ML20024A248
| ML20024A248 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 01/19/1982 |
| From: | Dircks W NRC OFFICE OF THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR FOR OPERATIONS (EDO) |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20024A198 | List: |
| References | |
| FOIA-82-334, TASK-PII, TASK-SE SECY-82-025, SECY-82-25, NUDOCS 8306160193 | |
| Download: ML20024A248 (8) | |
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v January 19, 1982 SECY 82-25 POI. ICY ISSUk linformation) t a
For:
The Com.nission From :
William J. Dircks Executive Director for Operations (U) Purcose :
To provide the attached documents to the Cocaission.
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The staff has'also obtained " Preliminary Comments on the Morgan Memorandum by Prof. Grumm, IAEA, Depart. ment of
--Safeguards - Notes for the Press Conference on 19 November 1931" (Attachment B).
From the Mission's report on this press conference (Vienna 12903, Attachment C) it is not clear how much attention was actually focused on the Morgan report during the press conference.
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,dilliam J. Dircks OREENBE82-334 PDR Executive Director for Operations At tachments :
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,0 19 !!ovember 1981 frotes for the Press Conference on 19 floveraber 1981 s
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PRELIMIllARY COMMEHTS ON THE " MORGAN liEMORANDUM" BY PROF. HAflS GRUEP14 IAEA, DEPART!!ENT OF SAFEGUARDS i
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I have not yet seen the ucmorandum by Mr. Emanuci Morgan which secms to be a classified docunent and I do not know to what extent the contents of this 4
1 document are presented in the newspapers. My ccanents therefore do not refer to the " Morgan memorandum" but to the comments given in the newspapers.
1 He can confirm that Mr. Emanuel Morgan worked with the Agency as an inspector for three and a half years until August 1930 His inspection activities were f
in Japan and the Coman Market countries. At that time the ccmprehensive safeguards agreements with Japan and the Common Market had only recently entered into force and their full implementation was only beginning. At present about 90 IAEA Inspectors take c'are of these regions.
The papers quote that IAEA allegedly is " incapable of detecting the diversion j
- of a-significant quantity" of nuclear material "in any State with a moderate - -
to large nuclear energy establishment". This statement is simply not correct.
We are sorry that it is not possible, without infringing Agreements as concluded, to publish without consent of the IAEA Board of Governo.rs and the State concerned, the concrete details of safeguards implementation which could substantiate this general refutation. However, in the case of Iraq, we were enabled to do so.
As a result the Board of Governors, consisting of well informed representatives of 34 Agency Member States, expressed its continued confidence in the Agency's safeguards system. Furthermore, the Board accepted the conclusions reached by j
the Secretariat in respect of safeguards implementation for 1980, as for previous years. ' This. opinion of the Board is based on a caprehensive'and self-critical report tuhnitted annually by the IAEA Secretariat to the Board.
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The so-called deficiencies referred to in the papers are difficult to understand:
- 1) "Intcrnational inspectors often cannot cccmunicate' with the party being inspccted because the Agency does not reach languages or help inspectors to lecrn the language of countries thcy monitor".
Cw:cnt: This is partly incorrect and partly unreasonable. The International Centi e does run language courses in English, Frcnch, Russian, Spanish -
the languages of ficially agreed with the countries inspected - and Gennan, Arabic and Chinese. IAEA inspectors in, for instance, Latin knerica are encouraged to learn Spanish. Hewever, you could hardly expect an inspector for the Far East to master Japanese, Koican, Chinese, philippino and !!alay in addition to his own language just because, he was inspecting the correspc nding countries; an inspector for Western Europe to become fluent, for instance, in Dutch, Danish, Greek and Italian. Same applies to other areas. The inspector's job is difficult enough without requiring him to be.
mul tilingual.
2)
"US inspectors receive inadequate support from the US Mission to the IAEA".
Comment: This is hardly something for the IAEA to comment on, except to point out that it is against all international staff regulations to seek or accept instructions from any governments including one's own, or to communicate information to any Government or ta'.e any other action which reflects upon one's position as an international civil servant.
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- 3) "Mader nations provide inar' equate information about the design of their nuclear plants and inspectors are frequently prevented from making sure that there are no hidden diversion routes".
Conuent: Without specific examples, it is difficult to cenment on a sweeping statcicent of this kind. In almost all cases,however, the design infor5aticn that we obtain is adequate for safeguards purposes and when it is not, we take steps to ensure that we get what we need.
4)
"Scr..e nuclear cperations such as nuclear reprocessing plants are not often open for inspection".
