NYT ARTICLE SPECULATING WHAT IF OKC HAD BEEN NUCLEAR?

 The New York Times

April 10, 1996, Wednesday, Late Edition - Final

Preventing Portable Nukes

BYLINE: By Jessica Stern; Jessica Stern, who is writing a book on terrorism, is a fellow at Stanford University's

Hoover Institution.

SECTION: Section A; Page 19; Column 2; Editorial Desk

LENGTH: 593 words

DATELINE: ALO ALTO, Calif.

What if the bomb that killed 168 people and blasted the Federal building in Oklahoma City a year ago this month had been nuclear?

It's not a far-fetched scenario. Nuclear materials -- once extremely difficult to find outside of controlled, government facilities -- are increasingly making their way to the international black market.

Theoretically, it is possible to make a well-designed nuclear bomb from a lump of plutonium the size of a soda can. A crude nuclear bomb -- which requires less expertise but more fissile material -- would be deliverable by van.

Even a crude one-kiloton atomic explosion -- tiny by nuclear standards -- would be hundreds of times more powerful than the Oklahoma blast. (In America, it might also permanently alter the balance between security and civil liberties:

There would be much more support for widespread domestic F.B.I. and C.I.A. surveillance and for chips that monitor electronic conversations.)

Next week in Moscow, President Clinton and the heads of the other Group of Seven industrial nations will meet with President Boris Yeltsin at a nuclear summit meeting to discuss such worries.

The chaotic breakup of the Soviet Union has increased the risk of nuclear terrorism. Cash-strapped Russian Army troops are selling their weapons abroad, often through Russian mafia middlemen. Hardware from missiles designed to

carry nuclear warheads has made its way from the former Soviet Union to Iraq. And in November, Chechen terrorists placed a container of radioactive material in a Moscow park. (Officials removed it after the perpetrators told reporters where it was.)

Despite these problems, the Russian Government has found 80 percent of its nuclear facilities to have no "portal monitors" -- exit doors with built-in radiation detectors -- to prevent insider theft.

Russian officials have repeatedly denied that any nuclear smuggling has involved weapons-grade material. But terrorists

and would-be nuclear nations aren't that picky. They would probably be satisfied with lower-grade uranium or the kind

of plutonium found in spent nuclear reactor fuel rods.

Seven confirmed cases of theft from the former Soviet Union involve such "weapons-usable" materials -- ingredients

that could make a nuclear device capable of killing hundreds of thousands.

Since 1991 -- under legislation proposed by Senator Sam Nunn, Democrat of Georgia, and Senator Richard Lugar,

Republican of Indiana -- Congress has appropriated a total of $1.5 billion to help former Soviet states protect and dismantle nuclear warheads and create safe storage for weapons-grade nuclear materials.

But the program applies only to Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan -- even though other former Soviet republics also possess nuclear materials and expertise.

And the $1.5 billion total -- an appropriation that barely squeaked through Congress -- isn't much. (Compare it to the $346 billion America spends annually on other forms of national defense.)

To protect ourselves, we should urge President Clinton and Congress to take the following action:

* Expand Nunn-Lugar to embrace all former Soviet states.

* Regularize meetings with the Group of Seven nations and Russia on nuclear smuggling.

* Intensify intelligence efforts in all former Soviet countries, especially in Central Asia and the Caucasus, which are likely export routes for illicit nuclear components.

* Expand training in the former Soviet Union in law enforcement, customs and forensics.

These steps carry a low cost. And anything less is irresponsible.