3 Kenneth W. Thompson, ed., Sam Nunn on Arms Control (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1987), p. 19.
4 The visit was February 4–17, 1974. Nunn was accompanied by Frank Sullivan of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Nunn, interview, March 10, 2005. Frank Sullivan, interview, Jan. 31, 2006. Also see Nunn, “Changing Threats in the Post-Cold War World,” speech, Monterey Institute of International Studies, Monterey, Calif., Aug. 20, 1995; and U.S. Senate, 93d Congress, 2d Session, April 2, 1974, “Policy, Troops and the NATO Alliance, Report of Senator Sam Nunn to the Committee on Armed Services, United States Senate.” Courtesy of Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library, Robert W. Woodruff Library, Emory University, Atlanta, Ga.
5 David Miller, The Cold War: A Military History (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin’s Press, 1998), p. 360.
6 Nunn told me the psychology of defeat and its effect on the American military after Vietnam led him to conclude that the Russian military would be demoralized after losing their empire. Nunn, communication with author, Aug. 26, 2008. See Nunn, “Vietnam Aid—The Painful Options,” Report to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Feb. 12, 1975, 94th Congress, 1st Session.
7 In the mid-1980s, Nunn and Senator John Warner (R-Va.) proposed creating risk reduction centers in the United States and Soviet Union to share information in a crisis. The first-phase ideas were accepted by Reagan and Gorbachev at Geneva in 1985, and on Sept. 15, 1987, the United States and the Soviet Union signed an agreement establishing Nuclear Risk Reduction Centers in Washington and Moscow. Nunn and Warner had also suggested a more ambitious effort, which was not adopted. “Outline of nuclear risk reduction proposal,” fact sheet, undated, and “Nuclear Risk Reduction Center,” Cathy Gwin, communication with author, July 28, 2008.
8 George Bush and Brent Scowcroft, A World Transformed(New York: Knopf, 1998), p. 539, 545–547.
9 “Address to the Nation on Reducing United States and Soviet Nuclear Weapons,” Presidential Documents, vol. 27, p. 1348.
10 “Soviet Tactical Nuclear Forces and Gorbachev’s Nuclear Pledges: Impact, Motivations, and Next Steps,” Interagency Intelligence Memorandum, Director of Central Intelligence, November 1991.
11 Cochran of the NRDC tried to persuade Soviet officials to take actions to verify the pullbacks, but at the time they were not interested. See “Report on the Third International Workshop on Verified Storage and Destruction of Nuclear Warheads,” NRDC, Dec. 16–20, 1991.
12 George Bush, All the Best, George Bush: My Life in Letters and Other Writings(New York: Touchstone, 1999), p. 539. The State Department memo was written four days later. Baker, The Politics of Diplomacy (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1995), p. 558.
13 Gates, prepared statement to the House Armed Services Committee, Defense Policy Panel, December 10, 1991, in Preventing Chaos in the Former Soviet Union: The Debate on Providing Aid, Report of the Committee on Armed Services, 102nd Congress, Second Session, Jan. 17, 1992, pp. 166–188.
14 An American diplomat in Moscow cabled back to Washington a conversation with a Russian official who said the country “has virtually no adequate storage sites for the huge quantities of weapons-grade material that will result from destruction of substantial numbers of warheads.” “Russian views on destruction/storage of dismantled nuclear warheads,” Moscow cable to the State Department, Jan. 14, 1992, declassified to author under FOIA. The remark about plutonium pits was made by Viktor Mikhailov, who was then deputy minister of atomic energy, to Frank von Hippel in October 1991, while on a visit to Washington. Von Hippel, interview, June 1, 2004. The need for safe storage was raised at two unofficial workshops sponsored by the NRDC and the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, Oct. 18–19, 1991, and in Kiev, Dec. 16–20, 1991, both with Soviet participation. During the Kiev conference, Mikhailov mentioned the rail cars to a conference participant.
