News

Poison Gas Laws: Still Leaking

By Gary Milhollin and Jennifer Weeks

The New York Times
March 25, 1990, Section 4, Page 19

When Libya’s poison-gas plant burned down last week, many people were relieved. Instead, they should have been horrified – just as they were by the recent revelations that Czechoslovakia’s ousted Communist Government had shipped 1,000 tons of lethal Semtex explosives to Libya.

The fire at the plant in Rabta is a symbol of defeat. It did nothing to solve the larger problem of chemical arms proliferation or to mitigate West Germany’s leading role in the spread of nuclear weapons, chemical weapons and long-range missiles to the third world.

After months of denial, German leaders admitted in February 1989 that they had known since 1980 that Libya was developing a chemical-weapons plant. They also acknowledged that they had known since 1986 that a German chemical firm supervised its construction. The resulting investigations led to arrests in 1989 and to pressure for reform of West German export laws.

But now, a year later – even at a time when West Germany is trying to calm its neighbors’ fears about unification – Bonn’s proposals to restrict dangerous exports are mired in the West German Parliament. U.S. officials fear that the restraints will be shelved as reunification crowds other issues off the agenda. Moreover, U.S. Government sources say West German companies are still secretly exporting dangerous materials and technologies.

If sabotage is the only restraint on the spread of weapons of mass destruction, the world should pray for many more disasters. Merely to undo what German suppliers have wrought would require these steps:

  • An explosion at Iraq’s German-built poison-gas plant at Samarra, a source of the mustard and nerve gases that Iraq used against Iran and Kurdish rebels from 1983 to 1988.
  • Demolition of Iraq’s Saad-16 armaments project at Mosul, and all of its German-supplied drilling machines, wind tunnels and other missile-production equipment.
  • Destruction of a Pakistani plant that enriches uranium powder to nuclear-weapons-grade material, smuggled out of West Germany between 1977 and 1980.
  • Draining hundreds of tons of heavy water, illegally exported from China, Norway and the Soviet Union by a West German broker, from India’s reactors, where it is producing nuclear-weapons-grade plutonium.
  • The abduction of German-trained engineers in Brazil and the theft of German-supplied equipment that the Brazilians have diverted from their civilian nuclear-power industry to a secret nuclear-weapons program.

West Germany is not the only culprit. Japanese companies built a plant at Rabta (it survived last week’s fire) that makes corrosion-resistant containers for packaging chemical agents in weapons.

The fact is that last-ditch measures don’t work. Libya’s strongman, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, still has stocks of mustard and nerve gas that survived the Rabta fire. If he is determined to make more, he may find stealthier suppliers to help him build another, more secure plant. When he does so, he will still have trained personnel and operational experience from Rabta to guide his efforts.

In so doing, Colonel Qaddafi would be following the lead of President Saddam Hussein of Iraq. After Israel’s 1981 air raid destroyed Iraq’s Osirak reactor, Mr. Hussein expanded his weapons factories, dispersed them and hardened them against future strikes. Instead of 11th-hour raids, the first step is for West Germany to pass last year’s export reforms. Companies everywhere that sell sensitive materials to proliferator states should be denounced, and sanctions should be imposed on the governments that fail to control them.

Finally, with the political changes in Europe, arms proliferation must rank higher on everyone’s national-security agenda. Eastern European countries will soon become eligible to import Western technology, technology that their cash-starved governments will be tempted to re-export to the third world.

As the superpowers’ global influence erodes, regional buyers like Iraq will become more ambitious, aggressive and dangerous.

With U.S.-Soviet arms reductions gaining momentum, developing countries will be the most likely sites of conflict in the 1990’s. The only sure way to keep weapons of mass destruction out of their hands is to cut off Western exports at the source.

Gary Milhollin is director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control; Jennifer Weeks is a research specialist with the project.

India’s Missiles – With a Little Help from Our Friends

By Gary Milhollin

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
November 1989, pp. 31-35

Last May 22, India became the first country to test a strategic missile derived from a civilian space program. The missile’s first-stage rocket motor, heat shield, and guidance system all came from India’s space effort — generously launched and sustained by foreign help.

Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi claimed that the missile, called “Agni” (fire), is “an R&D vehicle, not a weapons system.” Then he qualified the assertion. “Agni is not a nuclear weapons system,” he said. “What Agni does is to afford us the option of developing the ability to deliver non-nuclear weapons with high precision at long ranges.”

In the May test, the missile reportedly flew 625 miles. But it is designed to carry a one-ton payload 1,500 miles, far enough to hit cities in southern China. Carrying a half-ton atomic bomb, the Agni would be able to fly about 2,200 miles, far enough to hit Beijing.

Whether Agni eventually carries nuclear or conventional weapons, the missile should destroy any illusions about sharing technology in the interest of peaceful uses of outer space. The story of the Agni’s development shows how difficult it is to separate civilian and military uses of technology, and just how futile may be the recent, belated attempts to control the proliferation of military missile technology. A control regime established by seven Western nations in 1987 seeks to prevent precisely this sort of development. [See the June 1988 Bulletin.] Yet the regime has no provisions for enforcement, and the Indian program continued full speed ahead, with some foreign – particularly West German – cooperation, after the regime was adopted.

Lessons in America

Agni’s foreign ancestry dates from the 1960s. In November 1963, the United States began India’s space program by launching a U.S. sounding rocket from Indian soil. (Sounding rockets fly straight up into the atmosphere to conduct scientific experiments. They are too small to launch satellites.) The United States was followed by others. Between 1963 and 1975, more than 350 U.S., French, Soviet, and British sounding rockets were launched from India’s Thumba Range,[1] which the United States helped design. Thumba’s first group of Indian engineers had learned rocket launching and range operation in the United States.

Among them was the Agni’s chief designer, A. J. P. Abdul Kalam. In 1963-64, he spent four months in training in the United States. He visited NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia, where the U.S. Scout rocket was conceived, and the Wallops Island Flight Center on the Virginia coast, where the Scout was being flown. The Scout was a low-cost, reliable satellite launcher that NASA had developed for orbiting small payloads.

Soon afterward, in 1965, the Indian government asked NASA how much it would cost and how long it would take to develop an Indian version of the Scout, and whether the United States would help. NASA replied that the Scout was “available . . . for purchase . . . in connection with scientific research,” but warned that “transfer of this technology . . . would be a matter for determination by the Department of State under Munitions Control.”[2] NASA nevertheless sent India technical reports on the Scout’s design, which was unclassified. India’s request should have raised some eyebrows: it came from Homi Bhabha, head of the Indian Atomic Energy Commission.

But Kalam had the information he needed. He returned to India and built the SLV-3 (Space Launch Vehicle), India’s first satellite launcher. Its design is virtually identical to the Scout’s. Both rockets are 23 meters long, use four similar solid-fuel stages and “open loop” guidance, and lift a 40-kilogram payload into low earth orbit. The SLV’s 30-foot first stage would later become the first stage of the Agni.

NASA officials say U.S. aid to India in rocketry was limited to the program in the 1960s. In 1988, however, the United States agreed to supply an advanced ring laser gyroscope to help guide a new Indian fighter plane.[3] It is not clear what will prevent India from using it to guide missiles. The highly accurate device is essentially solid state, making it easy to adapt to the demands of missile acceleration.

French lessons: liquid fuel

France also launched sounding rockets from India, and in the late 1960s allowed India to begin building “Centaure” sounding rockets under license from Sud Aviation. But France’s main contribution has been in the field of liquid propulsion. Under a license from France’s Societe Europeene de Propulsion (SEP), India is building its own version of the Viking high-thrust liquid rocket motor, used on the European Space Agency’s Ariane satellite launcher.[4] Indian engineers helped develop the Viking in the mid-1970s, then began a program of their own. India has now built an experimental model of the Viking engine, called the Vikas.