Ccrment: This is sir. ply incorrect.
Every reprocessing plant under IAEA safeguards is open to inspectica cad is intensively inspected.
- 5) "The inspector is often dccmed from the start by inadequately negotiated inspection agcc ment".
Cc a nt: Every agreement has to be approved by the 34 nation Board of Governors of the Agency. No agreement would be approved by the Board if it considered it inadequate. Such complaints as we get tend to be in the opposite direction, nan.ely that the Agency presses for safeguards that are too stringent.
- 6) " Nuclear waste which contains plutonium...is frequently transferred to central waste handling plants that are not subject to inspection" and "in one case there was no record kept of the final disposition of plutonium samples".
Comment: The amount of plutonium in nuclear waste is minute and practically irrecoverable.
It would take years to collect plutonium samples to make a simple nuclear explosive device.
It is true that the standard of record keeping in the several hundred plants now under inspection varies from i
country to country. The IAEA runs training courses, produces manuals and i
sends out experts to improve and standardize record keeping.
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- 7) "The Agency does not regularly and promptly compare shipments of nuclear fuel on departure and arrival."
Cor. rent : Proopt and regular ccaparison of shiprnts of nuclear fuel on departure and arrival is not required in all cases. liowever, shipper and receiver documents are exaained and ccupared and the nuclear material T
inventory of the shipper as well as the received are verified periodically.
' 8) " Seals placed on nuclear material are easily counterfeited or duplicated.
Ccament: Seals placed on nuclear material are not easily counterfeited or duplicated. A special " fingerprinting" system and periodical exchange of seals for detailed investigation makes Agency seals highly tamper resistant. Stress indicating paper seals are used only for short periods l
of time or under special conditions and are not of great safeguards relevance.
- 9) " Agency cameras, although improved, still provide poor quality picture of plants, and failures,still occur at an alarming rate".
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Comment: No camera is perfect.
The IAEA does everything to improve the reliability of cameras with substantial support from Member States. In order to increase reliability, use is made of camera systems consisting of two cameras which are triggered automatically by quartz timers and are i
enclosed in a tamper indicating sealed enclosure. In some situations of particular safeguards relevance, more than one camera system is used or cameras are backed up by CClV. Safeguards procedures, however, do not completely rely on optical surveillance. In cases of doubt after failure of the camera system, the inventory of the nuclear material under safeguards is re-verified. In 1980 for example, an inventory of. about 4000 spent fuel bundles in a large storage' pool was re-verified.
C0pY
COPY The inspection activity of the IAEA is indeed very comprehensive:
in 1980 more than 1100 inspections ws.re made at about 500 facilities in 50 States.
The IAEA camera systems located at nuc1 car facilities took ever 6 aillion pictures which were subsequently evaluated.
The sensitivity of international sarcgards can te illustratcd by the fact that in 1980 about 200 ninor cncmalies and discrcrancies were found.
The evaluaticn of these
'ancmalies led in all c ases to the finding of im.acent causes and uplanations, so that again the "non-divcrsion" conclusion could Le drawn.
It is important to know that there exists no other effective barrier against nuclear weapcas proliferation than the systca of safeguards agreements, in particular the NPT, verified by the IAEA as an independent international trustee. All other attempts as, e.g., classificatica of know-how, c bargo on equirment and material supply etc. failed, as evidenced by the spread of the nuclear explosives capability to five nuclear weapons States until 1964 and to India in 1974 The,nain problams are with three further States,
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camel y, ' I s ra el,' Fa k i s~ta n ~ and~ScUth' Africa ihich have developed v are developing
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means for the production of weapons-usable nuclear material in unsafeguarded facilities.
In all the other 45 non-nuclear weapons States which have significant nucicar activities, all relevant material or facilities are under safeguards.
No indication of diversion has ever been detected in these ccuntries and - as a confirmation - no test explosion has been made by any of them. This record of success is the result of all kinds of non-proliferation efforts.
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! It is very shortsighted to try to undermine the credibility of the only existing barrier against the deadly threat posed to mankind by the prolifera-tion of nuclear weapons. Condemnation tust be expressed against such atte.apts to undernine the credibility of Safeguards for the justification of military actions against nuclear installations. The same refers to the concealment of the real purpose of such attempts by claiming that the aim of criticizing sa fejuards is to help in tuproving them.
People receiving pamphlets such as those produced by !!r. R. RICHTER and !!r. E. !ORGAil should approach the I AEA and give it an opportunity to amend the record before making further use of the pairghlets or cven going to the public.
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