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ABSTRACT
Some scholars have suggested that illicit state-to-state technology transfer and black-market activities are the primary vectors by which technically weak states acquire nuclear weapons. However, a more recent literature has questioned this view, arguing that natural technological change and public-domain information have been potentially more important enablers of proliferation. Articles supporting this perspective have examined gas centrifuge programs in emerging nuclear powers and failed proliferators. This article examines how viable centrifuge-engineering information first circulated and eventually entered the public domain. It then traces the adoption of this technology in nine latent proliferators: countries that are not known to have pursued nuclear weapons immediately, but which nonetheless became capable of making them. The histories of these programs reinforce the argument that public-domain information and basic technology are adequate for proliferation and cannot be reliably limited by technology controls or secrecy.
Notes
1 The eleven post-NPT aspirants are India, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Pakistan, South Africa, South Korea, Syria, and Taiwan. Only Taiwan and South Korea are not known to have not pursued centrifuges, while India's centrifuge program appears to post-date its weapon program. Although Syria pursued centrifuges, this country made more rapid progress with a North Korean-provided reactor and so abandoned the centrifuge effort early. Argentina and Brazil are assumed to have pursued latent nuclear-weapon capabilities but not to have decided to build a bomb, so they are not counted here. If Argentina and Brazil were to be categorized as having had weapon programs, the reader should add one centrifuge case (Brazil) and one non-centrifuge case (Argentina). See M.D. Zentner, G.L. Coles, and R.J. Talbert, Proliferation Technology Trends Analysis (Richland, WA: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, 2005), p. 20.
2 William Langewiesche, The Atomic Bazaar: Dispatches from the Underground World of Nuclear Trafficking (New York: Farrar Straus & Giroux, 2007); Gordon Corera, Shopping for Bombs (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006); Mahdi Obeidi and Kurt Pitzer, The Bomb in My Garden: The Secrets of Saddam's Nuclear Mastermind (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley, 2004); Catherine Collins and Douglas Frantz, Fallout: The True Story of the CIA's Secret War on Nuclear Trafficking (New York: Free Press, 2011); Douglas Frantz and Catherine Collins, The Nuclear Jihadist: The True Story of the Man Who Sold the World's Most Dangerous Secrets … and How We Could Have Stopped Him (New York: Twelve, 2007); David Albright, Peddling Peril: How the Secret Nuclear Trade Arms America's Enemies (New York: Free Press, 2010); Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark, Deception: Pakistan, the United States, and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons (New York: Walker, 2007).
3 Chaim Braun and Christopher F. Chyba, “Proliferation Rings: New Challenges to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Regime,” International Security, Vol. 29 (Fall 2004), pp. 5–49; Sheena Chestnut, “Illicit Activity and Proliferation: North Korean Smuggling Networks,” International Security, Vol. 32 (Summer 2007), pp. 80–111; Alexander H. Montgomery, “Ringing in Proliferation: How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb Network,” International Security, Vol. 30 (Fall 2005), pp. 153–87; Matthew Kroenig, Exporting the Bomb: Technology Transfer and the Spread of Nuclear Weapons (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2010); Thomas C. Reed and Danny B. Stillman, The Nuclear Express: A Political History of the Bomb and Its Proliferation (Minneapolis: Zenith Press, 2009).
4 See, notably: Stephen M. Meyer, The Dynamics of Nuclear Proliferation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984); T.V. Paul, Power versus Prudence: Why Nations Forgo Nuclear Weapons (Montreal: McGill–Queen's University Press, 2000); Jacques E.C. Hymans, The Psychology of Nuclear Proliferation: Identity, Emotions, and Foreign Policy (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006); Etel Solingen, Nuclear Logics: Contrasting Paths in East Asia and the Middle East (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007).
5 R. Scott Kemp, “The Nonproliferation Emperor Has No Clothes: The Gas Centrifuge, Supply-Side Controls, and the Future of Nuclear Proliferation,” International Security, Vol. 38 (2014), pp. 39–78; John Krige, “The Proliferation Risks of Gas Centrifuge Enrichment at the Dawn of the NPT: Shedding Light on the Negotiating History,” Nonproliferation Review, Vol. 19 (2012), pp. 219–27; R. Scott Kemp, “The End of Manhattan: How the Gas Centrifuge Changed the Quest for Nuclear Weapons,” Technology & Culture, Vol. 53 ( 2012), pp. 272–305.
6 F.A. Lindemann and F.W. Aston, Philosophical Magazine, February 15, 1919, pp. 523 ff.; R. Mulliken, Journal of the American Chemical Society, Vol. 45 (1923), pp. 1592 ff.
7 Kemp, “The End of Manhattan.”
8 US AEC, “Gas Centrifuge Method of Isotope Separation: Report to the General Manager by the Directors of Classification, International Affairs, and Research” (US AEC, April 1960), Record Group 326, Box 1427, Folder 3, US Department of Energy Archives, <https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/399995-doc-6-aec-april-1960-report.html>.
9 Ibid., p. 3.
10 Kemp, “The End of Manhattan;” US AEC Oak Ridge Operations Office et al., “Second Gas Centrifuge Appraisal Report, Volume 2: Nth Power Evaluation,” ORO-652-2 (1966); “Nuclear Materials and Technology as They Affect Proliferation Potential,” undated, Lyndon B. Johnson Library.
