the steering group.

Joseph Pilat is a member of the Nonproliferation and International Security Divi- sion with the Laboratory. His work has included special advisor to the Depart- ment of Energy’s representative at the Third Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) and advisor to the U.S. Delegation at the 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference. Joseph also served as representative of the Secretary of Defense on the Fourth NPT Conference. ■

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Los Alamos and Arzamas-16: the “Sister Cities” Relationship

he two cities of Arzamas-16 and of the two cities. In December of 1993, some two-hundred Los Alamos Los Alamos are situated on op- 1993, Lindemuth made a presentation students contributed artwork to a Tposite sides of the globe, sepa- to the Los Alamos City Council that Bradbury-Science-Museum-sponsored rated by ten time zones, and once sepa- told the history of Arzamas-16. He ex- “Friendship Book” on the theme of rated by Cold War secrecy and politics. plained the similarities between the two peaceful relations between the two na- Each is a nuclear tions, a book that in weapons research city January 1994 was pre- and the birthplace of sented to Arzamas-16 its country's atomic Director Vladimir bomb. Moreover, Belugin. each began its exis- The pen-pals rela- tence as a secret city. tionship spread to As the people of Gallup, NM when Arzamas-16 and Los scientists from Arza- Alamos came to know mas -16 came to New each other over the Mexico in November last several years, 1993 for a joint experi- the recognition of mental campaign in similar histories, na- Los Alamos’ Ancho tional security mis- Canyon. During a side sions, and educational, trip to the Grand family, and patriotic Canyon, Jim Goforth, values led the two a member of the communities to reach pulsed-power group, out to each other and In February 1995, the administration of Arzamas-16 presented the Los Alamos and his sister, Marge begin to share a City Council with a traditional Russian-cast brass bell. Left to right: Bob Spurlin, a high school “sisterhood.” Reinovsky, County Council Chairman Lawry Mann, and Irv Lindemuth admire teacher from Gallup, Interactions be- its workmanship. arranged for the visi- tween Los Alamos tors to be welcomed and Arzamas-16 began with the lab-to- cities to the Council and noted that the into the homes of Gallup residents. lab scientific collaborations between community of Arzamas-16 sometimes That visit combined with Spurlin’s en- their respective nuclear institutes. Los jokingly refers to itself as “Los Arza- thusiasm led students in Gallup to join Alamos scientist Irv Lindemuth, who mas.” The council voted unanimously the letter-writing campaign. participated in the lab-to-lab collabora- to invite Arzamas-16 to become a “sis- Ultimately, the letter writing spread tions in pulsed power and high magnet- ter city” to Los Alamos (see “Sister throughout the Los Alamos school sys- ic fields, has played a key role in the Cities International”). tem and to several schools in Arzamas- interactions as messenger between the Also in 1992, Lena Gerdova, an in- 16. Several hundred students from both two communities. terpreter for Vladimir Chernyshev, sides of the Atlantic have participated. The sister cities story begins started a pen-pal exchange between Earlier that year,when the Los Alam- with Lena Panevkina, Alexander high school students in Arzamas-16 and os pulsed-power group was in Arza- Pavlovskii’s personal interpreter, who Los Alamos. Through Lindemuth, Ger- mas-16 for the first joint scientific ex- thought that the scientific interactions dova arranged to visit Ann Eilert’s periment, they were taken to visit the between Arzamas-16 and Los Alamos tenth grade class at Los Alamos High local hospital. There, they learned could be extended to include a cultural School. A number of the students from Dr. Valentina Ponomaryova, the exchange. During a November 1992 wrote pen-pal letters, and Gerdova re- director of the childhood and maternity visit to Los Alamos, Panevkina raised turned to Russia with the letters in her center, that essential medical supplies the issue with Lindemuth, and that dis- suitcase. Lindemuth came back from We would like to thank the Los Alamos Monitor for al- cussion led to a series of letters ex- Arzamas-16 in March 1993 with the lowing us to use information from articles written by changed between government officials first replies. Additionally, in December Steve Shankland and Chairman Schaller.