The training in liquid propulsion seems to have paid off. Just over a year before testing the Agni, Kalam tested a smaller predecessor, the “Prithvi” (earth), which uses a liquid-propelled motor to carry a one-ton payload 150 miles. It resembles the widely sold Soviet Scud-B. Indian sources say that the Agni’s second stage is a shortened version of the Prithvi.[5]

A German intensive tutorial

The aid of the United States and France, however, was quickly dwarfed by West German help in the 1970s and 1980s. Germany gave India help in three indispensable missile technologies: guidance, rocket testing, and the use of composite materials. All were supposed to be for the space program, but all were equally useful for military missiles.

The German government’s aerospace agency DLR (Deutsche Forschungsanstalt fur Luftfahrt und Raumfahrt e.V.) began tutoring India in rocket guidance in 1976.[6] The first step was to put a German interferometer on an Indian sounding rocket. An interferometer works by using antennas placed at different locations on the rocket to measure the phase of a radio signal received from the ground. The phase difference among the antennas reveals their relative positions on the rocket and thus the rocket’s attitude, which can be monitored and corrected from the ground. The first launch of an Indian rocket with a German interferometer was in 1978. By 1981 the project had been expanded to include an on-board DLR microprocessor. In April 1982, India tested its own version of the same interferometer.

The next step was to make a navigation system that did not depend on signals from the ground, one that could guide a payload through space by determining its position and speed at any moment. The “autonomous payload control system,” which India proposed in July 1981, would provide “full autonomous navigation capability to spaceborne sensors,” determining “position, velocity, attitude, and precision time in a real-time mode.” India would supply the rockets and satellites; Germany would provide the brains of the guidance system. The key component would be an on-board computer, using a microprocessor based on the Motorola family M 68000, and the software to run it.

It must be noted that an inertial navigation system that can guide satellites can also guide warheads. The United States used NASA’s experience in guiding the Titan II transtage, a “bus” designed for multiple satellite launchings, to develop a bus that would accurately deliver small nuclear warheads.[7]

The German-Indian plan was carried out. By January 1982, the two countries had agreed on a series of joint projects for the program. But at the same time, India announced that it was designing a new navigation system for its own space rockets: it would replace the “open loop” system used on its first launcher, the SLV-3, with a “closed loop” system for its Advanced Space Launch Vehicle and its Polar Space Launch Vehicle. An open loop system can only correct the rocket’s attitude, not deviations from the planned flight path. A closed loop system can correct both, because it senses and determines the rocket’s position in space. It amounts to an autonomous navigation system.

So while India’s program with Germany, called APC-Rex for Autonomous Payload Control Rocket Experiment, was developing autonomous navigation for a satellite, India would develop autonomous navigation for its own rockets. India would need a brain for its space rockets’ new closed loop system, which it would provide by developing the “Mark-II” onboard processor – “based on [the] Motorola 6800 microprocessor with 16-bit word length” – the same as that used in the German program. (Although Indian reports repeatedly refer to the Motorola “6800,” according to Motorola the 16-bit chip is the M 68000.) The timing of subsequent events showed continued parallel developments in the two programs.

The German aid in guidance is apparently continuing, despite the Agni launch. In May 1989, a DLR official said that “the APC-Rex program has not yet been concluded, but it will come to an end in 1989.”[8] West Germany was one of the seven countries that adopted the Missile Technology Control Regime in 1987, an agreement not to export items useful in making long-range missiles. That agreement barred the export of technology capable of real-time processing of navigation data, unless specific assurances could be given that the technology would not be used for, or transferred to, missile programs. If, as the evidence suggests, technology from APC-Rex has been used in India’s rocket and missile programs, Germany may have violated the agreement.

India has not described the Agni guidance system. But when the missile was assembled in 1988, Indian rocket scientists had studied and developed only one brain for rocket guidance: the German system based on the Motorola microprocessor and its software. Over a decade, Germany’s guidance tutorial helped India build and test a navigation package based on that system. Did that system go into the Agni, or did India invent from scratch some other system, not mentioned in any Indian space program report? If the latter, did the Indian rocket scientists block from their minds everything they had learned from the Germans? The evidence is strong that the Agni owes its brain to German engineering.

Interchangeable parts

The Indian space program first mentions the Agni in its 1982-83 annual report as a booster rocket for the Polar Space Launch Vehicle: six identical Agni boosters will lift the missile’s first stage. The boosters, in turn, are adaptations of the first stage of the SLV-3.[9] Indeed, the SLV-3 is the only large booster motor that India has: it carries nine tons of solid propellant, as does the Agni first stage; no other Indian booster carries anything close to that amount. India has used the same booster to lift the Advanced Space Launch Vehicle.[10] After the Agni launch a number of sources, Indian as well as foreign, reported that the Agni first stage was identical to the SLV-3 first stage. Thus, the main rocket for India’s missile program has come from India’s space program.

This same rocket, in turn, owes much to German help. Wind tunnels are essential to the design of any rocket. In 1974-75, DLR tested a model of the first stage of the SLV-3 in its wind tunnel at Cologne-Portz. DLR also helped India build rocket test facilities, furnishing a complete facility design and training Indian engineers in high-altitude testing. India has said it will use this technology to test the liquid-fueled upper stage of the Polar Space Launch Vehicle, and it may already have done so. India may also have used it to test the Agni’s liquid-fueled second stage, which must have been tested somewhere.

In June 1988, two Egyptian military officers were indicted for trying to smuggle carbon fiber composites out of the United States. Export of the composites was strictly controlled: the strong, lightweight, heat-resistant materials were being used for the nozzles and the nosecone of the MX, Trident, and Minuteman nuclear missiles.

But DAR began giving Indian scientists on-the-job training in composites at Stuttgart and Braunschweig in the mid-1970s. Subjects ranged from “glass fibre reinforced plastics via impregnated materials” to “carbon fibre reinforced composites.” The Indians learned “composition, manufacturing processes, quality control, and error detection.”

The German training allowed India to make rocket nozzles and nosecones of its own, which could be for either missiles or space launchers. To help the Indians use the composites, DAR supplied the documentation for a precision filament-winding machine, which India built and commissioned in 1985-86.

After the Agni test, Prime Minister Gandhi affirmed that one of the goals was to test “atmospheric reentry.” Lower-ranking officials were more specific. They said that the goal was to test a “domestically developed heat shield.”[11]

Target: China

No country, including India, has ever spent money on long-range rockets simply to explore space. The “satellites” launched by the SLV-3 were little more than flight monitors, used to transmit data on rocket performance, which was India’s true interest. To launch real satellites, India could and did hire other providers of that service. The Soviets launched India’s first two satellites; France’s Ariane rocket and the U.S. space shuttle have launched others.

Nor has any country developed long-range missiles simply to deliver conventional bombs. The large cost of missile development is only justified by the ability to inflict strategic blows, which conventional warheads cannot do.

The Agni, therefore, can only be interpreted as a step toward a long-range nuclear strike force. As India progresses in guidance, the Agni’s range should extend gradually to most targets in China.

India apparently has the material and skill to mass produce the Agni and arm it with nuclear warheads. The result will be a new nuclear equation in Asia. Across a common border, nuclear-armed rivals will confront each other, each with missiles, one or both vulnerable to a first strike from the other.

