Nuclear Safeguards

Report Outline
Proliferation of Nuclear Material
Development of International Controls
Debate Over Adequacy of Safeguards
Special Focus

Proliferation of Nuclear Material

Alarm Over Global Spread of Nuclear Capability

The Meeting later this month between President Ford and Chairman Brezhnev is attended by a new kind of threat of nuclear proliferation. This threat is not the familiar one arising from the atomic armament possessed by the two superpowers, although the meeting does once again focus attention on their continuing struggle to arrive at mutually acceptable formulas for arms limitation. The new aspect is that a sixth nation, India, has entered the once-exclusive world nuclear club, and a host of other nations could join America, Russia, China, Britain and France as possessors of nuclear weaponry.

India's detonation of an underground nuclear explosion last May 18 is widely regarded as having ushered in a new era in the atomic age. Arms-control experts fear that despite India's insistence it has nothing but peaceful aims in mind, a number of minor-league nations will be encouraged to develop their own atomic arsenals. This concern over the spread of nuclear technology was heightened by the disclosure that the United States had offered to sell nuclear reactors and fuel to Egypt and Israel.

Atomic scientists believe several countries throughout the world are likely to be capable of making atomic weapons now or in the near future. The Shah of Iran has expressed his interest in buying American, Canadian and French reactors. Israel is reported to have succeeded in developing a new laser technique for enriching uranium, and South Africa is reported to be constructing an enrichment plant. The global list of activities is long. More than 50 countries have some kind of operating nuclear reactor. As of June 30, more than 448 nuclear power plants were in commercial operation producing electricity in 28 countries, according to the Atomic Energy Commission.