Curious Minds Webinar I - Life Members

#Nuclear #Non-Proliferation

For our first Creative Minds Webinar, we discuss Highly Enriched Uranium which is central to today's conflict in Iran.  The Reagan - Gorbachev meeting in Reykjavík in 1986 set the stage for the fall of the Soviet Union and a disarmament program between the USA and Russia.  One of the goals of this effort was to prevent Proliferation to countries like Iran.  David Bondurant describes meetings in Russia in November 1990 that were part of this story.

Project Sapphire - The Untold Store

Preventing Brain Drain & Securing Nuclear Materials

David Bondurant, Life Senior Member

60 Minutes recently told the story of Project Sapphire, a covert mission in 1994 to transport 600 Kg of Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) from Kazakhstan to prevent nuclear proliferation to countries such as Iran and North Korea following the end of the Soviet Union.  This effort was part an even bigger effort to prevent brain drain of key scientists and secure nuclear materials in the newly independent states from terrorism.  I will describe a visit to Russia in 1990 which led to the Global Initiative for Proliferation Protection (GIPP) and a program called the US Industry Coalition (USIC) which put weapons scientists in Russia and the Newly Independent States of the Soviet Union to work on peaceful programs and secured nuclear materials.  This on-going effort by the National Nuclear Security Agency (NNSA) to secure HEU continues today at the center of the current Middle East conflict.

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