When India exploded an atomic bomb in 1974, the world was shocked. India had taken a Canadian reactor and U.S. heavy water both imported under guarantees of peaceful use and used them openly to make plutonium for a nuclear blast. That blast destroyed illusions about the “peaceful atom” and prompted changes in nuclear export policy. It is not surprising that India has again taken advantage of civilian imports and technology to further what appears to be a nuclear weapons program. What is surprising is that, given India’s record, it was so easy.

How a Satellite Guidance System Gets into a Missile

(Excerpts from program reports)

1982-83

APC-Rex (German-Indian missile program satellite guidance program): received Motorola 68000 microprocessor

Indian space and missile program: “An engineering model of the Mark-ll based on the Motorola 6800 [sic] has been integrated and exhaustive tests are being carried out.”

1983-84

APC-Rex (German-Indian missile program satellite guidance program): “Development of an on-board computer for autonomous payload control is in progress.”

Indian space and missile program: “Design review was conducted on inertial navigation systems with the participation of international experts.”

1984-85

APC-Rex (German-Indian missile program satellite guidance program): “Design of the on-board [guidance] packages was completed.”

Indian space and missile program: “Design of on-board processors for SLV based on 16-bit microprocessors has been completed.”

1986-87

APC-Rex (German-Indian missile program satellite guidance program): “Development and validation of hardware and software packages for APC-Rex are in their final stages.”

Indian space and missile program: “Breadboard models of on-board computers based on microprocessors have been realized.”

Footnotes

[1] P.D. Bhavsar et al., “Indian Sounding Rocket Program,” Proceedings of the 4th Sounding Rocket Technology Conference (Boston: American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics, June 23-26,1976), pp. 101-07.

[2] Letter from Arnold W. Frutkin, assistant administrator for international affairs, NASA, to Homi J. Bhabha, chairman, Indian Atomic Energy Commission, March 10, 1965.

[3] Steven R. Weisman, “U.S. Clears Vital Gyroscope for Indian Jet Fighter,” New York Times, April 7, 1988, p. A12.

[4] David Velupillai, “ISRO, India’s Ambitious Space Agency,” Flight International (June 28, 1980), p. 1466.

[5] “India’s Agni Success Poses New Problems,” Jane’s Defence Weekly (June 3,1989), p. 1052.

[6] Many of the following details of the German-Indian space program are found in the proceedings of a January 27, 1982, colloquium of the DAR (then called DFVLR) and the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) in Bangalore, India, “A Decade of Cooperation in the Field of Space Research and Technology,” and in annual reports of the Indian government’s Department of Space.

[7] Ted Greenwood, Qualitative Improvements in Offensive Strategic Arms: The Case of the MARV(Cambridge: Center for International Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Aug. 1973), p. 278.

[8] Letter from Dietmar Wurzel, head of DAR’s Washington, D.C., office, to Gary Milhollin, May 1, 1989.

[9] “India The Way Forward,” Spaceflight (Dec.1986), p. 434.

[10] “India Aims for Self-Sufficiency in Space,” Flight International (June 14,1986), p. 45.

[11] Barbara Crossette, “India Reports Successful Test of Mid-Range Missile,” New York Times, May 22, 1989, p. A9.

Israel’s Reactor in Full Swing – With Norwegian Heavy Water

By Gary Milhollin

Aftenposten
July 6, 1989, p. 5

Israel’s Dimona reactor is working fine. Every year, its Norwegian heavy water makes about 32 kilograms of plutonium, which the C.I.A. says is going into atomic bombs. Israel promised to let Norway verify that the heavy water would be used for peaceful purposes, but Israel refuses to keep its word. All of Norway’s requests for verification have been rejected. Instead, Israel has decided to be the first country in the world to break the peaceful use and verification pledges, and has decided to make Norway the first victim of such a breach.

Norway began asking for inspections in February of 1987. First, Israel refused because of “technical problems.” Then, Israel said the International Atomic Energy Agency (which Norway had asked to do the inspections) was “biased.” Finally, Israel offered a humiliating “compromise” in which Norway would be shown a small amount of heavy water in drums with no guarantee that the water had come from Norway.

The compromise, which Norway rejected, was made one year ago. Since then there has been no progress at all in the talks. The delay has not affected Dimona. In the year since Israel offered the compromise, it has made enough plutonium for 9 bombs. Since February of 1987, when the talks began, it has made enough for 21. The heavy water scoreboard now reads: Israel 21 bombs–Norway zero inspections.

Norway’s efforts seem to be at a dead end. What should Norway do? One alternative is to do nothing and hope everyone will forget about the problem. The government’s sleepy pace suggests that this is being tried. Mr. Stoltenberg has promised more negotiations, but has not said when they will be. He is clearly not in a hurry. Israel, of course, is in no hurry either as long as the reactor is making bombs.

The other alternative is to ask Norway’s allies for help.

The United States has always opposed nuclear arms proliferation, and has searched for ways to stop the Israeli bomb. In May of 1988, in Congressional testimony on Norway’s rights in Israel, the U.S. State Department said: “The United States does support, in principle, Norway’s efforts to obtain an arrangement including inspection of the heavy water.” But it also said: “since our involvement has not been requested by either Norway or Israel, we have not attempted to become engaged in the discussions….”

Why hasn’t “U.S. involvement been requested”? The U.S. voice has been the strongest in the world against the spread of the bomb. It could not decently fall silent simply because an ally is involved. The strong U.S. ties to West Germany did not prevent the United States from condemning German exports of poison gas equipment to Libya. Once the facts became known, the U.S. stand was clear. Once the facts of Israel’s behavior are known, the U.S. stand would have to be just as clear in Norway’s favor. The peaceful use and inspection pledges are the foundation of U.S. policy as well as Norwegian policy. The United States is bound to defend the pledges just as strongly as Norway is.

Norway also needs help in Romania. That country imported 12.5 tons of Norwegian heavy water in 1986 under a pledge not to reexport it without Norway’s consent. Romania immediately broke its promise, however, and sent the water to an unknown buyer. Romania has refused to tell Norway where the heavy water is.

Canada would like to sell Romania 900 tons of heavy water to run two large reactors that Bucharest is now building. But Canada is worried about selling such a large amount of heavy water to an unstable country that cannot be trusted with 12.5 tons. If Romania’s dispute with Norway is not resolved before the sale, there will be a public outcry in Canada. If the sale is stopped, Bucharest will wind up with two empty reactors and the loss of far more money than Norway’s heavy water was ever worth. Norwegian experts have told Canadian experts about the problem with Romania, but have not asked for help. They should ask at once, to get Canada to start applying pressure.

Norway’s dispute with Israel is truly an international problem–a precedent for the whole world. If Israel can break its promises, defy Norway, and use a peaceful nuclear import to make atomic bombs, anyone can. Israel’s actions threaten all the countries that belong to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, not just Norway. To solve this international problem, Norway needs an international solution. Norway should ask all the members of the Treaty–beginning with the United States–for help now, before the score in Israel’s favor is thirty or forty to zero.

The author, who is American, has been strongly engaged in the debate over Norway’s exports of heavy water to Israel and other countries.  Gary Milhollin is a Professor of Law at the University of Wisconsin.  He now lives near Washington, D.C., where he directs the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control.

Bombs for the World

By Gary Milhollin

Die Zeit (English Translation)
January 13, 1989, p. 44

Why should Germany, an otherwise responsible country, shelter nuclear blackmarketeers? Germany’s help to Libya’s poison gas plant–just revealed by the New York Times–is but a footnote to an even more sordid history of nuclear exports. For at least a decade, German firms have been the main suppliers of secret A-bomb programs around the world.