11 US AEC Oak Ridge Operations Office et al., “Second Gas Centrifuge Appraisal Report, Volume 2.”
12 J.A. Friedericy, “Meeting with UKAEA Representatives at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, July 19 to 21, 1961,” University of Virginia, 1961 (EP-4422-181-61S), Secret, excised copy; Stanley Whitley, “Progress Report on British Centrifuge Project,” United Kingdom Atomic Energy Agency (Production Group), March 1962 [PG Memorandum No. 799(CA), Sub Reference CEPC/P .14]; !Report on Visit by US Gas Centrifuge Team to UK, May 27–30, 1963” (Oak Ridge, TN: Union Carbide Corporation, Nuclear Division, 27 September 1963), KL-1670, Secret, excised copy.
13 Using ordinary least squares regression—ignoring, somewhat simplistically, state-to-state (entity) variations in motivational interest and time variations in capabilities—and including all program timelines for which we have certain dates, the statistical effect of having a Beams-type centrifuge program prior to the development of the Soviet-type centrifuge program would be to reduce the development time by an average of 0.3 ± 11.8 months.
14 This estimate should not be seen as predictive. The p-value on the t-test that the mean development time is greater than 15 months is 0.37. Ideally, one would correlate the development time of each country with its measures of industrial achievement (e.g., GDP). While this sort of regression would not be difficult, it would also be necessary to include variables for the priority level of the project (e.g., the resources allocated to it). The number of staff, or the budget, would be sufficient, but we lack these data for most programs. Proxies for the project's priority may be possible, but the number of total variables needed to make a reasonable proxy would probably exceed the number of observations, reducing the number of degrees of freedom to zero and thus producing a regression with no statistical significance.
15 For example, the successful Trinity test reportedly caused the Soviets to accelerate their own research on atomic weapons. See G.K. Zhukov, Vospominaniia i razmyshleniia, 2 vols., 13th edn. (Moscow: Olma Press, 2002), Vol. 2, p. 375.
16 Ekkehard Kubasta, Rasende Ofenrohre in Stürmischen Zeiten (self-published, 2008); A. Plotkina, “The Development and Improvement of the Centrifuge Method to Separate Uranium Isotopes in Russia,” TsNIIatominform, Moscow, Vol. 6, 1996, pp. 50–53; N.M. Sinev, “Enriched Uranium for Atomic Weapons and Power: The History of the Soviet Industrial Technology and Production of Highly Enriched Uranium (1945–1952),” TsNIIatominform, Moscow, 1992, p. 138; G. Soloviev, “Iz Pokolenija v Pokolenie,” Nuclear.ru, March 31, 2008, <http://www.nuclear.ru/rus/interviews/2109348/>.
17 J.W. Beams, A.C. Hagg, and E.V. Murphree, Developments in the Centrifuge Separation Project (Oak Ridge, TN: US AEC, 1951).
18 D.A. Boyland, “General Review of the H.S.E. Project” (London: General Electric Company, August 9, 1945), Papers of Ralph A. Lowry, Oak Ridge National Laboratory; Konrad Beyerle, Wilhelm Groth, Paul Harteck, Hans J.D. Jensen, G. Beggerow, V. Faltings, K.L. Suhr, and E. Nann, “Über Gaszentrifugen (Auszug): Anreicherung Der Xenon-, Krypton- Und Der Selen-Isotope Nach Dem Zentrifugenverfahren,” Chemie Ingenieur Technik, Vol. 21 (1949), pp. 331–4.
19 The Soviet centrifuge recipe could be compared to the Gaulard–Gibbs transformer-based system of electrical transmission, in that it overcame a “reverse salient” during longstanding efforts to develop a fully viable technological system, in this case for centrifuge enrichment. See Thomas P. Hughes, Networks of Power: Electrification in Western Society, 1880–1930 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983), pp. 79–105.
20 CIA, “Isotope Separation at the Hertz Institute,” Information Report (February 5, 1955), CIA-RDP80-00810A004900090003-9, CIA Records Search Tool (CREST), National Archives; CIA, “Atomic Energy Research Work at Institute ‘C’ Headed by Manfred von Ardenne,” Information Report (October 11, 1955), CIA-RDP80-00810A006600620008-6, CREST, National Archives.
21 J.W. Beams, A.C. Hagg, and E.V. Murphree, Developments in the Centrifuge Separation Project (Oak Ridge, TN: US AEC, 1951). Specific Beams-type cases are cited in national program histories later in this article.
22 Letter from Gernot Zippe to Stephanie Cooke, March 2, 2007.
23 Kubasta, Rasende Ofenrohre in Stürmischen Zeiten.
24 German Federal Republic Patent Nos. 1120986, 1130760, 1132500, 1136644, 1136943, 1143150; all filed October 22, 1958.
25 German Federal Republic Patent Nos. 1136644 and 1136943.
26 Gernot Zippe, “The Development of Short Bowl Ultracentrifuges,” final report no. ORO-315, Division of Engineering Physics, Research Laboratories for the Engineering Sciences, University of Virginia, July 1960.
27 Obeidi and Pitzer, The Bomb in My Garden, pp. 84–8.
28 Sultan Bashir Mahmood, interview by Mansoor Ahmed, August 2009; author's interview with Mansoor Ahmed, September 17, 2009.
29 Susanna Schrafstetter and Stephen Twigge, “Spinning into Europe: Britain, West Germany and the Netherlands—Uranium Enrichment and the Development of the Gas Centrifuge 1964–1970,” Contemporary European History, Vol. 11 (May 2002), pp. 253–72. This article claims, apparently in error, that the critical paper was written by Zippe while he was in West Germany.
