ARGENTINA'S NUCLEAR-WEAPON CAPABILITY IS ESTIMATED TO BE CLOSER THAN THOUGHT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00806R000200700076-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 21, 2010
• Sequence Number: 76
• Publication Date: April 29, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/21 : CIA-RDP90-00806R000200700076-9
ARTICLE APPEARED
ON PAGE
Is Estimated to Be Closer Than Thought
WALL - :ET JOURNAL
29 April 1982
Argentina's Nuclear- Weapon Capability
By JoH.y J. FIALKA
And Goa.u..a F. Seim
Staff Reportrrsof T-ieWAU. STRel - Juvs. 4AL
WASHINGTON - U.S. intelligence esti-
mates circulating on Capitol Hill anels-
whe-be
re here suggest that Argentina may
Wse to entering e --club" of .na ons a"
have-nuclear weapons cape i i yl`than-find'
b666 thought.
. Although U.S.. analysts reportedly believe
that Argentina is still some months or years
aways from building. a, bomb, the new as-
sessments, coming in the midst of the Falk-
lands crisis, heighten concern about Argen--
tina's growing tendency to use Its political
and military powers:
Part of tae new concern,- according to
several government, sources, is that there
have been large-"accounting gaps" in meth-
ods used to monitor the nuclear fuel being
loaded Into and removed from Atucha I. Ar-
gentina's commercial nuclear-power reactor
near Buenos Aires.
The gaps, discovered in the International
Atomic Energy Agency's surveillance sys-,
tem covering the plant, could mean that Ar-
gentina has been able to draw substantial
amounts of plutonium away from Its civilian
power program without detection. -Intelli-
gence experts reportedly a divided, how-.
ever, on whether these gaps actually have
been used as a pathway for nuclear diver-
Sion.
"We're very concerned about Argentina's
program," was the way one U.S..specialist
on the matter put it. Calling Argentina's ap-
proach to nuclear technology "very, very so-
phisticated, '; the -specialist added: "we
' aren't talking about. a Third World program
in any way,. shape or form.' , `.; '
"This thing. Is. extremely. sensitive right
now, that's all r. can tell you;'. said a U.S."
official who has attended briefings on, the:
Argentine nuclear` program.; Both, sources
asked not to be identified by name...::
Argentine officials have repeatedly.in-
sisted in recent months that their 27 year-old
effort to develop an independent nuclear,
power program will result-In only peaceful
uses of atomic energy, although.they.have
managed to avoid -most international con-
trols and treaties covering-the subject.
A nuclear-power.'reactor creates pluto-
nium, a nuclear-weapons. material,. as its
uranium fuel changes in the process:of,fis-.
sinning. Atucha I has been In operation since
1974, long enough to. produce about 1,000
pounds of plutoniurrr..It - takes about. 30
pounds of plutonium to -make a small nu
Mr. Morgan.-who recently wrote a report-
on the agency's problems for the U.S. Nu-
clear Regulatory Commission, emphasized
that he wasn't familiar with the specific
liberations over Argentina's nuclear pro-
may have access to bomb-grade plutonium,
fabricating a usable nuclear weapon, if it
decided to do so, still could take some time. I
Eduardo Jantus, press attache at the Ar-
comment on the possibility of a diversion at
Carlos Martinez Vidal, a former head of Ar-
gentina's Atomic Energy Commission who
now works here for the. Organization of
American States, insisted that it would be
"impossible to use (Atucha's fuel) for any-
Earlier this year, before the Falklands
current,. chairman. of" Argentina's nuclear
will be created at two other power reactors
that will be separated, recycled into nuclear
Having what is known as a:complete su-
ability to separate and reuse plutonium-the
vice admiral added, wouldn't provoke a
strong reaction from the U.S. "because at
the present time the dependence of the Ar-
.:, rug ul4L rrawn, ne iota a Brazilian re.
porter, "the only thing that can happen is an
improvement because relations and cooper-
ation in, our field with the United States
couldn't be worse."
A major source of Argentina's indepen-
dence stems from the type of power reactor
It purchased from `west Germany. Atucha I
is a "heavy water" reactor that uses natural
uranium fuel and, unlike the more common
"light water" reactors, doesn't require the
special enriched uranium fuel obtainable
only from the U.S., the Soviet Union or
Western Europe...
Emanuel : Morgan, a former `safeguards
inspector for-: the International Atomic En-
ergy Agency, said that the Atucha I type of
reactor is the most difficult type to monitor
because Its nuclear fuel is loaded and un-
loaded constantly and it doesn't need to be
closed for regular inventories.. '
"Because the reactor can run on less,
than a full fuel load, there may be more fuel
in the reactor than has been- declared. Or
some fuel may have been taken out that was
neverdeclared," he said.
1
i problems at Atucha I, only with the diffic_uI-
ties related to monitoring that type of reac-
tor.
"There are lapses in surveillance," he
noted., because agency inspectors can't be
present at all times. In their absence, cam-
eras are used to watch the reloading of the
reactor and the storage of spent nuclear fuel
in a nearby cooling pond, but the cameras
don't always work very well, he said. .
Mr. Morgan's general criticisms of the
agency prompted the NRC commissioners to
conclude last November that they weren't
confident that the international agency a
could give timely warning of a nuclear di-
version. And that, in turn, prompted a bar-
tutger (D., N.Y.), chairman-of a House en-
ergy subcommittee. He wanted to know
,
among other things, whether the NRC has
seen evidence of a diversion from a facility
In March, Nunzio Palladino, NRC chair-
man, replied with 38 answers, noting that
"appropriate Executive Branch agencies"
had ordered that the question and answer to
the matter of evidence of a nuclear diver-
sion be classified as sensitive information.
This has resulted In a gre at deal of pri-
vate speculation in_.Congress over which
sources Indicate: that 'Argentina Is high on
C
. ./Tat,
can ega Iy re ease ce an -o
..b
mated information t a c asst tf , .."
considerable outside help in its efforts to be-
come a major, independent source of. nu-
!' "The Atucha reactor requires heavywater
to' control its reaction and recently the So-
viet Union agreed to supply Atucha with five
tons of heavy water, an atomically altered
Isotope of water. Sulzer- Brothers, a Swiss
company, Is supplying Argentina with ma-
chinery to build Its own heavy water plant,
scheduled to begin operations in 1984. France
has been involved In the construction of Ar-
gentina's uranium-milling plants and Can-
ada and Italy are involved in building an ad-
ditional heavy water-nuclear-power reactor:
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/21 : CIA-RDP90-00806R000200700076-9