15 Blair, testimony to the House Committee on Armed Services, July 31, 1991. In September, Blair arranged a trip to Washington for Gennady Pavlov, a retired colonel in the Strategic Rocket Forces who taught at the forces’ academy. Blair and Pavlov testified jointly before a Senate panel September 24 and provided a good description of who held the nuclear suitcases, what had happened to Gorbachev’s during the coup and the order of Soviet nuclear launch procedures. U.S. Senate, 102nd Congress, 1st Session, Sept. 24, 1991, “Command and Control of Soviet Nuclear Weapons: Dangers and Opportunities Arising from the August Revolution,” Hearing before the Subcommittee on European Affairs, Committee on Foreign Relations.
16 See Carter, John D. Steinbruner and Charles A. Zraket, Managing Nuclear Operations (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1987).
17 Dick Combs, who was on Senator Nunn’s staff and present at the meeting with Aspin, interview, Nov. 28, 2004.
18 In a legislative maneuver, they had tried to spring the proposal on a House-Senate conference without having been approved on the floor of each chamber.
19 Don Oberdorfer, “First Aid for Moscow: The Senate’s Foreign Policy Rescue,” Washington Post, Dec. 1, 1991, p. C2.
20 In Washington, Oct. 17–24, 1991, Mikhailov participated in an NRDC workshop on verification issues, and briefed members of Congress. NRDC, “Report on the Third International Workshop,” p. 3. Christopher Paine interview, July 31, 2008.
21 Nunn, “Soviet Defense Conversion and Demilitarization,” Congressional Record, Senate, vol. 137, no. 167, 102nd Cong. 1st Sess., Nov. 13, 1991.
22 Lugar daily calendar, courtesy office of Senator Lugar.
23 Carter, interview, Dec. 14, 2005.
24 Bush and Scowcroft, pp. 543–544.
25 Baker, interview, Sept. 4, 2008.
26 Baker, The Politics of Diplomacy, pp. 562–563. “America and the Collapse of the Soviet Empire: What Has to Be Done,” Secretary Baker, Princeton, Dec. 12, 1991, U.S. Department of State Dispatch, vol. 2, no. 50, pp. 887–893.
27 Chetek caused controversy at a symposium of Canadian environmentalists in April 1991. Mikhailov attended, along with Alexander Tchernyshev. John J. Fialka, “Soviet Concern Has Explosive Solution for Toxic Waste—Firm Pushes Nuclear Blasts as Cheap Way for Nations to Destroy the Materials,” Wall Street Journal, Oct. 25, 1991. Also see William E. Burrows and Robert Windrem, Critical Mass (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994). Arzamas-16 was among the shareholders of Chetek. Dmitri Bogdanovich, Vlast, No. 102, Jan. 13, 1992.
28 The United States carried out 27 such explosions between 1961 and 1973. The Soviet Union carried out 124 between 1965 and 1988.
29 “Press Release, Ministry of Atomic Power and Industry, USSR, and International Joint Stock Company ‘CHETEK,’” Dec. 11, 1991, in NRDC, “Report of the Third International Workshop,” appendix F.
30 Mark Hibbs, “Soviet Firm to Offer Nuclear Explosives to Destroy Wastes,” Nucleonics Week, Oct. 24, 1991, vol. 32, no. 43, p. 1. Fred Hiatt, “Russian Nuclear Scientists Seek Business, Food,” Washington Post, Jan. 18, 1992, p. A1.
31 In a study of the impact of hypermilitarization on the Russian economy, Clifford G. Gaddy noted, “The lowly saucepan became the symbol of resistance to conversion by the defense-industrial complex. In effect, the message they sent was: ‘If we are going to convert, it has to be on our terms, in a way commensurate with our status. Otherwise, we won’t convert at all!’” Gaddy, The Price of the Past: Russia’s Struggle with the Legacy of a Militarized Economy (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1996), p. 65.