The Export reorganization act, 1975 : hearings before the Committee on Government Operations, United States Senate, Ninety-fourth Congress, first session, April 24, 30, and May 1, 1975 online

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has happened, is that with the increasing attention being paid to a
terrorist threat, as contrasted with a national diversion type of
threat, we in this country, in our own national system have become
much more concerned about the terrorists, and physical security
aspects.

We have, by simply including that in our generic coverage of the
word safeguard, let that term then cover a much broader list of
endeavors than was originally intended, and than is currently in-
cluded in the international agency safeguards world.

Now, with respect to leadership which was brought up, Dr. Ray
indicated many areas in which this country has taken leadership. It
has taken leadership in the development of the International Atomic
Energy Agency's safeguards, as narrowly defined; it has taken
leadership in encouraging the Agency, and in assisting the Agency
in the development of guidelines for physical security practices in
nuclear facilities, and in transportation. The latter resulted in a book,
[The Grey Book] some years ago, that is a guideline type of instruc-
tion. The Grey Book has been made available to nations to encourage
them to set up within their own national jurisdictions procedures
which follow the guidelines. It was not mandatory, but was an
expression of leadership; trying to move governments in that direc-
tion. This has been looked at again, and The Grey Book is in the
process of being upgraded. Many people have indicated the necessity
for doing this.

Now, how can one best attack this problem of physical security.
I think myself, you can visualize two different ways of going about
it, one through an international route, one through a collection of
bilateral exchanges. Here one gets into a political judgment. The
situation to date is that within the Agency there has been consider-
able opposition to the notion of an international dictate, or set of
rules and regulations, which would be imposed on nations. The con-
cern is one of intrusion on national sovereignty. I believe that
although this was overcome for Agency safeguards, having to do
with material accountability and inspection with respect to facilities
and pursuit of nuclear materials, the time is not ripe for that same
kind of process to be used for physical security.

Therefore, in my own view, we were right in starting with the
bilateral route. We find that in nation-to-nation discussions, that is
what you are doing, what we are doing, what are the important
threats, wdiat should we worry about? Both parties can be comfort-
able in the discussion.

We are not yet comfortable in airing these matters in an inter-
national forum, and in laying out the procedures we use or the
threats we worry about. Such a process tends to be too public. And
so I would urge in this area that we consider the merits of the
bilateral route. There are merits in our taking leadership in the
international route, but we must watch and be careful, and set our
timing to achieve these objectives, in a reasonable and rational way.

I am not disagreeing with what Senator Percy was saying. I am
simply saying that I think the political diplomatic approach needs
to be carried out carefully, and we should get the most out of what-
ever we do in an orderly way.



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The question of bilateral versus international arrangements comes
up in other areas too.

I sense in the debate that has gone on, a general feeling that the
United States and the world might be better off having strong: U.S.
bilateral arrangements. For the export license to be granted only if
comparability exists with respect to the United States, has a flavor
of a bilateral determination, and in fact an almost unilateral deter-
mination, because one must do it our way or not do it at all. But let
me remind you quickly, that insistence on doing it our way or not
doing it at all with us, does not insure that it will not be done. As
was said earlier here today, the United States does not have a
monopoly on the export of nuclear facilities, and will not have a
monopoly on the export of enriched uranium in the future. There-
fore, one has to balance, would we prefer a collection of bilateral
agreements between different suppliers and their respective countries,
or an international type of agreement in which we all are operating
to the same common level of understood criteria.

Senator Glenn. Are these things not mutually exclusive?

Dr. Tape. Under the NPT, the parties, both suppliers and cus-
tomers, have agreed that IAEA safeguards is the preferred route.
In addition, most major supplier nations, have already said that
they would export to non-NTT parties only under safeguards. There
is a trigger list that triggers the conditions under which safeguards
would be required. More needs to be done in this area to expand its
application and to look at other aspects, as well. But let me remind
you that the safeguards I am talking about, that have been agreed
to, have to do with the detection against diversion, not the physical
security type questions that you have also raised. So, at the moment,
whatever we do in the physical security area is pretty much depen-
dent on bilateral types of arrangements.