To South Africa German firms sent low-enriched uranium, which multiplied that country’s ability to make high-enriched uranium for bombs; to Israel went heavy water, which increased the output of Israel’s bomb-making reactor at Dimona; to Argentina went heavy water that could run a secret bomb-making reactor in the future; to Pakistan went an entire factory to help process uranium for bombs, plus tritium and tritium-making equipment that multiply the explosive power of its first-generation bombs; to India went “reflector material”–probably beryllium for the core of the bomb itself–and enough heavy water to let India run for the first time three large bomb-making reactors outside international controls. German firms have been the greatest single supplier of the South Asian nuclear arms race, and the greatest single threat to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Most of the exports were expressly forbidden by German pledges under the Treaty, and raise the question whether Germany cares about the Treaty at all.

Outside protests have failed. A U.S. memo in 1981 asked Germany to stop the Hempel group in Dusseldorf from sending enriched uranium to South Africa and heavy water to Argentina. Switzerland asked in 1985 for information about the same Hempel group’s sale of heavy water to India through Zurich. A U.S. memo in 1986 asked Germany to stop Hempel from sending India heavy water through a Swiss subsidiary, and another U.S. memo warned of an even larger secret scheme to sell heavy water “coordinated from within West Germany by Hempel Company officials.” Norway asked Germany in 1988 to investigate Hempel’s sale of Norwegian heavy water to India through Basel. In every case, Germany refused to provide information, investigate, or acknowledge any gap in its laws.

There are no benign explanations for this behavior: Germany is committed to exports, but what country honestly prefers export earnings to world security? Negligence in regulation exists, but doesn’t linger for a decade. The truth lies deeper, and has finally exasperated U.S. officials. They have named the Libyan poison gas culprit–Imhausen-Chemie–outright to the Times, and even revealed that President Reagan asked Chancellor Kohl for help in November. They also say privately that the German nuclear culprits are benefitting from the same web of corruption that managed to bribe all the German nuclear utilities in the recent waste scandal.

Are things really as bad as they look? Is Germany really corrupt at high levels? The Christian Democrats and Free Democrats, who run the country, have banded together in Parliament to defend Hempel despite the unquestioned fact of his outrageous deals_. Rather than shun a blackmarketeer, as elected officials would normally do, Germany’s ruling parties argue that Hempel has not violated German law! They refuse to ask whether the law should be changed, or whether he and others like him have violated Germany’s Treaty obligations. Their behavior encourages one to believe the worst.

Germany must act soon to save its reputation. It should condemn its guilty companies simply on moral grounds. Regardless of gaps in its law, Germany should not defend the sale of nuclear and chemical bomb making materials to the third world. If German foreign trade law is inadequate, as it obviously is, Germany should admit that fact and change it.

But most important, Germany should pursue the items illegally taken. Many of the nuclear exports lacked the required licenses and moved through conspiracies with the recipients. The items did not go to outer space–they are here on earth in known locations. If a thief stole Mr. Kohl’s car and sold it to his neighbor, would Mr. Kohl watch it being driven to work every day without saying anything? The surest way to halt the nuclear black market is for countries to publicly demand their goods back. Norway has just asked India to account for the Norwegian heavy water that Hempel’s group delivered to India illegally in 1983. Norway may confront India in the United Nations if India refuses. Germany should now demand publicly that its recipients account for their illegal gains.

Germany can still show the world that it is not a renegade exporter of mass destruction, but time is short.

Bonn’s Proliferation Policy

By Gary Milhollin

The New York Times
January 4, 1989, Page A21

It should come as no surprise that a West German company has been accused of helping Libya build a plant to produce poison gas. If true, this is only the latest in a long line of irresponsible West German exports.

Citing intelligence reports, Reagan Administration officials charge that the West German company Imhausen-Chemie played a central role in the design and construction of the Libyan plant.

The company’s president, Dr. Jurgen Hippenstiel-Imhausen, has denied any participation, and Libya insists the installation will be used only to make pharmaceuticals. The West German Government says that its investigation so far does not prove that the company is guilty of the charges.

But Bonn has rarely done much to discover or stop dangerous exports.

A West German company, Karl Kolb, was identified in 1984 as the unwitting source of equipment that Iraq used to manufacture the nerve gas it used against Iran. And, for at least a decade, West German companies have been the principal suppliers of secret atom bomb programs around the world.

To South Africa, West German companies sent low-enriched uranium, which multiplied Pretoria’s ability to make high-enriched uranium for bombs.

To Israel went heavy water, which increased the output of Israel’s bomb-making reactor at Dimona. To Argentina went heavy water that could run a secret bomb-making reactor in the future.

To Pakistan went an entire factory to help process uranium for bombs, plus tritium and tritium-making equipment to multiply the explosive power of its first generation of nuclear bombs.

To India went ”reflector material” – probably beryllium for the core of the bomb itself – and enough heavy water to let India run for the first time three large bomb-making reactors outside international controls.

Many of the nuclear exports lacked the required licenses. Companies are likely to have conspired with the recipients to move the goods across borders. The fact is, most of the exports were expressly forbidden by West German pledges under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and raise strong questions whether Bonn cares about the treaty at all.

Outside protests have failed to stop the transfers. The United States asked Bonn in 1981 to stop the Hempel Group, in Dusseldorf, from sending enriched uranium to South Africa and heavy water to Argentina. Switzerland asked in 1985 for information about the same Hempel Group’s sale of heavy water to India through Zurich.

In 1986, Washington asked Bonn to stop Hempel from sending heavy water to India, and warned in a memo of an even larger scheme to sell heavy water ”coordinated from within West Germany by Hempel Company officials.” Norway asked West Germany in 1988 to investigate Hempel’s sale of Norwegian heavy water to India through Basel. In every case, Bonn refused to provide information, investigate or acknowledge any gap in its laws.

Why is West Germany so lax? To promote trade, Bonn has deliberately kept its export laws weak, and it doesn’t want to think about tightening them. And the staff for policing sensitive exports is woefully inadequate, making it easy for an unscrupulous operator to evade controls.

But it’s not just a matter of Bonn overzealously promoting exports or neglecting to plug gaps in the regulations. The illegal exports have been going on for more than a decade, and Bonn has been warned repeatedly about violations.

The truth lies deeper, and has finally exasperated American officials, leading them to the extraordinary step of publicly naming the company they think is involved in building the Libyan plant and even revealing that President Reagan asked Chancellor Helmut Kohl for help in their November meeting. They have told me privately that West German nuclear exporters are being protected by powerful political allies.

We have no proof that West German political leaders are being paid to look the other way. But the behavior of the Christian Democrats and Free Democrats, who run the country, is not encouraging. Some of them have banded together in Parliament to defend Hempel, arguing that the company has not violated German law. Moreover, they refuse to consider whether the law is so full of holes that it must be tightened.

This attitude not only threatens world security but will harm West Germany’s international reputation unless Bonn acts immediately to curtail illegal exports and better monitor those sensitive items that could be misused by importing nations.

Regardless of gaps in its laws, the West German Government should not be in the position of defending the sale to third world nations of materials to make nuclear and chemical bombs. If West Germany’s foreign trade law is inadequate, as it obviously is, officials should admit that fact and change it.

If Bonn is determined to act responsibly, then it should talk to the governments of the importing countries about returning items that were obtained illegally. The surest way to halt the nuclear black market is for countries to publicly demand their goods back.

Norway, for example, has just asked India to account for the Norwegian heavy water that was delivered by Hempel illegally in 1983. Norway may confront India in the United Nations if India refuses.

West Germany can still show the world that it is not an exporter of mass destruction. First, however, it must quit pretending that nothing is wrong.

