U.S. Safeguards History and the Evolution of Safeguards Research and Development

The nation's nuclear program which began during World War II was under strict military control for the development of atomic weapons. Congress passed the Atomic Energy Act of 1946 and transferred the nuclear programs from military control to civilian control, creating the Atomic Energy Commission as the new civilian agency, effective January 1, 1947. In discussing the U.S. safeguards history and the evolution of safeguards research and development, five significant eras are identified. The period ending January 1, 1947, may be called the first era. Safeguards as known today did not exist and the classic military approach of security protection applied. The second era covers the period from 1947 to 1954 (when the Atomic Energy Act was completely rewritten to accommodate the then foreseen Civil Uses Program and international cooperation in peaceful uses of nuclear energy), and the first steps were taken by the Atomic Energy Commission to establish material accounting records for all source and fissionable materials on inventory. The third era covers the period 1954 through 1968, which focused on nuclear safeguards in its domestic activities and made major policy changes in its approach to material control and accountability. The fourth era, 1968 to 1972 saw a quantum jump in the recognition and need for a significant safeguards research and development program, answered by the formation of a safeguards technical support organization at Brookhaven National Laboratory and a safeguards Laboratory at Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory for the development and application of non-destructive assay technology. The fifth era had its beginning in 1972 with the burgeoning of international terrorism (e.g., the massacre of the Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games at Munich) and led to a major redirection of nuclear safeguards and an institutional combination of the separate offices of safeguards and of security into a single combined Office of Safeguards and Security, which continues today. The corresponding need for a strong physical protection research and development support program was responded to by the Sandia National Laboratory. We are now entering an upcoming "sixth" and epochal era, characterized by a significant plant modernization effort, new and advanced technologies and systems, all framed and conditioned by major policy decisions concerning disarmament, INF, START, and other activities.