In this area of physical security, let us strive for the maximum
through international agreements, let us look to the bilateral route
to achieve immediate objectives and move us in the direction we
would like to go, but let us not think for a moment that a central
U.S. bilateral type control is going to solve all of our problems.

You say let us influence the other suppliers to do the same thing,
and, indeed, that has been done, and is being done. Whether it will
be completely successful or not, I think remains to be seen.

I would like to add with respect to physical security that it has
been suggested by the Secretary that we consider an international
convention. This is being explored ; it is something we should look
at, and see what the merits are. If one has an international conven-
tion with a large number of nations agreeing to certain objectives
and procedures, fine. But on the other hand, you can see the risks if
one goes through the procedure of formulating a convention and
then obtains only a few signatories. It then becomes a weak conven-
tion, and not the desired strong one. A lot of work has to be done.

Finally, I was going to respond to the discussion here between
Senator Percy and Dr. Seamans on this question of the real world
and being realistic. I will not go through all of the points I was
going to make, except to say that for most of us, the real world, of
course, is in the eyes of the beholder, and that I would personally
take issue with many of the points that he ticked off. Let me give
an example or two.



264

Nuclear powerplants are looked upon as being prestigious. That
was true a few years ago, but many of the developing nations, who
are suffering more than we are from oil shortages today, do not
look upon nuclear power as prestige anymore. They look upon
nuclear power as an actual absolute necessity in their future energy
program. And as Dr. Ray was saying, economic stability of those
nations, be it aided by nuclear or some other form of assistance, is
very much of concern and interest to the United States.

To take another example, included in my real world is the fact
that many of these nations can proceed with the development of
nuclear explosives independently, and this has been demonstrated.
An action on our part of a big stick character does not necessarily
cut such development, but may in fact encourage it. But the Sen-
ator's comment of let us turn around, making carrots as large as can
be made, is probably going to have a greater impact than the nega-
tive approach.

These are all interacting pieces that go into the problem of con-
trol, the question of influencing such nations to recognize that it is
in their interest to adopt and follow procedures of the kind that we
have been advocating, both bilaterally and through the International
Agency.

Senator Glenn, I tried to pick up a few of the points, that were
discussed earlier in the testimony today, in the hopes that I could
provide clarification or amplification.

Senator Glenn. Your comments are very well taken, and they are
excellent. I appreciate your picking up on them. What is your time
schedule? That is a vote that just came up, so I will have to run
over and vote and come back.

Dr. Tape. I will wait.

Senator Glenn. You will be available then for a little while,
because I do have a number of questions, and I will get over there
and back as soon as I possibly can.

Dr. Tape. Fine.

Senator Glenn. I am sorry we have been so long here, but we
have had too many expert witnesses.

Dr. Tape. I do have other things tomorrow, and I would prefer
to stay today, if that is all right with you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator Glenn. I will get back as fast as I can, and we will
stand in recess for about 10 or 12 minutes.

[Whereupon, the committee was in short recess.]

Senator Glenn. The hearing will be in order.

I am sorry for the interruption, doctor, but that is one of the
hazards of the committee hearings these days, so I got back as fast
as I could.

Do you have any further statement before we have a little
discussion ?

Dr. Tape. I am an expert at filling in while Members are voting.

Senator, I might add one other item by way of clarification,
namely, differentiation between IAEA safeguards and some physical
security questions. I should not leave you with the impression that
the IAEA safeguards is only a material accountability type system.