CORRECTION-DATE: January 6, 1989, Friday, Late City Final Edition

An article on Wednesday incompletely identified a West German company allegedly involved in illegal shipments of nuclear materials to third world countries. The company is Alfred Hempel KG GmbH & Company of Dusseldorf, not the F. W. Hempel Company Inc., also of Dusseldorf.

Gary Milhollin, professor of law at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, is director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control.

Testimony: Possible German Export Control Violations

By Gary Milhollin

Testimony of Gary Milhollin

Director, Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control

Before the Second Committee of Investigation,
Duetscher Bundestag

October 13, 1988

I am pleased to have this opportunity to appear before the Committee. My name is Gary Milhollin. I hold a degree in engineering from Purdue University and a degree in law from Georgetown University. Since 1976 I have been a professor of law at the University of Wisconsin, where I have specialized in contract law, private international law, and nuclear arms proliferation. I have served as an Administrative Judge, part time, at the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission for twelve years, and been a consultant to the United States Department of Defense on nuclear arms proliferation.

During the past two years, I have published studies on the import, export, and production of heavy water in India, Israel, Norway and France.

My remarks here today are my own; they do not represent the views of any branch of the United States Government.

The Second Committee has asked me to present evidence on the question whether the Alfred Hempel group of companies has violated the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or other relevant rules of international or national law. I will do my best to tell the Committee what I know about these questions.

I have been told that the Committee may already have a translation of my study, “Germany’s Heavy Water Laundry.” The study’s findings have been reported in Germany in Der Spiegel and Die Zeit. I have revised the study recently, and am providing the revised copy to the Committee today.

I have also been told that the Committee would like to see as much documentation is possible on the sources of my information. To comply with that request, I have put together a set of notes and attachments that describe the sources and documentation that are available. I have submitted the notes and attachments today with the revised version of my study.

The Committee’s first question is whether there has been a violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

One of the Treaty’s main goals is to put all sensitive nuclear exports under international inspection. Sensitive exports are ones that can be used to make atomic bombs. Heavy water has been used to make bombs in the United States, the Soviet Union, France, and–I believe–China. It also made the “peaceful nuclear device” that India tested in 1974, and is the backbone of Israel’s nuclear program. About twenty tons of heavy water–when used to run a natural uranium fueled reactor–can produce enough plutonium for one bomb per year.

Each country that adheres to the Treaty has promised not to provide heavy water to any non-nuclear weapon state unless there is an agreement to place the water under inspection. Norway and Germany adhere to the Treaty.

In 1983, the Alfred HeMpel group applied for a license to export 15 tons-of heavy water from Norway. The Hempel group gave the manufacturer, Norsk Hydro, an international import certificate stating that the water would be imported into the Federal Republic. The group had obtained the certificate from the German government after making an application in which the group promised to import the water. The group also gave Norsk Hydro an “end use statement” promising to use the heavy water in “deuterated labelled compounds and in peaceful research projects,” and promising that “the goods will not be reexported to countries not having signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty.”

The group submitted these documents in order to obtain an export license from Norway to Germany, which was granted.

Despite the promise to Germany to import the water into Germany, and despite the promise to Norway not to reexport the water to a country not having signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and despite the Norwegian export license (which restricted the export to Germany) the Hempel group sent the water to India. It did so by changing the destination of the aircraft. Instead of going to Frankfurt, it went to Bombay.
The Hempel group therefore broke its promises to Germany and Norway, and transferred a dangerous nuclear material in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

It also violated the terms of the international import certificate. I have a copy of the certificate that the Hempel group signed. It provides that:
“the importer has undertaken to import into Bundesrepublik Deutschland the above-mentioned goods or, if they are not imported, not to divert them to another destination except with the authorisation of the competent German authority.”
The transfer of the water to India obviously violated this provision. The Hempel group falsely stated that the water would be imported into Germany, and then diverted it to another country without the required authorization.

The certificate also had other requirements. The version of the certificate that seems to have been in effect in 1983 provided:
“if the import identified in the application for the International Import Certificate is converted into a transit trade operation, I/we [meaning the importer] will not transfer the goods outside Germany without the consent of the German government.”

This seems to cover the case where there is a change of intention. That is, a trade that begins as an import is converted at some point into a transit operation. If the Hempel group originally intended to import the water and later changed its mind, it also broke this promise, because it transferred the water in transit to India without obtaining the German government’s consent.

Further, the certificate provided a blank space where the applicant was required to state the destination of all goods traded in transit. The Hempel group violated this requirement also when it failed to state the water’s true destination, which was India. Instead, it stated that the water was to be imported into Germany. The Hempel group still appears to be violating this requirement today, because it still refuses to reveal the true destination of the goods. Moreover, the Hempel group knew when it applied for the certificate that the water would go to India, and therefore gave false information in its application. An investigation would reveal that there was never any intention to sell the heavy water to a buyer in Germany.

Finally, the certificate says that it “may only be used for the operation indicated in the application, and must be returned at once if this operation is not carried out or is carried out in a different way.” The Hempel group violated this provision also, because the application indicated an import into Germany, whereas the real operation was a transit trade to India.

Therefore, the Hempel group broke a series of promises to the German government.
Does this mean that Germany has broken the Non¬proliferation Treaty?
Either Germany broke it or Norway did, because the water was provided without international inspection.

The diversion was of goods in transit. Such goods, like others, are owned and controlled by someone. Here they were owned and controlled by the Hempel group. The Norwegians
themselves could have delivered the goods to the buyer in Germany. If they had, German responsibility would have begun in Germany. But they didn’t. They delivered the water in Oslo. The sale was “ROB Oslo,” which transferred ownership and control to the Hempel group at the Oslo airport. The group’s responsibility began there and continued until it transferred the water to India.

Was Germany responsible for its company during this time? It is obvious that the Norwegians thought so. Norway gave up control and ownership because of the international import certificate, signed by the German government, in which the Hempel group promised to import the water into Germany and not divert it elsewhere. The Norwegians would not release the water without the certificate. The Norwegians assumed that Germany would force its firm to keep the promises.

It is true that the international certificate is not a direct promise by the importing government to the xporting government. But it is a statement (a certification) by the importing government that the importing firm has made certain promises. The certificate is issued so that the exporting government can rely upon those promises–that is the certificate’s purpose. Norway was entitled to believe that Germany would enforce the promises because Germany was the only country that could enforce them: If Germany did not enforce the promises, they would have had no meaning, the certificate would have had no purpose, and no country would have been responsible for the goods in transit.

The conclusion has to be that responsibility under the Treaty goes with control over the goods. The goods here were in the hands of a German firm under the authority of a German certificate. This means that Germany had the duty to force its firm to do what the certificate said. If Germany refuses that duty, I believe that it violates the Treaty.

The Treaty says that a member shall not “provide” heavy water without international inspection. This language covers any transfer of water within the member’s control, including material in transit. The German certificate itself recognizes this because it prohibits transfer trades without German governmental permission. If the Treaty did not cover German-controlled transit trades, there would be no reason to regulate such trades in the certificate.

The possibility that the Hempel group sent a letter and telex to the seller, Norsk Hydro, is covered in my study. According to the Hempel group, the letter and telex informed Norsk Hydro that the water was going to Switzerland. However, the group knew that Norsk Hydro had an export license limited to Germany, which meant that it would be illegal for Norsk Hydro to send the goods anywhere else. It could not, for example, send them to Switzerland or India without a Swiss or Indian import certificate, which Hempel’s group would have to provide.

Hempel’s group, therefore, knew that it was participating in an illegal act when the water did not go to Germany, regardless of the telex and letter. It also knew that it was breaking its promise to Norway “not to reexport [the goods] to countries not having signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty,” and knew, as I have said already, that it was breaking the series of promises it made to Germany in the international import certificate. Norsk Hydro may have been naive in dealing with the Hempel group, but the law does not pardon fraud because the victim was gullible.

