Both
Scotland Yard and Russian authorities are now investigating
the alleged murder of Alexander Litvinenko, an ex-lieutenant
colonel in the KGB, who died in London from a dose of polonium-210
on Nov. 23. The focus on Who Killed Litvinenko has led to
the neglect of what may turn out to be a far more important
question: Where did the polonium-210 come from?
Polonium-210 is not a common household substance. It is
made by bombarding bismuth in a nuclear reactor with neutrons
from uranium-235, the fuel for atom bombs. It rapidly decays,
with a half-life of 138 days, which means that it cannot
be stockpiled for more than a few months. It is also very
rare—fewer than 4 ounces are produced each year. Virtually
all of this known production comes from a handful of Russian
reactors. Russia continues to produce it because the United
States buys almost all of it. And the United States buys
the Russian polonium-210 to make sure that it does not leak
into the black market.
If a rogue nation (or terrorist group) obtained access to
any quantity of polonium—even, say, a half gram—it
could use it as an initiator for setting off the chain reaction
in a crude nuclear bomb. With a fissile fuel, such as U-235,
and beryllium (which is mixed in layers with the polonium-210),
someone could make a "poor man's" nuke. Even lacking
these other ingredients, the polonium-210, which aerosolizes
at about 130 degrees Fahrenheit, could be used with a conventional
explosive, like dynamite, to make a dirty bomb.
Under very tight controls in the United States, minute traces
of polonium-210 are embedded in plastic or ceramic, allowing
them to be used safely in industrial static eliminators.
To recapture these traces in any toxic quantity would require
collecting over 15,000 static eliminators and then using
highly sophisticated extraction technology. Such a large-scale
operation would instantly be noticed, and its product would
be adulterated by residual plastic or ceramic. In any case,
what investigators reportedly recovered from Litvinenko's
body was pure polonium-210.
1. The polonium-210 has also left a tell-tale trail. At
least a dozen people have been contaminated, including Litvinenko;
Andrei Lugovoi, a former colleague of Litvinenko's in the
KGB, who met with Litvinenko at the Pine Bar of the Millennium
Hotel in London the day he became ill, Nov. 1; Dmitry Kovtun,
Lugovoi's business associate, who also attended that meeting;
seven employees of the Millennium Hotel; Mario Scaramella,
an Italian security consultant, who dined with Litvinenko
on Nov. 1 at the Itsu Sushi Restaurant (and whom, one week
later, Litvinenko accused of poisoning him); and Litvinenko's
Russian wife, Marina, who went with him to Barnet General
Hospital on Nov. 1.
In addition, traces of the same polonium-210 were detected
at Litvinenko's home and hospital, three luxury hotels and
a security firm in London, a residence in Hamburg that Kovtun
had visited en route to London, and on two British Airways
planes on which Lugovoi flew from Moscow to London in October.
As polonium-210 has not been manufactured in Britain for
years, and it cannot be stockpiled for long, the isotope
must have been smuggled into the country. If it is assumed
that no one intended to leave a radioactive trail in airplanes,
hotel rooms, or homes, or contaminate waiters and other
innocent bystanders, there must have been some unintentional
leakage of the smuggled polonium-210. Moreover, we know
from the Hamburg trail that the leakage occurred well before
Litvinenko went into the hospital on Nov. 1. But where did
the smuggled polonium-210 come from?
The diversion could have come from only a limited number
of places. Just four facilities are licensed to handle polonium-210
in Russia: Moscow State University; Techsnabexport, the
state-controlled uranium-export agency; the Federal Nuclear
Center in Samara; and Nuclon, a private company. Although
these licensees are monitored by the Russian government,
it would not necessarily require an intelligence service
to divert part of the supply into private hands. A single
employee who was bribed, blackmailed, or otherwise motivated
conceivably could filch a pinhead quantity of polonium-210
and smuggle it out in a glass vial (in which its alpha particles
would be undetectable). Such corruption is not unknown in
Russia.
Or the diversion could have come from outside Russia. A
number of other countries with nuclear reactors have been
suspected of clandestinely producing or buying polonium-210,
including Iran (where it was detected by IAEA inspectors
in 2000), North Korea (where it was detected by U.S. airborne
sampling), Israel (where several scientists died from accidental
leaks of it in the 1950s and 1960s), Pakistan, and China.
But whatever its source, the polonium diversion has serious
implications. The real problem is not its toxicity, since
its alpha particles can't penetrate the surface of the skin
and therefore have to be ingested or breathed in to cause
any damage. (That can happen if you have polonium-210 on
your person or clothes.) The more serious danger is that
it could be sold to a country that wanted to set off a nuclear
device, clean or dirty.
Given its value on the nuclear black market, the relationships
Litvinenko had with his contaminated associates may be relevant
to its origin.
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