Verification of Nuclear Warheads and Their Dismantlement A Joint American-Soviet Study

If order-of-magnitude cuts are to be made in the U.S. and Soviet nuclear arsenals, verification measures will probably have to be extended to cover declarations of total stockpiles of warheads and unsafeguarded fissile materials. Such a comprehensive warhead verification system would have to include measures to verify a cutoff in the production of fissile material for weapons and the dismantlement of the warheads of weapons systems being eliminated or \"deMIRVed.\" Since 1987, a joint working group of the Federation of American Scientists and the Committee of Soviet Scientists for Peace and Against the Nuclear Threat have been conducting a joint research program on the technical basis for such verification arrangements. The first results of this work, which are briefly reviewed here, have been published in the new international journal, Science and Global Security and in a book, Reversing the Arms Race: How to Achieve and Verify Deep Reductions in the Nuclear Arsenals.