I do not know whether Germany has a false statements law. In the United States, it is a felony to make false statements to federal authorities. If the Hempel group had made these statements on the application for a U.S. international import certificate, the persons responsible would face Punishment up to five years in prison. There is a similar punishment for misusing the certificate after it is issued.

My study also discusses the Hempel group’s other trades, and refers to U.S. complaints about the group to the German government. I have enclosed news stories quoting U.S. officials’ statments about the complaints, and have enclosed a report on the group’s other transactions that is said to come from British intelligence.

My study also states that the Hempel group sent large quantities of Chinese heavy water to India in the early 1980s. These shipments were reported in briefings by U.S. intelligence when the U.S.-China agreement for nuclear cooperation was being considered. The Hempel group was identified as being responsible. The shipments allowed India’s nuclear program to escape international inspection and begin to make plutonium free for atomic bombs. India’s new plutonium stockpile has encouraged Pakistan to push its nuclear weapon program forward, and spurred the nuclear arms race in the Subcontinent.

In closing, I would like to point out that if the Hempel group’s position is correct, there is a .giant hole in export controls and in the Non-Proliferation Treaty. If what the Hempel group did in 1983 were legal, any broker could take a German import certificate to any country in the world tomorrow and use it to send plutonium or high-enriched uranium secretly to any buyer in the world. This endangers everyone, including generations to come. Until Germany makes it clear that the Hempel group is wrong, there will be no assurance that these transfers will stop.

I have made a list of recommendations that the Committee might consider in responding to the Hempel group’s activities. They are as follows:

  1. The German government should demand that the Hempel group report immediately the true destination of all the Norwegian heavy water covered by the group’s German import Certificates. The certificates clearly require this, and there is no excuse for not complying.
  2. The German government should examine each international import certificate that the Hempel group has received for nuclear-related goods, and demand that the true destination of the goods be reported, as the certificates require.
  3. The Bundestag Committee should also examine the ‘certificates. It should obtain copies of them from the – government and should ask the government and the Hempel group to report the true destination of all the goods that the certificates cover.
  4. The penalties for violating the obligations of the certificate should be increased. A fine of 50,0000M–the penalty now in the certificate–does not deter a profit of a million DM. The Norwegian shipment in 1983 was worth nearly 4 million dollars on the legitimpte market. It must have been worth far more than that to India, which received it without controls. Under U.S. law, a person who makes a false statement to obtain an international import certificate, or who misuses the certificate, can be punished by up to five years in prison. The Hempel group has made large profits by deliberately violating the certificates, and does not appear to be subject to any sanction.
  5. Administration of German controls should be improved. German authorities should be able to find out what happens to sensitive nuclear material that is supposed to be imported into Germany but does not arrive. There should be a staff adequate to track materials on a timely basis, and make inquiries when something goes wrong. The records should be open to the Bundestag.
  6. To help reestablish confidence in its nuclear industry, Germany should create a -special list of companies authorized to deal in, possess, or transport sensitive nuclear materials. Because such companies control the means to make atomic bombs, the list would be confined to companies that deserve the highest confidence. Any company that had violated an international import certificate would be barred from the list.

Germany’s Heavy Water Laundry

By Gary Milhollin

In early May of this year, Norway confirmed that a German company had diverted 15 tons of its “heavy water” from international controls in 1983. Heavy water, or deuterium oxide, is tightly controlled because it can be used in reactors to make plutonium, a nuclear weapon material. In 1985, the same German company diverted a shipment of 6.8 tons of Soviet heavy water, putting it on a series of air flights destined for India. Also in 1983, the company apparently diverted to India about 5.5 more tons of heavy water that the company had imported previously and accumulated.

After the diversions were discovered, Norway and Switzerland publicly asked Germany to investigate. However, Germany refused –it even refused to ask the company where the heavy water went. Because the company operates under German law, and used German import certificates as part of its illegal scheme, Germany’s refusal to investigate is quite serious. It raises the question 3 whether Germany is fulfilling its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

To read the complete report, click here:  Germany’s Heavy Water Laundry

3 Scandals Oslo Must Put to Rest

By Gary Milhollin

International Herald Tribune
October 7, 1988, p. 6

WASHINGTON – Norway is facing three scandals this fall, all caused by the sale of heavy water, which is used in nuclear reactors that produce plutonium, the preferred material for making atomic bombs.

Heavy water, enriched in deuterium, is difficult to produce; Norway is one of the few countries to export it. Part of its production has gone astray.

Israel’s Dimona reactor, which the CIA says is producing plutonium for bombs, is being operated with Norwegian heavy water sold in 1959. India’s newest reactors are also making weapons-grade plutonium, using Norwegian heavy water diverted by a West German firm in 1983. And Romania appears to have illegally re-exported Norwegian heavy water it bought in 1986, probably to India or Israel.

All the importers broke their word. Israel pledged to use the Norwegian water for peaceful purposes. and to allow on-site inspection of its reactor. Israel now refuses inspection. West German authorities gave a German firm a certificate promising the water would be used only in that country, but the firm sent the water to India. Romania promised not to re-export the Norwegian water without permission. but will not say where it is.

Norway may have been naive, but the importers are in open breach of agreements. Oslo should put the blame where it belongs.

Israel is offering a “compromise.” It admits running the Dimona reactor with Norwegian heavy water since 1963 and thus making plutonium — probably enough by now for more than 100 atomic bombs.

Israel offers only to let Norway inspect 9 tons of heavy water in drums outside the reactor —all that remains, Israel claims, of 20 tons imported in 1959 and 1 ton imported in 1970. This offer could never be accepted by the United States or the International Atomic Energy Agency, both of which demand to see all the plutonium made by a reactor using even the slightest amount of controlled heavy water.

In the West German case, the shipment consisted of 15 tons of heavy water licensed to be sent to Frankfurt. The plane left Oslo one day in December 1983, landed in Basel, then flew to Bombay after a stop in Dubai. The flight plan is in the records of the Swiss Air Ministry.

Romania still has not said where the Norwegian water is.

In each case. Norway has a choice: It can stand on its rights or it can compromise. Israel’s offer is unacceptable, and West Germany and Romania will make similar offers if Norway accepts Israel’s. Oslo must confront these countries publicly and demand that they keep their word. Confronting Israel would make its bomb a public issue — something Israel has tried to avoid. For Israel to be branded as the first country to break the pledges of peaceful use and inspection would look bad in the United Nations. Norway should force a de-bate on what these pledges mean, and whether other countries, America in-chided, should help enforce them.

The West German nuclear industry is already embroiled in scandal. The diversion of the Norwegian water is the most serious charge. It violates the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which forbids the transfer of heavy water without international controls. West Germany’s position, like Israel’s, would crumble under public view.

Romania too is vulnerable. It wants to import about 900 tons of Canadian heavy water to run two reactors it is building. If Romania will not account for Norway’s 12.5 tons, Canada will find it awkward to send 900 tons to such a buyer. Romania will either face more stringent controls from Canada, or two empty reactors.

The question for Norway is whether to make these issues public. By doing so it could convict all three importers in the court of world opinion. Norwegian authorities could demand the heavy water back. And Norway could force other countries to stand up in the United Nations and oppose proliferation. If, instead, it makes a series of weak compromises, Oslo will continue to look, and be, guilty.

The writer is a resident scholar of the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington. He contributed this to the International Herald Tribune.