30 Kemp, “The End of Manhattan.”
31 Kemp, “The Nonproliferation Emperor Has No Clothes.”
32 J.W. Beams and F.B. Haynes, Physical Review, Vol. 50 (1936), p. 491.
33 A vaporization centrifuge, as opposed to a gas centrifuge, works because of a subtle difference in vapor pressure between the two isotopes, which is strongly enhanced by the acceleration of the centrifuge. A solid or liquid substance distributed along the periphery of the rotor slowly evaporates into the central cavity, where it is extracted as vapor.
34 Hans Martin and Werner Kuhn provided theoretical support. Experiments were carried out by their research assistants H. Koske and H. Lenne in Kiel, and by W. Bulang and E. Nann in Bonn. See: H. Martin, “On the History of the Counter-Flow Gas Centrifuge,” in E. Krause and E. H. Hirschel, eds., Meeting on Mechanical Flow Processes in Gas Centrifuges, papers presented at the German Aerospace Research Establishment Colloquium, May 14, 1970, Porz-Wahn, Germany. Available as Capenhurst Translation 248, and from the Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant Library as accession K-1002.
35 W.E. Groth, K. Beyerle, E. Nann, and K.H. Welge, “Enrichment of Uranium Isotopes by the Gascentrifuge Method,” paper delivered at the Second International Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy, Geneva, September 1–13, 1958; Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant report K-1425. A separative work unit (SWU) is a measure of how much separation a centrifuge can do. For a technical definition, see Stelio Villani, ed., Uranium Enrichment (Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1979).
36 The United States did not make a significant effort to use the Beams-type centrifuges on an industrial scale because the AEC presumed that it could obtain access to German technology.
37 Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant report K-1425; Zippe, “The Development of Short Bowl Ultracentrifuges.”
38 German Federal Republic Patent No. 1071593. The corresponding US patent is No. 3289925 (filed November 14, 1958; issued December 6, 1966).
39 G. Zippe, “Remarks on the Development of Gas-Centrifuges,” paper delivered at the Sixth Workshop on Gases in Strong Rotation, Tokyo, August 19–23, 1985.
40 “Experts” almost certainly referred to Groth, Germany's leading centrifuge engineer at the time. Groth's disparaging attitude towards the Soviet centrifuge design is documented in J.W. Beams, “Notes on the German Centrifuge Isotope Separation Experiments,” report of the Research Laboratories for the Engineering Sciences, University of Virginia (EP-4422-504-60S), September 1960.
41 Foreign Service Despatch No. 551, from the US Embassy in Bonn to the Department of State, CERP Section D–VII–B1, October 16, 1961 (unclassified).
42 J. Kistemaker, “De Geschiedenis van het Nederlandse Ultracentrifuge Project: Hoe een nieuwe industrie ontstond (deel 2)” [The History of the Dutch Ultracentrifuge Project: How a new industry originated (part 2)], STROOM, Vol. 18 (1991), pp. 18–19; Foreign Service Despatch No. 551.
43 The text of the agreement has not come to light, but its existence is attested in G. Zippe, “Unclassified Spots on the History of the Modern Gas Centrifuge,” in H.G. Wood, ed., Proceedings of the Fifth Workshop on Gases in Strong Rotation (Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia, 1983), pp. 188–221; R.A. Lowry, “Zippe,” unpublished manuscript dated June 11, 1986. Shortly before he died, Zippe recalled, “There was a contract of unlimited exchange of information about my work at the Degussa and the University of Virginia in Charlittesville [sic]. In case this exchange would end, I had to go back to the Degussa. So when I was told by the USAEC (Mr. Mc. Daniel) that the centrifuge would now become classified and I had not the right as a foreigner to work in a classified field, I had to go back to the Degussa.” Letter from Gernot Zippe to Stephanie Cooke, March 2, 2007.
44 Zippe's original agreement with DEGUSSA was a royalty-based contract. His new agreement with the University of Virginia paid a salary of US$10,000/year, the going rate for a senior researcher at the time. Employment Contract between Gernot Zippe and the University of Virginia, May 14, 1958; Foreign Service Despatch No. 551.
45 Namely, the work on supercritical Beams-type centrifuges being done at the University of Virginia. Personal communication with A.R. Kuhlthau and various declassified reports, including: Gas Centrifuge Progress Summary, 1 June 1960 through 31 August 1960, RLES, EP-4422-287-63S; Quarterly Progress Report for the Period 1 June 1960 to 1 September 1960, RLES; Technical Information Report, December 31, 1960, EP-4422-134-60S.
46 The European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) had just been formed in March 1957, and an agreement for cooperation between Euratom and the United States was in negotiation but would not be signed until May 29, 1958. The program managers were aware of the sensitivity of Zippe's work, as they classified some of Zippe's other papers, which were intended for AEC use and not part of the agreement with DEGUSSA. See: “Agreement for Cooperation between the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) and the Government of the United States of America and Related Documents,” European Atomic Energy Community Euratom Commission, November 8, 1958, <http://aei.pitt.edu/39851/1/A4216.pdf>; G. Zippe, “On An Experimental Cascade of Gas Centrifuges for the Separation of Uranium Isotopes,” Report of the Research Laboratories for the Engineering Sciences, University of Virginia, July 6, 1959 (EP-4422-121-60S), excised copy. This last document has a preface by program manager A.R. Kuhlthau, which reads, in part, “Dr. Zippe did not prepare this material as part of his contractual work … [T]hus it seems appropriate to issue this report as a classified report and limit its distribution accordingly.”
