The Evolving Missions of Technical Nuclear Forensics
First developed for nuclear test monitoring and treaty verification purposes during the Cold War, modern nuclear forensic capabilities are now used to determine the provenance of nuclear materials found outside of regulatory control, such as those seized from nuclear smugglers.
THE SOVIET Union’s detonation of its first nuclear device in August 1949—just four years after the end of World War II—is remembered as a startling event for the United States and its allies, who had expected the American monopoly on nuclear weapons to endure for several more years. Yet for all the shockwaves the test sent through Western governments, the world learned of the event not from a triumphant Soviet declaration but rather when President Harry S. Truman revealed its occurrence several weeks later. The United States’ conclusion that the USSR had tested a nuclear device followed the routine flight of a U.S. Air Force WB-29 weather reconnaissance aircraft from Japan to Alaska a few days after the detonation. Outfitted with filters to pick up radiological debris from an atmospheric nuclear test, this collection platform provided U.S. and allied scientists with the basis for Truman’s dramatic announcement: “We have evidence that within recent weeks an atomic explosion occurred in the USSR.”