An East-West Concern About Nuclear Terror

While the lessons of Chernobyl topped the agenda of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s recent ad hoc conference in Vienna, a related subject was the topic of many private exchanges among delegates: the possibility of nuclear terrorism.

The consequences of such acts could be far more catastrophic than those of the Chernobyl accident. Such possibilities cannot be downplayed, given the fact that terrorist groups are becoming more and more sophisticated and that most civilian nuclear reactors, in the West as well as the East, are surrounded only by fences and not by reinforced walls and other devices that would physically protect them against truck bombs or other kinds of assault.

The fight against nuclear or chemical terrorism is a subject that obviously raises political questions. Most delegations at Vienna agreed that it could not be discussed openly and officially in the IAEA assembly. But it is a potential field of collaboration between the West and the Soviet Union because fears that state-sponsored terrorist groups may obtain nuclear materials or highly toxic chemicals are common to the two blocs.

Those fears also surfaced at the meeting in Budapest last month of the Pugwash Conference on Science and World Affairs, which every year brings together about 200 prominent scientists from five continents and has traditionally done a great deal to bring Western and Soviet points of view closer together on disarmament and arms control. The Soviets face the potential danger of Islamic fanaticism, so near to their Asiatic territories, and thus are understandably concerned about the threat of nuclear terrorism.

While Soviet cooperation against potential nuclear terrorism is essential, the Reagan Administration seems reluctant to deal straightforwardly with Moscow on the matter. But there are signs of movement on the non-official level. The Washington-based Task Force on the Prevention of Nuclear Terrorism, an independent panel of 26 experts from nine countries, recently issued a report on how governments and international bodies can hinder terrorist sabotage or attacks on nuclear installations. At the Budapest meeting, task-force members presented the report to Soviet colleagues, inviting them to join in the future activities of the task force. Their reaction was positive.

If terrorists turn to nuclear or chemical attacks, governments will be confronted with a problem that cannot be solved by traditional police or security-service means. What can scientists--many of whom feel responsibility for the development of weapons of mass-destruction--do to help fight terrorism? They can contribute their imagination and talent to devising new methods and tools to counter terrorism. If only a small amount of the money being invested in U.S. “Star Wars” research was diverted to an international project against terrorism, there would without doubt be breakthroughs.

Take the latest computer projects of U.S. defense agencies, for instance, as well as those in several Western nations and in the Soviet Union. They are organizing and assessing mountains of information as critical tools for military planners in solving specific tactical and strategic problems. In a meeting last June in Rome, high officials of Western intelligence agencies adopted new strategies for intensifying the collection and flow of information. Europeans see this as a most promising field of collaboration against terrorism, while they deeply distrust retaliatory actions like the U.S. strike on Libya.

Exchange of information among security services of several nations concerns personal data of suspected terrorists, personality profiles, habits, relations, cover names, use of forged documents and other information essential in determining responsible groups and the organization or state behind them. The elaboration and continuous updating of this common intelligence data base--the best tool we have for the moment--was adopted as a priority goal by interior ministers the European Community at their meeting last month in Brussels.

Compiling such a data base on terrorism will be greatly aided by constantly advancing computer technology, which allows processing of huge quantities of information in ever shorter amounts of time. Research in these technologies, well-financed by research under the Strategic Defense Initiative and various defense agencies, could serve as well in the common fight against international terrorism.

If the imagination of scientists is let loose, we could expect some novel applications. Pharmacology, for instance, has invented compounds that can “mark out,” or trace, subjects at a distance, following movements and identifying location. Suspected terrorists may one day be “marked” by such means, as futuristic as that now sounds. Science has been startingly successful in so many fields, most recently in space, that relatively simpler applications on our own planet can hardly be ruled out.