47 The DEGUSSA centrifuge was longer and faster than Zippe's machine (46.5 cm instead of 30.4 cm long, with 400 m/s instead of 350 m/s peripheral speed) and capable of performing at about 1 kg SWU/year, compared with 0.43 kg SWU/year. See ORO-315, pp. 87 ff. Performance estimates based on R.S. Kemp, “Gas Centrifuge Theory and Development: A Review of U.S. Programs,” Science and Global Security, Vol. 17 (2009), pp. 1–19. After media reports claiming that DEGUSSA was involved in nuclear-weapons-related research, the company moved to exit the centrifuge business and sold the technology to the German government for DM 5 million. DEGUSSA transferred the equipment, rights and staff to a new government-owned company, Gesellschaft für Kernverfahrenstechnik mbH (GkT), which began operations at Jülich in September 1964. See R.B. Kehoe, The Enriching Troika: A History of Urenco to the Year 2000 (Marlow, UK: URENCO, 2002.)
48 Zippe's visit launched an R&D program in the United States that became the most advanced in the world. Significant amounts of theory were developed, much of which is now published and in the public domain. However, for a mix of reasons, including the sunk costs of gaseous diffusion and poor management decisions in centrifuge development, the United States has yet to deploy centrifuge technology for commercial purposes. One somewhat indirect spin-off of gas-centrifuge research was the development of biological ultracentrifuges, which have been used for medical applications such as the purification of influenza vaccine. In the United States, this technology was developed by the private firm Electro-Nucleonics. The firm was originally founded to separate tungsten isotopes, but in 1976 was denied a license to work with nuclear materials after the US Congress’ Joint Committee on Atomic Energy decided to limit private involvement in centrifuge research. Electro-Nucleonics hinted at a US$10 million lawsuit, and the AEC subsequently helped the firm transition to the biological field (Glenn T. Seaborg, Stemming the Tide: Arms Control in the Johnson Years (Lexington Books, 1987). There is no technical reason, however, to believe that biological centrifuges could not have been developed had the United States not pursued the gas centrifuges for nuclear purposes; the areas of technology overlap are limited to unclassified topics, namely, theoretical rotordynamics and some aspects of fluid dynamics.
49 Representatives from two AEC contractors were given tours of Zippe's lab: G.E. Laboratories on July 5, and Union Carbide on July 6, 1960 (notes dated July 6, 1960, in R.A. Lowry, “Laboratory Notebook 7,” date started January 7, 1958.). Dow Chemical Company had been approached by DEGUSSA for potential cooperation, and its representatives were briefed by the University of Virginia group in April 1960 (notes dated April 7, 1960, in R.A. Lowry, “Laboratory Notebook 7”). Nobel laureates Maria Goeppert-Mayer and J. Newgard received laboratory tours and decided to use the machine to start Electro-Nucleonics, a private isotope-separation firm based in the United States. British representatives were also given briefings. Hans Kronberger, Director of Research and Development for the UK Atomic Energy Agency, was briefed on Zippe's activities and encouraged to give the centrifuge another try, which led ultimately to the British centrifuge program, and to URENCO (G. Zippe, “Unclassified Spots on the History of the Modern Gas Centrifuge”).
50 Zippe, “The Development of Short Bowl Ultracentrifuges.”
51 For example, Iraq's program director, Mahdi Obeidi, claims to have obtained his copy of the Zippe report from an Italian who was on the initial distribution list. See Obeidi and Pitzer, The Bomb in My Garden, p. 78. Similarly, the University of Virginia Special Collections Library obtained its copy from MIT nuclear engineering professor Mason Benedict.
52 Acquisition is documented in the National Technical Information Service accession record, as accessed through the US Department of Energy's Office of Science and Technical Information electronic catalogue at <www.osti.gov>.
53 The obligations of the clearinghouse operated by the Office of Technical Services were established in Public Law 81-776 (see: 15 US Code 1152). The office was initially created to distribute knowledge generated during the Manhattan Project. A history can be found in R.K. Stewart, “The Office of Technical Services: A New Deal Idea in the Cold War,” Knowledge, Vol. 15, No. 1 (1993), pp. 44–77.
54 Letters from the university archives show that inquiries were made, although it is not known if they were fulfilled. One reply letter from 1965 states that the university's supply of extra copies had been “exhausted” and directed the requestor to contact the US AEC, Letter from Patricia S. Goldman, Acting Head of Information Services for the Research Laboratories for the Engineer Sciences, University of Virginia, to the Department of Nuclear Chemistry, Chalmers University of Technology, September 14, 1965. The author obtained copies of the report both from the University of Virginia's Special Collections Library and from the Office of Scientific and Technical Information at the US Department of Energy.
55 The most significant is S. Whitley, “Review of the Gas Centrifuge until 1962,” Reviews of Modern Physics, Vol. 56 (1984), pp. 41–97. The British program was itself based on ORO-315, and so in a sense even these publications are derivative of ORO-315. Whitley's paper cites ORO-315.
56 Formally named the Mechanical Development Section, the program was more commonly known as the “Whistle Project” because of the high-pitched noise of the spinning centrifuge motors. Keith Alder, Australia's Uranium Opportunities: How Her Scientists and Engineers Tried to Bring Her into the Nuclear Age but Were Stymied by Politics (Sydney: P.M. Alder, 1996). For a general history, see Clarence Hardy, Enriching Experiences: Uranium Enrichment in Australia, 1963–1996 (Peakhurst, Australia: Glen Haven, 1996).