44 Los Alamos Science Number 24 1996 “Side-by-Side as Equals”—a round table

“The idea of sister-city relationships is one of “people-to-people,” of citizen diplomacy “from heart-to- heart.” Only in this way will the ice left from the cold war be melted.…We would like to believe that if all Americans are like the “citizens” that visited Arzamas-16, then you and I will not perish on this fragile planet.” From a report in the Arzamas-16 Courier covering the May 1995 visit of the Los Alamos civic delegation. were available in Russia but were priced beyond the reach of the citizens of Arzamas-16, who were regularly going unpaid as the Russian govern- ment struggled financially. When the Los Alamos scientists re- turned home and reported what they had seen, the Los Alamos community expressed a desire to help. Upon the advice from the U.S. Embassy in Moscow that cash donations to the Arzamas-16 hospital would be the most expedient and effective way to help, Lindemuth and John Eilert of the Labo- ratory’s Environmental Safety and Health Group opened a bank account in Above: Russian students and teachers from Arzamas-16 at December 1993 to launch the Arzamas- the athletic field of Los Alamos high school n October 1995. 16 Children’s Medical fund. Donations Right: Los Alamos students Tony Maggiore and Chih-Cheng from Los Alamos, the surrounding Peng open pen-pal letters from fellow students in Arzamas-16. communities, and even from Colorado Bottom: Bob Reinovsky (left) greets Russian high school and Pennsylvania began to arrive. teacher during visit to Arzamas-16. When Arzamas-16 Director Vladimir Belugin visited Los Alamos in January 1994, he was given more than six hun- dred dollars to take to Dr. Ponomaryo- va. Later, Cari Zocco took over as Chairwoman of the Medical Fund, and over the years, additional cash donations have been forwarded to Dr. Ponomaryova. Soon thereafter, Ken Bower, a mem- ber of the Laboratory’s Community In- volvement and Outreach Office, and then Treasurer of the American Chemi- cal Society Central New Mexico Chap- ter, told Lindemuth that his Chapter had accumulated a cash surplus and would like to distribute the money in Russia. Lindemuth and Bower first located a rived in Arzamas-16 in early 1995. The topic of the first forum was to be nu- charitable medical organization (MAP medical supplies had a U.S. wholesale clear dismantlement; the format would International) that had access to surplus value of five-hundred thousand dollars. involve teams of students from New medical supplies and then a U.S.-State- The sister cities relationship was con- Mexico high schools researching dis- Department-supported shipping organi- summated in May 1994 with the visit to mantlement and then developing pro- zation that would ship to Russia at no Los Alamos by eight students and two posed policies for U.S. assistance to cost to the donor. Bower leveraged ten teachers from Arzamas-16 and their par- Russia. When Lindemuth heard about thousand dollars in Medical Funds and ticipation in the first New Mexico High the forum he called Judith Kaye, leader American Chemical Society fund dona- School Critical Issues Forum, a series of the Outreach group, who agreed that tions into a twenty-foot shipping con- sponsored by the Laboratory's Science Russian students could participate. tainer full of medical supplies that ar- Education and Outreach Group. The Frantic phone calls to Arzamas-16 and

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Sister Cities International

Sister Cities International is a national, non-profit, volunteer-membership or- ganization joining United States and foreign communities. Sister city affilia- tions lead the national movement for volunteer participa- tion and community development in the international arena.

The Sister City Program began shortly after World War II and developed into a national initiative when President Dwight D. Eisenhower proposed the people-to-people program at a White House Conference in 1956. He hoped that involving citizens internationally might lessen the chance of future world conflicts. Initially grouped with the National League of Cities, Sister Cities Interna- tional became a separate, not-for-profit organization in 1967. The procedure for establishing an official Sister City affiliation requires that an agreement be signed by the respective mayor of each city and ratified by each city council, or its equivalent.

Membership in Sister Cities International is designed to improve the cultural understanding of people of different nations as well as provide new prospects for trade and business. Student and professional exchanges and other learning experiences in schools may be initiated through direct inter-school contracts. Membership in Sister Cities International provides eligibility for various grant programs.