Norway’s Heavy Water Scandals

By Gary Milhollin

Aftenposten (Oslo)
September 14, 1988

This autumn, Norway faces three heavy water scandals. Israel is running the Dimona reactor–which the CIA says is making plutonium for atomic bombs–by using Norwegian heavy water sold in 1959. India is running its newest series of reactors–also making plutonium for atomic bombs–by using Norwegian heavy water diverted by a German firm in 1983. And Romania seems to have secretly and illegally reexported–probably to India or Israel–the Norwegian heavy water it bought in 1986. The German and Romanian diversions were revealed in May, and the talks with Israel about Dimona have just ended.

All the importers have broken their word. Israel pledged to use Norway’s water for peaceful purposes, and to allow on-site inspection. But Israel refuses any inspection, so Norway cannot find out what its heavy water was used for. Germany gave one of its firms a certificate promising to import the water to Germany and not divert it elsewhere, but after Norway shipped the water on the faith of the certificate, the firm diverted the water to India. Germany says it can’t investigate because the water didn’t reach German borders. Romania promised not to reexport Norway’s water without permission, but won’t say–after being asked–where the water is. Norway may have been naive in these matters, but the importers are in open breach of their agreements.

It is time for Norway to stand up for its rights, and put the blame for these scandals where it belongs.

Israel hopes to escape its obligation through a “compromise.” Israel admits running the Dimona reactor with Norway’s heavy water since 1963 and admits that the reactor has made plutonium. There is enough plutonium by now in Dimona’s spent fuel for more than one hundred atomic bombs. Norway has the right to verify that the plutonium made with its water has not gone into bombs, but Israel is only offering to let Norway inspect nine tons of heavy water in drums outside the reactor. The nine tons are what Israel claims are left of the 20 tons imported in 1959 and one ton imported in 1970.

Israel says that 12 tons were lost–a rate of more than 2% per year. Reactors like Dimona normally lose .5% to 1% per year, two to four times less than Israel claims. French engineers who helped build Dimona say the Israelis were expert operators, so the 12 ton loss is not credible. Finally, Israel refuses to promise that the nine tons in drums will all be Norwegian–Israel says the water is mixed with water from other suppliers. Israel therefore expects Norway to forget about verification, and inspect a small amount of mixed water that Israel could have bought on the black market. It is no surprise that former Prime Minister Kare Willoch, commenting on this, said that “it is impossible for Norway to give up its right to inspect the use of Norwegian heavy water in Israel.”

Israel has treated U.S. heavy water differently. Israel imported 4 tons from the U.S. in 1963 which Israel put under international inspection and claims was never used. If Israel had put the water in a reactor, the U.S. would demand to see the plutonium. If Israel told the U.S. that it had put the water in a reactor but would not show the plutonium–which is what Israel has told Norway–U.S. officials would be outraged. They would be more outraged if Israel refused to exhibit the whole 4 tons because of operating losses and still wanted to hide the plutonium–Israel then would be hiding both the plutonium and part of the water. The U.S. and the International Atomic Energy Agency have recently confirmed their policies on this point: they demand to see all the plutonium made by a reactor using any controlled heavy water–even the slightest amount. Thus, they could not accept the offer Israel has made to Norway.

With respect to Germany, the shipment consisted of 15 tons of Norwegian heavy water licensed to go to Frankfurt. The plane took off from Olso in December 1983, landed in Basel where it took on 6.8 more tons of cargo, and went to Bombay after a stop in Dubai. The flight plan is in the computer records of the Swiss air ministry. The cargo added in Switzerland was owned by the same broker who owned the 15 tons, and must have been part of the heavy water he had bought from Norway in small quantities since 1976. Thus, the Norwegian police will probably report that more than twenty tons of Norwegian water is illegally in India.

Romania still has not said where Norway’s water is.

For each of these countries, Norway has the same choice. It can stand on its rights or make compromises. Israel’s offer is too weak to accept, and Germany and Romania will make weak offers too if Norway accepts Israel’s. To stop its exports from making bombs, Norway must confront these countries publicly, and demand that they keep their word.

Confronting Israel will make its bomb a public issue–something Israel has tried to avoid. It will not be easy for Israel to explain why it has broken an international obligation in order to make atomic bombs. Israel will be the first country to break the peaceful use and inspection pledges, upon which the world nuclear trade depends. This will not look good in the United Nations. Norway should force a debate on what these pledges mean, and whether other countries–such as the United States–should help Norway enforce them.

Confronting Germany will heap another scandal on the pile already covering its nuclear industry. The Norwegian diversion is the most serious scandal yet because it violates the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which forbids the transfer of heavy water without international controls. Germany’s position, like Israel’s, will crumble under public view.

Romania too is vulnerable. It wants to import about 900 tons of Canadian heavy water to run the two power reactors it is now building. If Romania won’t account for Norway’s 12.5 tons, Canada will find it awkward to send 900 more tons to such a buyer. Romania will either face more controls from Canada, or two empty reactors.

Norway can also demand its heavy water back. The water was sold on condition that its use could be verified. If it can’t be, the buyers have no right to keep it. Norway never agreed to let its water be used for unrestricted purposes. This demand could even be made of India, because official Swiss records show that Germany’s 20 tons are in Bombay.

The question for Norway is whether to make these issues public. If Norway does, it can convict all the importers in the court of world opinion and put the blame where it belongs. Norway can also force other countries to stand up and oppose proliferation in the United Nations. If instead, Norway makes a series of weak compromises, it will continue to look and be guilty itself. The choice seems obvious for the country of the Nobel Prize.

Gary Milhollin is a professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School.

The Case of Missing Heavy Water

By Ed Foster-Simeon

The Washington Times
June 16, 1988, p. E1.

In the case of the purloined heavy water, Gary Milhollin is on the trail.

Something of a private citizen turned private eye, he has earned an international reputation as a tracker of black market sales of nuclear materials to Third World nations racing to get the bomb.

“If countries are doing things that they’re not supposed to, I try to find out about it and embarrass them in the newspapers,” says the University of Wisconsin law professor and Washington-based nuclear arms proliferation specialist. “That’s one of the things I like to do.”

Mr Milhollin, who is deadly serious about what he considers a deadly serious business, has charged India with diverting nuclear materials from international inspection or secretly importing them to build a nuclear arsenal.

He has accused Israel of breaking the “peaceful-use pledge” -cornerstone of civilian nuclear exports- and even suggested that the United States may be engaged in “selective proliferation.” Most recently, he uncovered clues that point to nuclear exports from Norway being used to produce bombs.

“He’s a crusader,” says Per Paust, press attache at the Norwegian Embassy here. “He’s monitoring everything going on in the [nuclear] reactor world, trying to uncover any attempts at utilizing reactors for unpeaceful purposes.”

One source at the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency first describes Mr. Milhollin as a “loyal dissenter” of U.S. policy, then adds: “Truth be known he’s a pain in the side of the establishment.”

Central to Mr. Milhollin’s concern is the international trade in heavy water, or deuterium oxide, which allows reactors to run on natural uranium as opposed to expensive and tightly controlled enriched uranium.

Under the 1970 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, plutonium and enriched uranium-the materials used to make the Nagasaki and Hiroshima bombs-are exported internationally only after recipients pledge to confine use to peaceful purposes and accept systematic inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Although the same peaceful-use pledge applies to heavy water, the material is not subject to IAEA inspection if it goes to a country that is a member of the treaty.

That “loophole,” Mr. Milhollin says, has allowed malefactors to secretly re-export or divert heavy-water shipments to countries not subject to treaty controls.

Mr Milhollin describes the problem that this lack of oversight poses with a simple equation: Heavy water is used to run some reactors, a by-product of the nuclear reaction is plutonium and the plutonium can be used to make bombs.