57 The program started with two staff, Kevin Turner, a chemical engineer, and Peter Essam, a mechanical engineer. During the first three years the number of non-administrative researchers working on the centrifuge was between three and six. It is not known if the team managed to demonstrate isotope separation at an earlier date using non-uranium compounds.
58 Clarence Hardy, personal communication, July 19, 2007. It is not known if the team tried other (e.g., Beams-type) designs first.
59 Alder, Australia's Uranium Opportunities, p. 69. Subcritical centrifuges are short, slow, and simple to build, but have lower performance. The original Soviet concept was a subcritical centrifuge. The Soviet concept was later improved to be a longer, faster supercritical design, which is more difficult to design because the centrifuge must operate above the “critical speed” at which vibrations can become destructive.
60 See, for example, this study describing properties of maraging steel as an alternative to fiber-reinforced composites, operating in a regime relevant to centrifuges: J.T.A. Pollock and S.G. Barton, High Strength Steels: Stress Relaxation and Derived Creep Characteristics at Room Temperature (Lucas Heights, Australia: Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, 1976).
61 Clarence Hardy, personal communications, July 19 and 20, 2007.
62 These were put into operation in March 1959. The Brazilians were aware of the improved Soviet-type machines being built at DEGUSSA at the time they received the inferior Groth machines, including the fact that the Zippe machines might be more economical. Brazil accepted the Groth machines, intending them to be used for research and training purposes only. See Foreign Service Despatch No. 344, from the US Embassy in Rio de Janeiro to the Department of State, October 25,1960 (unclassified).
63 Mark Hibbs, “Germans Say Brazil Developing Two Production Reactors,” Nucleonics Week, July 27, 1989, p. 4; Author's interview with Orpet Peixoto, former research staff member of the Brazilian centrifuge program, September 13, 2011.
64 William W. Lowrance, “Nuclear Futures for Sale: To Brazil from West Germany, 1975,” International Security, Vol. 1 (1976), pp. 147–66.
65 Author's interview with Peixoto.
66 José Goldemberg, formerly Brazilian Secretary of State for Science and Technology, personal communication, September 11, 2006; Hibbs, “Germans Say Brazil Developing Two Production Reactors,” p. 4; Mark Hibbs, “Bonn: There Is ‘No Military Background’ to Brazil's Unsafeguarded Program,” NuclearFuel, August 7, 1989, p. 13.
67 Peixoto estimated fifteen to twenty staff members; Goldemberg estimated about ten. Author's interview with Peixoto; author's interview with José Goldemberg, August 2, 2009.
68 Author's interview with Peixoto.
69 Goldemberg, personal communication; author's interview with Peixoto. Peixoto reports that by “substantial quantity” he means something on the order of a third of a kilogram, which he derives from the amount of uranium that can be held by a 1S cylinder, the smallest standard UF6 cylinder used in industry.
70 Alan Riding, “Brazil's Leader Reports Success in the Enriching of Uranium,” New York Times, September 6, 1987, p. 25. This account would be consistent with subsequent but unverified claims that the 1987 date actually represents the achievement of twenty percent enrichment. See “Brazil's Nuclear Weapons Program,” <http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/brazil/nuke.htm>.
71 Eventually the program reached involved about 100–150 persons, and the overall development cost as of 2005 was approximately $250 million (José Goldemberg, personal communication).
72 This cascade probably had three hundred successful machines, according to Mark Hibbs, “Policy Shift to Full-Scope Safeguards Could Happen Soon, Brazil's Goldemberg,” NuclearFuel, October 29, 1990, p. 6.
73 Namely, Bruno Stemmler, Karl-Heinz Schaab, Walter Busse, and Dietrich Hinze. See Mark Hibbs, “Evidence Points to Closer Brazil-Iraq Centrifuge Ties,” Nucleonics Week, September 2, 1993, p. 13. See also Obeidi and Pitzer, The Bomb in My Garden.
74 Brazil's subcritical carbon-fiber design appears to be very similar to what Stemmler, Schaab, Busse, and Hinze had shared with Iraq.
75 The author thanks Gregory Kulacki for helping to locate and translate Chinese-language sources, and Jeffrey Lewis for the provision of key documents and a helpful dialogue about China's nuclear program.
76 Dangdai Zhongguo Editorial Committee, ed., Modern China's Nuclear Industry, translated into selections found in “Science & Technology: China,” Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Springfield, VA, January 15, 1988, <http://fissilematerials.org/library/jprs88.pdf>, p. 51; National Intelligence Estimate 13-2-65, “Communist China's Advanced Weapons Program,” January 27, 1965, Top Secret, excised copy, p. 6.
77 CIA, “Nuclear Energy,” Weekly Surveyor, January 12, 1970, Digital National Security Archive. For a more general history, see Zhihua Shen and Yafeng Xia, “Between Aid and Restriction: Changing Soviet Policies toward China's Nuclear Weapons Program: 1954–1960,” Nuclear Proliferation International History Project, Working Paper #2, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, May 2012.
78 Work was also performed at the former Shanghai Light-Bulb Factory, among other places. Remarks on the program from collected memoirs suggest the first centrifuge may have been a Beams-type design, and the second a Soviet-type design. See Collected Commemorative Essays for the 50th Anniversary of the Isotope Separation Group at Tsinghua University, 1958-2008 [Qīnghuá Dàxué Tóngwèisù Fēnlí Zhuānyè 50 Zhōunián—1958–2008 Jìniàn Wén] (Beijing: Tsinghua University Department of Engineering Physics, 2008). Dates also cited in Science & Technology: China, p. 51.