It does include as part of the system for obtaining information,
checking on inventories, checking on locations, et cetera, methods of



265

containment and surveillance. Putting materials under lock and
seal and monitoring is in a way a physical-security type of system.
Surveillance with cameras on the movement of materials, within a
plant, et cetera, which will then permit checking at a later date is
also a physical-security type of system. It is not security in the sense
that it prevents a terrorist group or unauthorized persons from
physically breaking the seals and removing the material. It does not
incorporate a quick-acting mechanism of police-type followup. That
is the point I would like to make in differentiating between the two.

Although I refer to safeguards as detection against national diver-
sion, I really am using the word national to mean the nation we are
talking about. It could be detection against national or it could be
detection against subnational diversion, in the sense that the govern-
ment itself is not a party to it, but that some unauthorized persons
within that country are responsible.

One other point, with respect to the safeguards systems, we tend
to compare the United States against the IAEA. Let me first of all
emphasize that the U.S. safeguards system is a national system for
the United States. The IAEA builds on the national systems which
exist in those countries which are under IAEA safeguards. In
other words, IAEA takes advantage of existing national systems,
and then fills in to the degree necessary in IAEA's judgment to get
the adequate information it needs to make an independent determi-
nation. So the international system is one of an added overlay to
already existing national systems. It is not a replacement for a
national system, it is an add-on. With that. Senator, let me stop,
and if there are questions, I would be pleased to answer them.

Senator Glenn. Let me follow up on your last statement. You
stated the IAEA is a setup to take advantage of the national
systems that are already in place, and make maximum use of their
facilities, and so forth. What happens when we consider those to be
considerably less than we think they should be?

Do you think we should then restrict our sales in those areas?

Do we sell, what do we do ?

Dr. Tape. Let me assume that the case you are talking about is an
NPT party, which by agreement with the Agency has IAEA safe-
guards. The IAEA will have worked out with that nation the types
of information, reports, et cetera, which the IAEA needs to do its
job. It will have set up frequency of inspection for various facilities,
depending on what they are, et cetera. The IAEA will insist on
reports of imports, exports, et cetera.

The IAEA itself in its safeguards undertaking will be working
with that country to have that country upgrade its own national
safeguards to a level which will not put an undue burden on the
Agency itself. In other words, the Agency is not interested in
expending Agency funds to do the national job. There will be
negotiations and pressure put on the country to do its part ade-
quately.

With respect to the question should we export if it is an NPT
party, if it has an IAEA safeguards agreement, which it should
have under those circumstances, I say that we, under our NPT
obligations there, are expected to — ■ —



266

Senator Glenn. As you pointed out earlier, the IAEA functions
more as a monitoring system where the plutonium is, as I under-
stand it, and it is more our sort of international accounting system
for plutonium. But then the followup — what happens if somebody
like India gets off the reservation, and uses plutonium in other
areas, and plutonium disappears, what happens at that point? It is
just sort of information, then what occurs?

Dr. Tape. Let me first state that the system applies to all special
nuclear materials, and this could be uranium or plutonium. Let me
also emphasize that many of the cases that we tend to talk about
involve reactors, for which, there is a delivered fabricated fuel
element, Most of the power reactors of today utilize a fuel with a
very low-enriched uranium content. That fuel element goes into the
reactor, it is used over a period of time, becomes very, very radio-
active in that process, goes into the storage cooling ponds, and,
again, one does not even touch it with an 11-foot pole, to differen-
tiate from the ones you do not touch with a 10-foot pole. Thus there
is built into the system a lot of protection in addition to the safe-
guards accountability and monitoring.

Now, the plutonium you talk about in a power reactor fuel for
instance is plutonium contained in those highly radioactive fuel
elements. If I remember correctly, the fuel elements we are talking
about are maybe 8 or 10 inches on the side and 12 or 14 feet long
and weigh a thousand to 1,400 pounds. It is not easy for me to con-
struct a reasonable scenario of a terroristic type approach involving
removal of such elements.