Last month, the Norwegian government admitted that a 1983 sale of 15 tons of heavy water to a German company never reached Frankfurt as intended.

Instead, the pilot of the West African Airlines plane carrying the cargo made a last-minute flight change at Oslo Airport and flew to Basel, Switzerland. Then the cargo reportedly was shipped to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, where it disappeared into the black market.

Three weeks later, the Norwegians announced that they were looking into whether a 12.5-ton shipment of heavy water sent to Romania in 1986 also had gone astray.

“It’s shipped out without a mechanism to determine whether it arrived” explains Mr. Milhollin, who says “circumstantial evidence” suggests the errant shipments went to India and Israel, respectively. “It just seems like another example of governmental incompetence, which is not rare in any country.”

According to experts, 20 tons of heavy water can produce enough plutonium to manufacture one Nagasaki-caliber bomb a year. Mr. Milhollin says the lack of controls on heavy water facilitates the spread of nuclear weapons to unstable countries in the Middle East and South Asia.

This represents a serious threat to world peace, says Mr. Milhollin, who is fearful that Third World countries would be more inclined than the superpowers to use nuclear weapons in an armed conflict. Treaties and alliances could then draw the United States and Soviet Union into a series of events beyond their control.

But government officials suggest that Mr. Milhollin overstates the scope of the problem-pointing out that heavy water itself is not a component of nuclear weapons.

“I’m not going to label him a fringe type, but the [International Atomic Energy Agency] takes a much more benign view of heavy water,” said one State Department source who asked not to be identified. “I don’t think anyone gets as exercised or as upset as he does.”

Mr. Milhollin also is criticized for a “confrontational style” and going against the grain of international diplomacy with public accusations based on circumstantial evidence. However, Charles William Maynes, editor of Foreign Policy, believes Mr. Milhollin is on to something.

“This is an issue that the professional non-proliferation community inside the government has over-looked for 20 years,” says Mr. Maynes, who has published two of Mr. Milhollin’s articles. “I think it’s an embarrassment. He’s bringing to light an issue that should have been looked at more carefully.”

Heavy water was not expected to be on the official agenda at last week’s IAEA board of governors meeting in Vienna, Austria, but another State Department official said that, in light of recent events, it almost certainly would be discussed “around the periphery.”

Leonard Spector, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for Peace in Washington and a leading authority on nuclear arms proliferation, agrees: “We know that one of the primary ways to stop the spread of the bomb to [certain countries] is to deny them the materials they need. Now here we are learning that a key commodity isn’t really controlled.

“I’m supposed to be a big expert in this field, and I didn’t know about this until [Mr. Milhollin] unearthed it.”

At 49, Gary L. Milhollin has the appearance of someone who works too hard and enjoys too little. His features are gaunt and his expression solemn, giving him the pained and all too serious look of a long-distance runner.

He operates out of a cluttered office at the Natural Resources Defense Council in downtown Washington. His desk is littered with stacks of documents and press clippings from around the world. There also is a small bottle of clear liquid labeled “Ontario Hydro Reactor Grade Heavy Water.”

“I enjoy pretty good relationships with all of the countries I’ve worked with,” he says, pointing to a colorful figurine of an elephant he received from the Indian Embassy at Christmas.

How does a university law professor become a nuclear arms proliferation specialist and authority on of all things, international trade of heavy water?

In Mr. Milhollin’s case, it appears to have been by accident-more precisely, the nuclear power plant accident at Three Mile Island, Pa.

Twelve years ago, he followed a friend’s suggestion and applied for a part-time administrative judgeship with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel.

With a mechanical engineering degree from Purdue and law degree from Georgetown University, he brought an unusual combination of technical and legal knowledge to the job.

As one of the NRC judges hearing testimony following the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island, he came to the conclusion that the integrity of the plant management had been so compromised that it should be totally replaced before allowing the undamaged reactor to come back on line. His view did not prevail.

It was the critical juncture in his career, after which he became convinced that the benefits of nuclear energy were going to be smaller than originally thought.

“I decided that the main effect of exporting nuclear technology was going to be to spread the bomb around the world rather than produce a lot of cheap energy,” says Mr. Milhollin, who lives in Chevy Chase with his wife, Monique, and their two children.

Although he maintained his part-time post with the NRC, Mr. Milhollin shifted his research efforts at the University of Wisconsin from contracts and conflict of laws to nuclear arms proliferation.

He became intrigued with the trade of heavy water while preparing a 1984 NRA report on India’s nuclear power program. Three years ago he received a grant from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and, like an archaeologist on a dig, left the classroom for Washington to research the issue full time.

Poring over public records, newspaper reports and Indian government documents, he began putting together the pieces of an intricate puzzle. Using that information in connection with a close study of India’s known demand, supply and imports of heavy water, Mr. Milhollin concluded that India was obtaining heavy water under the table to run reactors outside international safeguards for the purpose of building a nuclear arsenal.

He broke onto the international scene in 1986 with an article published in Foreign Policy magazine under the headline “Dateline New Delhi: India’s Nuclear Cover Up.”

Excerpts of the article appeared in newspapers worldwide. India, which exploded a nuclear device in 1974 and is in a heated arms race with neighboring Pakistan, angrily denied the charges. It refused, however, to produce any information to support the denial.

Mr. Milhollin struck again in the winter issue of Foreign Policy, with an article titled “Heavy Water Cheaters.” This time he charged, among other things, that Israel was using heavy water obtained from Norway in 1959-on the basis of a peaceful-use pledge-to build nuclear bombs at its secrecy-shrouded reactor at Dimona in the Negev desert.

The Israelis deny any improprieties and last week tentatively agreed to let Norway inspect some 10 tons of heavy water. But the Norwegians will not be allowed to visit Dimona to determine if the heavy water has been used to make plutonium for nuclear weapons.

In addition to what colleagues describe as his “extraordinary detective work,” Mr. Milhollin has become quite adept at working the news media. In Norway, he focused attention on the heavy water issue by writing newspaper opinion pieces and feeding reporters enticing bits of information.

“His revelations got media interest rolling,” says Jon Roessum, a foreign desk reporter with the Norwegian Broadcasting Service in Oslo. He has worked closely with Mr. Milhollin on several in-depth programs regarding Norway’s export of heavy water and has plans for a major documentary to be aired in the fall. “I’m sure the Foreign Ministry wishes he would go away.”

Mr. Milhollin is at no loss for criticism of his own country, which he scolds for turning a blind eye toward the development of nuclear weapons in some countries while being openly critical of others.

“The difficulty has been that we’ve just continued to put this issue off and not be serious about it because of a desire to achieve some short-term objective,” he says, adding that the United States has lessened its criticism of Pakistani attempts to build a nuclear arsenal, since Pakistan began providing support for refugees during the war in Afghanistan.

“But long after Afghanistan is over and forgotten, Pakistan’s nuclear capability is going to be a problem for everyone in the world, including us,” he says. “Once we get nuclear weapons throughout the Middle East and South Asia, then we are going to be in a world that is literally on a hair trigger everywhere.”

In recent months, Mr Milhollin has been pressing Norway to exercise its inspection rights of 20 tons of heavy water sold to Israel in 1959 that hasn’t been inspected in some 25 years. Now, he has his eye set on West Germany, which he accuses of being lax in enforcing safeguards on nuclear materials.

According to Mr. Milhollin, the owner of the West German company involved in the 15 tons of Norwegian heavy water that went missing in 1983 has been suspected of illegally trading nuclear materials since about 1980.

“The struggle to prevent the spread of the bomb is a struggle we can’t afford to lose,” says Mr Milhollin, “but we’re losing it.”