79 National Intelligence Estimate 13-2-62, “Chinese Communist Advanced Weapons Capabilities,” April 25, 1962, Top Secret, excised copy, p. 9.
80 Lewis A. Frank, “Nuclear Weapons Development in China,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, January 1966, p. 15.
81 National Intelligence Estimate 13-2-65, p. 7.
82 David Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy 1939–1956 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994), p. 191; I.N. Golovin, N.N. Ponomarev-Stepnoi, and L.L. Sokolovskii, “On the 275th Anniversary of the Russian Academy of Sciences,” Atomic Energy, Vol. 86 (1999), pp. 243 ff.
83 Collected Commemorative Essays.
84 US Embassy Tokyo Cable 14582 to State Department, “Japanese Reprocessing and Enrichment Plans; PRC Enrichment Efforts,” Secret Exdis, redacted copy.
85 Simon Henderson, “Pakistan's Dr Nuke Bids for Presidency,” Sunday Times, August 24, 2008; Simon Henderson, “Investigation: Nuclear scandal—Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan,” Sunday Times (London), September 20, 2009; R. Jeffrey Smith and Joby Warrick, “Pakistani Nuclear Scientist's Accounts Tell of Chinese Proliferation,” Washington Post, November 13, 2009; Micah Morrison, “EXCLUSIVE: New A.Q. Khan Documents Suggest Pakistan Spread Nuclear Weapon Technology,” FoxNews.com, November 18, 2011, <http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/09/16/exclusive-new-aq-khan-documents-suggest.html>.
86 Hui Zhang, “China's Uranium Enrichment Capacity: Rapid Expansion to Meet Commercial Needs,” report of the Project on Managing the Atom, Harvard Kennedy School, August 2015, p. 15.
87 Shi Zeng, ed., Proceedings of the 9th International Workshop on Separation Phenomena in Liquids and Gases (Beijing: Tsinghua University, 2006).
88 This institute has been selling stable isotopes, which are normally separated by centrifuges, since at least 2006. In addition, China's Tianjin University also appears to be engaged in training new centrifuge engineers based on affiliations of centrifuge engineers at a nuclear conference. Shi Zeng, Proceedings of the 9th International Workshop on Separation Phenomena in Liquids and Gases. The involvement of Plant 405 and the Tianjin institute was confirmed by Hui Zhang in an October 2014 interview with an anonymous nuclear expert from the China National Nuclear Cooperation. Zhang, China's Uranium Enrichment Capacity, p. 15.
89 Zhang, China's Uranium Enrichment Capacity, pp. 16 ff.
90 S. Blumkin, Published Data on the Technical and Economic Aspects of Uranium Enrichment Processes being Developed Outside the U.S. (Oak Ridge, TN: Union Carbide, 1978).
91 After initial appropriations for diffusion were made in July 1957, plans for the diffusion plant were announced at the Geneva Conference in 1958. The low-enriched uranium (LEU) portion of the plant was scheduled to begin operating in 1962, and the HEU portion in 1963. Technical difficulties in producing adequate compressor seals and unforeseen difficulties in barrier development and production delayed the plant. As of May 1963, it was estimated that the HEU stages of the plant would be delayed until 1967. CIA, “Report on French Gaseous Diffusion Project,” May 13, 1963, Secret, excised copy, released June 2002.
92 S. Blumkin, “Survey of Foreign Enrichment Capacity, Contracting and Technology: January 1977–June 1978,” report of the Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant, October 30, 1978 (K/OA-2547).
93 Mark Hibbs, “Second Indian Enrichment Facility Using Centrifuges Is Operational,” Nucleonics Week, March 26, 1992, p. 9.
94 Subcritical claims are supported by Mark Hibbs, “India to Equip Centrifuge Plant with Improved Rotor Assemblies,” NuclearFuel, December 1, 1997, p. 7. Supercritical design data are evident in tenders for the manufacture of bellows convolutions in tubes that are too long to be for subcritical operation; see David Albright and Susan Basu, “India's Gas Centrifuge Program: Stopping Illicit Procurement and the Leakage of Technical Centrifuge Know-How,” report of the Institute for Science and International Security, March 10, 2006.
95 Papers of Ralph A. Lowry, Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
96 Hibbs, “India to Equip Centrifuge Plant with Improved Rotor Assemblies,” p. 7. Documentation of Japan's problems can be found in T. Kai, “Designing and Analysis Study of Uranium Enrichment with Gas Centrifuge,” in Shi Zeng, ed., Proceedings of the 9th International Workshop on Separation Phenomena in Liquids and Gases (Beijing: Tsinghua University Press, 2006), pp. 154–307.
97 The espionage career of Otto Skorzeny, who seems to fit Zippe's description of the double agent, is described in Dan Raviv and Yossi Melman, “The Nazi Who Became a Mossad Hitman,” Forward, March 27, 2016.
98 Stephanie Cooke, In Mortal Hands: A Cautionary History of the Nuclear Age (New York: Bloomsbury, 2009), pp. 231–2.
99 Kistemaker, “De Geschiedenis van het Nederlandse Ultracentrifuge Project,” p. 18.
100 “Literature survey on Isotope Separation,” Report LS-23, Israeli Atomic Energy Commission, 1958, cited in G.E. Lowe, “Bibliography on Isotope Separation by the Gas Centrifuge,” Capenhurst Works, April 1970.