Before someone can get his hands on plutonium per se it has got
to go through the reprocessing plant, which may or may not be in
that country. That is where the ultimate plutonium will come out.
On the other hand, the records would show the amount of the
plutonium produced and the exports from the country.

Coming back to India, India is not a party to the Xonproliferation
Treaty. India has a number of facilities in its country, some which
they obtained from other countries, some under IAEA safeguards
and some under agreements made before IAEA safeguards wore
established, but accompanied by a statement that the material would
be used for peaceful purposes.

The two Tarapur reactors which were obtained under agreement
with the United States are under IAEA safeguards, not the NPT,
but so-called trilateral arrangements, involving India, ourselves,
and the IAEA. The United States, preferring an international
arrangement for the purposes of making these international inspec-
tions, has used the Agency. The specific information coming from
such inspections is confidential, between the Agency and the party,
India. On the other hand, if the party inspected is willing to discuss
these matters with the other party of the trilateral, it can be done,

Senator Glenn. What happens if they do not? That is one of the
weaknesses. This IAEA confidential relationship means we do not
really know.

If we are under IAEA, and we sell to a nation, and they in turn
are dealing with IAEA, we never really know what the safeguards
are, or what arrangements are being made, unless they are given to
us voluntarily, as I understand.



267

Dr. Tape. That is essentially correct, but let me say, by virtue of
the fact that we have close relationships with the Agency, we supply
experts, for example, to help them with their procedures, we are
pretty well informed of the way in which the procedures operate,
and we are able to get the information of a rather general nature
by working with the Agency. Thus far, in these arrangements, the
individual countries are, I think, most of the time interested in
making nations like the United States aware of the fact that they
are doing a good job. In other words, it is not always an adversary
relationship; the country can say look, we are doing what you
expected us to do.

Now, let me go to the point where there may have been a situation
in which the Inspector General cannot reconcile the information,
and he is unable in consultation with the country to determine
whether or not there was a diversion. In that case, he reports to the
Director General, who reports to the Board of Governors of the
Agency, the Board of Directors, if you will. The Board must con-
sider the facts, whether there were some special circumstances,
whether the Nation itself wishes to be heard on the situation. That
has never occurred as yet. If indeed there should be some serious
matter, then the Nation is confronted with a report to the Security
Council of the United Nations, and the question of sanctions. All
of these are possible, but at this point, we would be speculating in
terms of what action might be taken.

In our own case, if such happened under one of our agreements,
we would consider very carefully as to whether or not it was so
serious we might not wish to cut off the shipment of future
enriched uranium for the reactor, for example. In today's energy
crunch, where these power reactors are generating large blocks of
electrical energy, that is not a trivial consideration.

Now, again, in the Indian situation, the plutonium in the explo-
sive that they detonated, they assured us, did not come from the
Tarapur reactors. The indications are that it came from a Canadian
supplied reactor which the Indians had refueled with India's own
fuel. So one can argue that the plutonium was not generated from
foreign uranium, it was generated from their own supply.

Senator Glenn. And that is where the fine line is, I gather.

Dr. Tape. That is the name of the game. If a country really wishes
to develop its own capability, an indigenous capability, the route to
go is to build the complete fuel cycle.

Senator Glenn. You commented a little while ago about the bi-
lateral arrangements, bilateral agreements among suppliers.

The proliferation difficulties with respect to what is going on —
how do you see those from an IAEA standpoint ?

Dr. Tape. Let me take the case in point, and I will pick let us
say a Latin American Nation, not a party to the NPT, call it nation
X. Let me assume that X wishes to embark on a major nuclear pro-
gram, involving additional power reactors, fuel fabrication facilities,
fuel reprocessing facilities, et cetera. Now wo have companies in the
United States as was indicated, that would be quite interested in
supplying this type of equipment, but let me leave the commercial
supply question out of this for a moment. Before exports of equip-
ment and materials could be made the executive branch and NRC,



^^-Avr\ r\ _ na



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would have to consider the conditions under which such exports
could be made. Ultimately there would be a bilateral arrangement.
We would certainly insist on safeguards, Agency safeguards. We
have already said that, to the extent that we insist on other condi-
tions, they would be in the bilateral agreement, not the export li-
cense, but in the initial bilateral agreement.

