From 1949 to the fall of its empire, the Soviet Union produced some 55,000 nuclear bombs--enough to annihilate all the major populated areas of the globe. About half of those weapons have been dismantled, but their plutonium (as well as most of their highly enriched uranium) "pits" still remain, stacked in ill-guarded warehouses all over Russia.
In their recently published book, One Point Safe (Anchor Books, $23.95), Andrew Cockburn and his wife Leslie summarize their two-year investigation of the Soviet nuclear stockpile. The book makes scary reading.
Cockburn: Russia has become totally criminalized. The resources are being systematically looted. You have a group of fiefdoms, each with its own army, involving both professional criminals and government officials. Yeltsin is not in control.
Igor Rodionov, former minister of defense, told us that the main question in the military is: What is your price? The general who was in charge of dismantling the chemical weapons system in Russia was caught selling the technology for binary nerve gas to Syria. And he got off because he had the right connections.
The custodians of the Russian nuclear weapons arsenal are the 12th GUMO [an elite unit attached to the general staff]. We asked a lieutenant colonel of the 12th GUMO how much he was paid. In theory an officer like that gets less than $200 a month, with months of delay. We asked: Do you get a bonus for your awesome responsibilities? And he said: Oh, yes indeed--4 pounds of sausage a month.
There's no indication that the Russian government has improved security, but they have improved their control of information. They've cracked down on people who talk.