101 Papers of Ralph A. Lowry, Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
102 For example: M. Israeli and M. Ungarish, “Laminar Compressible Flow between Close Rotating Disks—an Asymptotic and Numerical Study,” Computers and Fluids, Vol. 11 (1983), pp. 145–57; M. Israeli and M. Ungarish, “Axisymmetric Compressible Flow in a Rotating Cylinder with Axial Convection,” Journal of Fluid Mechanics, Vol. 154 (1985), pp. 121–44; H.P. Greenspan and M. Ungarish, “On the Enhancement of Centrifugal Separation,” Journal of Fluid Mechanics, Vol. 157 (1985), pp. 359–73; H.P. Greenspan and M. Ungarish, “On Two-Phase Flow in a Rotating Boundary Layer,” Studies in Applied Mathematics, Vol 69 (1983), pp. 145–75.
103 M. Ungarish and H.P. Greenspan, “On Centrifugal Separation of Particles of Two Different Sizes,” International Journal of Multiphase Flow, Vol. 10 (1984), pp. 131–48.
104 Special National Intelligence Estimate 4-1-74, “Prospects for Further Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons,” August 23, 1974, Top Secret, excised copy, p. 6.
105 John Pike, “Dimona: Negev Nuclear Research Center,” GlobalSecurity.org, <http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/israel/dimona.htm>.
106 G.B. Scuricini, “Research and Development Activities in the Field of Uranium Enrichment,” in International Conference on Uranium Isotope Separation, London, 1975 (London: British Nuclear Energy Society, 1975), pp. 13 ff, 507.
107 Blumkin, “Published Data.”
108 Ibid.
109 Ibid.
110 J. Kistemaker, “De Geschiedenis van het Nederlandse Ultracentrifuge Project,” p. 18.
111 Ibid., pp. 16–18.
112 R. Scott Kemp, “The End of Manhattan: How the Gas Centrifuge Changed the Quest for Nuclear Weapons,” pp. 295–6.
113 Kistemaker, “De Geschiedenis van het Nederlandse Ultracentrifuge Project.”
114 For example, the Dutch had to go to Switzerland to obtain high-strength aluminum capable of exceeding 350 m/s. Kistemaker, “De Geschiedenis van het Nederlandse Ultracentrifuge Project,” p. 14.
115 Ibid., pp. 16, 18.
116 Letter from Patricia S. Goldman, Acting Head of Information Services for the Research Laboratories for the Engineering Sciences, University of Virginia, to the Department of Nuclear Chemistry, Chalmers University of Technology, September 14, 1965.
117 Blumkin, “Survey of Foreign Enrichment Capacity, Contracting and Technology.”
118 Enterprise, February 7, 1977, p. 1.
119 Author's interview with Japanese centrifuge designer, October 27, 2007.
120 Y. Takashima, “Gas Centrifuge Research and Development at Early Stages in Japan,” in Y. Takashima, ed., Proceedings of the Sixth Workshop on Gases in Strong Rotation, 19–23 August 1985 (Tokyo, 1986), pp. 669 ff. The Ministry of International Trade and Industry was a predecessor to Japan's Ministry of Economics, Trade, and Industry (METI). On economics: Between 1953 and 1970, the Japanese yen to US dollar exchange rate was fixed at ¥360¥ to US$1 in an effort to control inflation. Salaries for project personnel in 1960 were about ¥50,000 and increased about ten percent per year. Suppressed wages meant that domestically made materials were cheaper than in other areas of the world, about fifty percent of global market prices. (Converted to 1960 US dollars with historical exchange rates and then inflated with the producer price index for finished commodities published by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.)
121 Takashima's earlier success in building a centrifuge for purifying liquid chemicals made him the obvious choice in the eyes of Ohyama. Author's interview with Tsunetoshi Kai, October 27, 2007; author's interview with Yoichi Takashima, October 28, 2007.
122 Author's interview with Takashima.
123 Author's interview with a Japanese centrifuge designer, October 27, 2007.
124 Author's interview with Kai.
125 Jacques E.C. Hymans, Achieving Nuclear Ambitions: Scientists, Politicians, and Proliferation (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012).
126 The claim that this cultural construction impeded the development of the gas centrifuge appears on the surface to stand in contradiction to Japan's remarkable mastery of capitalism, industry, and production. Scholars have associated Japan's extraordinary economic rise to a more cooperative relationship between management and labor than can be found in other capitalist societies, a cooperation that they attribute to long-standing cultural norms. Lee Ross and Richard E. Nisbett, The Person and the Situation: Perspectives of Social Psychology (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991); T.L. Doi, Amae no kozo: The Anatomy of Dependency (Tokyo: Kobunsho, 1971). Social psychologists have concluded that this cooperation can be attributed to the “parentlike feelings” between the corporation and the employee, which have positive outcomes for employee loyalty and morale. At the same time, the system does not allow the subordinate the “right” to disagree with superiors. “The only recourse for subordinates … was to hope to induce kindness and benevolence [towards their ideas] in a manipulative manner called amaeru in Japanese.” G. De Vos, “Dimensions of the Self in Japanese Culture,” in A. Marsella, G. De Vos, and F. Hsu, eds., Culture and Self (London: Tavistock, 1985), p. 160. This culture may be efficient for directing labor in large organized projects, but is inefficient in programs geared toward discovery and knowledge development, which thrive better in more democratic and open environments.
127 Author's interview with Japanese centrifuge designer, November 1, 2007; author's interview with Japanese centrifuge designer, October 27, 2007.