Now, the United States is not the only exporter Nation in the
world. You must assume that countries like country X have been
also talking with the Federal Republic of Germany, they might be
talking with Japan, they might be talking with France, and in each
case, country X will be looking not only at the economics, which is
a commercial aspect, but they will also be looking at these other con-
ditions that we have been talking about this morning in terms of
whether they are tolerable, favorable, unpalatable, et cetera. They
will be looking at loan agreements, can they get better loan deals
from another supplier than they can from us. All of these condi-
tions will go into the decision package.

We have had as an objective, trying to get safeguards in its fullest
context out of the marketplace. We do not want to have the recipient
customer buying on the basis of the best deal in safeguards from its
point of view. And so by going the international route, and getting
France, Germany, the United States, whoever the supplier might
be, to insist on essentially the same level of safeguards there could
be essential uniformity. We think that has a great advantage, be-
cause then we will not start seeing undercutting on safeguards.
IAEA safeguards provides for the common base.

If we can move in that same direction with physical security by
understandings among the suppliers, in terms of similar standards,
that would be fine.

Senator Glenn. But don't we have a wide variation amongst sup-
pliers on exactly that point right now as far as what they demand?
Aren't we in a position to deal not only businesswise and costwise,
but the safeguards- wise also ?

Dr. Tape. Senator, I would have said there were variations a few
years ago. I believe that most of the suppliers are realizing that it
is to their advantage, and everyone's advantage not to get into this
marketplace consideration.

There are some countries which have a preference for bilateral
arrangements, over international type arrangements. This is a pol-
icy-type preference on the part of the country.

Although I might argue with my IAEA counterparts about their
positions on certain matters, they have political bodies that make
their own decisions, and these may differ from ours. For example, in
France, which has been mentioned from time to time, the French
position, certainly of late, has been it will not export without safe-
guards, but it will not necessarily insist that they be IAEA safe-
guards. They may be French bilateral with the country concerned,
and there I have to say to you, I know less about them than about
IAEA safeguards. I can only say that the French tell me they are
adequate. If, however, the French would say in the future, we will
export only under IAEA safeguards, I would have a better appreci-
ation of what that means. Then continuing our same leadership with



269

the IAEA, providing them with help, expertise, consultants, and
equipment, and continuing our consultations with other members,
improvements can be made.

We have a tremendous development program in this country. We
want to make the equipment coming out of it available by way of
benefit to the Agency as we have in the past.

Senator Glenn. There will be a nonproliferation review conference
next month in May, I believe, in Geneva.

Dr. Tape. I believe it starts on Monday or Tuesday.

Senator Glenn. Yes, next week. Will you be attending that, as an
IAEA member, going there ?

Dr. Tape. I personally will not be attending, not because of lack
of interest, but because of too many other things to do at this
point.

Senator Glenn. Have you been consulted with what our stand will
be at that meeting ?

Dr. Tape. Not in the sense of what our stand will be. Let me
amplify, however. The IAEA itself has been asked to prepare a
number of papers for review and presentation at the conference,
and these have to do with their areas of expertise and responsibility.

Within the executive branch here, there has been a group doing
the same thing with respect to the U.S. positions.

Senator Glenn. That was going to be my next question.

Dr. Tape. Let me add one more thing. The United States main-
tains in Vienna a mission office which is similar to the U.S. mission
to the U.N. in New York, but much smaller.

The man that we have in the Vienna Mission who is an expert in
the safeguards area will be in Geneva for that part of the confer-
ence dealing with these matters.

Senator Glenn. The reason I was raising these questions, I hope
that your experience and expertise in the IAEA area, and if you