Sister Cities International represents 125 million Americans in 1,200 U.S. cities and their 1,900 partners in 120 coun- tries worldwide. Since 1986, partnerships between U.S. cities and those in the Former Soviet Union have grown from six to one hundred and fifty-two. Today, partnerships with Japanese and German cities represent the largest number of sister-city affiliations by country.

hours of paper- to meet face-to-face during this visit. work on the part In February 1995, two gifts were of the Russians presented to Bob Reinovsky and Linde- produced two muth by Gennadi Karatayev, the Arza- teams of Arza- mas-16 City Administrator. A cast mas-16 stu- bronze bell and an invitation for a Los dents to present their ideas on the dis- Alamos civic delegation to visit Arza- mantlement issue. The combined plan mas-16 to participate in the May 9 Vic- Like Los Alamos, modern Arzamas-16 of the participating teams produced the tory Day celebration commemorating (upper photo) is situated in a region of clever acronym “TRUST, ”The Russian- the end of World War II in Europe. A great natural beauty. The Sarovka and United States Transition. After the seven-member delegation accepted the Satis Rivers flow into the Volga River forum, the plan was presented to U.S. invitation and became the first U.S. separating the city into distinct sections. Department of State personnel Joe De- civic visitors permitted into Arzamas-16 thomas and Ann Harrington in Wash- by the Russian government. Among ington, D.C. Some pen-pals were able the delegation was Steve Shankland of

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the Los Alamos Monitor, the first non- Russian media representative ever per- Arzamas-16 Changes Name mitted into the city. The May 1995 visit to Arzamas-16 set the stage for an October visit to Los A formal request by the people of Arzamas-16 in August 1995 led Boris Alamos by a 15-member Arzamas-16 Yeltsin to officially change the name of the city back to its historic name delegation. In January of this year, Los of Sarov. Alamos Middle School teacher Jeanne Allen was notified that she had been Originally a provincial center, the town was the site of the Sarova awarded a twenty-nine thousand dollar monastery next to the Sarovka River. Before the Communist revolution, thematic exchange grant from Sister thousands of Russians, including the czar, made pilgrimages to the site to Cities International. Through this benefit from the pure water of the Sarovka River. The water is said to grant, five students and a teacher from have healing powers and Los Alamos and San Ildefonso Pueblo is a marketable commodity will visit Arzamas-16, and five Arza- of the city today. In 1923, mas-16 students and a teacher will the monastery was closed come to Los Alamos. The students will by the communists and research water-quality issues, using many priests were execut- New Mexico’s Rio Grande and tribu- ed. Many of the buildings, taries of Russia’s Moksha River. The including a spectacular Laboratory will participate in this pro- cathedral, were destroyed, ject by providing tours, lectures, and and the remaining build- analytical assistance. ings were converted to From the beginning of their modern secular use. The high bell existence, the people of Los Alamos tower visible from much of and Arzamas-16 have been committed the city stands as a monu- to the security of their respective na- ment to the earlier times. tions. When the changing global politi- cal climate made it possible to work to- The city disappeared from gether to reduce the nuclear danger, the unclassified maps in 1946, two cities embraced the opportunity. ■ the same year the All- Russian Scientific Re- search Institute of Experi- mental Physics, the weapons design facility, was built. The village was then given status as a city and, over the years, labeled with a series of classified code names. In 1990, the Soviet government first acknowl- edged the city’s existence openly. Most in Sarov support the name change, but others feel that Arzamas-16 more correctly reflects the city’s The Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox greatest achievementsÐnuclear weapons. Church visits the monastery of St. Ser- afim. Academician Yuli Khariton, the The city of Sarov remains a “closed” city with entrances and exits carefully “Soviet Oppenheimer,” is on the right. monitored by armed guards at the periphery. Mr. Gennadi Karatayev, the City Administrator, recognizes that considerable time and money will be required to separate the necessarily classified technical areas from the remainder of the In- stitute and from the community. Nevertheless, Karatayev has expressed the hope that within ten years his city and much of the Institute will be “open,” not unlike Los Alamos. Once again, members of the Russian Orthodox Church may now make pilgrimages to the sacred shrines of St. Serafim, the monastery’s most famous resident.

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