128 Kemp, “The Nonproliferation Emperor Has No Clothes.”
129 Yoel Sano, “Seoul, Tokyo, and the Forbidden Nuclear Card,” Asia Times, October 7, 2004.
130 T. Takahashi and T. Kai, “History and Current Status of Development of Gas Centrifuge Uranium Enrichment Technology at Tokai Works, PNC,” in I. Yamamoto, ed., Proceedings of the Sixth Workshop on Separation Phenomena in Liquids and Gases (Nagoya, 1988), pp. 109–22.
131 Author's interview with Japanese centrifuge designer, November 1, 2007.
132 Ibid.
133 The machines built after the introduction of numerical modeling were the first to be manufactured in numbers greater than one and combined in cascades. For this reason, they were named C-1 and C-2, where “C” meant “cascade.”
134 These designs were supercritical machines with bellows, a concept that went beyond what is outlined in ORO-315. The “OP” in the name means “operational plant.”
135 Author's interview with Japanese centrifuge designer, November 1, 2007.
136 States may wish to keep the existence of a centrifuge program secret because it undercuts their ability to be nonproliferation advocates, or may result in pressure to reverse the program or impinge on their ability to purchase nuclear technology from countries that are nonproliferation advocates. Additionally, if the program had a military dimension in the past, the publication of the history could be embarrassing or harmful. Finally, admitting to a latent nuclear-weapon capability may encourage neighboring states or political foes to build a similar capability. For examples of these arguments, see the cases given in Ariel E. Levite, “Never Say Never Again: Nuclear Reversal Revisited,” International Security, Vol. 27 (2003), pp. 59–88.
137 Hawker Siddeley Canada, Separation of Isotopes, Gas Centrifuge Process: Survey of Publications (Malton, Canada: Hawker Siddeley Canada, Orenda Engines Division, 1962).
138 C.U. Linderstrøm-Lang, “Stable Isotope Separation, Part 2: Production Processes,” Dansk-Chemi, Vol. 43 (1962), pp. 165–71. See also C.U. Linderstrøm-Lang, “Vortex Tube Flows,” in E.P. Muntz and J.F. Wednt, eds., Aerodyn. Separation of Gases and Isotopes: Recent Advan., published as report N79-28506 of the Von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics, pp. 19–34. Linderstrøm-Lang's association with the Danish Atomic Energy Commission is evidenced in C.U. Linderstrøm-Lang and F. Vaslow, “Isotope Effect on the Vapor Pressure of H2O-C2H5OH and D2O-H2O5OD Mixtures,” Journal of Physical Chemistry, Vol. 5 (July 1968), pp. 2645–50.
139 A. Selecki, “Separation of Isotopes in an Ultracentrifuge,” Nuklenoika (Warsaw), Vol. 4 (1959), pp. 13–33; A. Graffstein, “Tlumienie Precesji Wirnikow (Rotor Precession Damping),” Przeglad Mechaniczny, April 15, 1976, pp. 221–4.
140 J. Marcisz and J. Stępień, “Short-Time Ageing of MS350 Maraging Steel with and without Plastic Deformation,” Archives of Metallurgy and Materials, Vol. 59, No. 2 (2014), pp. 513–20.
141 Enerpresse (Paris), January 17, 1978, p. 4.
142 H.G. Wood, ed., Proceedings of the Fifth Workshop on Gases in Strong Rotation (Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1983); K.G. Roesner and E. Rätz, eds., Workshop on Separation Phenomena in Liquids and Gases (Darmstadt, Germany: Technische Hochschule, 1987); P. Louvet, P. Noe, and Soubbaramayer, eds., Separation Phenomena in Liquids and Gases: Second Workshop (Saclay: Centre d’Etudes Nucléaires de Saclay, 1989).
143 E.P. Zironi, J.M. Saniger, J. Rickards, J. Elizalde, E. Andrade, “A Study of the Fluorine Corrosion of the Al-7075 Alloy Using Nuclear Techniques,” Journal of Nuclear Materials, Vol. 210 (1994), pp. 123–9.
144 Catherine Collins and Douglas Frantz, Fallout: The True Story of the CIA's Secret War on Nuclear Trafficking (New York: Free Press, 2011), p. 120.
145 Author's interview with Olli Heinonen, October 10, 2011.
146 Mark Hibbs, “Centrifuge Design Proliferation Raises Questions about Taiwan Lab,” NuclearFuel, February 2, 2004, p. 5.
147 The 250-grade maraging steel reported would only give a ten percent performance increase over centrifuge-grade aluminum (7075-T6). The research is reported in Yen-Jung Lee, Ming-Cheuh Kung, I-Kang Lee, and Chang-Pin Chou, “Effect of Lath Microstructure on Mechanical Properties of Flow-Formed C-250 Maraging Steels,” Material Science and Engineering: A, April 25, 2007, pp. 602–7.
148 Mun-Yong Lee, Sung-Man Sohn, Chang-Yong Kang, Dong-Woo Suh, and Sang-Yong Lee, “Effects of Pre-treatment Conditions on Hydroformability of 7075 Aluminum Tubes,” Journal of Materials Processing Technology, November 30, 2004, pp. 1337–43.
149 A. Boukhalfa, A. Hadjoui, and S.M. Hamza Cherif, “Free Vibration Analysis of a Rotating Composite Shaft Using the p-Version of the Finite Element Method,” International Journal of Rotating Machinery, 2008. https://doi.org/10.1155/2008/752062.