Free Code Word: Paternity, A Presidential Thriller by Doug Norton

plenty of material within
the fallout area. And airborne particles will circle the world up in the
troposphere in quantities suitable for sampling for at least twenty days.”
    “So that means,” said Battista, “we don’t
have to provide samples. Others can collect them independently.”  
      “That’s right, Anne,” said Hendricks. “And
that’s exactly how it used to work. We’d do a test, or the Russians or the
Chinese would, and the others would launch collection aircraft. American
engineers became expert at deducing the power and even the designs of others’
nukes. I’m sure the Russians, Brits, French, and probably the Chinese did, too.
Since the end of atmospheric testing, in the sixties, most of those other
sampling organizations have probably been disbanded, but the knowledge is there
to reconstitute them quickly.”
    Griffith leaned forward. “OK, that raises a
potential problem. Is this analysis demanding scientifically? I mean, suppose,
say, the French scientists don’t have good enough equipment, you know, not as
sensitive maybe, so they get different results?”
    After a glance at Hendricks, Hitzleberger
responded. “The main scientific technique is spectroscopy, which is widely used
in industry and science. I don’t think that will be an issue.”   I know
what will be an issue, Hitzleberger
thought , and I’m not goin’ there!
    But Easterly did: “Analyzing a sample is
only half the process. They’ve got to have something for comparison, and unless
it’s the same as our standard, there won’t be a match. Scott, can we reproduce
our standards, or let others use them?”
    To Hitzleberger’s enormous relief,
Hendricks stepped in. “No, Eric, we can’t! The samples came into our possession
by extremely sensitive collection methods and through irreplaceable sources.
They’re items like copies of reactor operating records and tiny amounts of
reactor fuel. To be used authoritatively, each must be identified as to time
and place obtained. That information will compromise our sources.
    “Let me make a point: Paternity isn’t
static. As current nuclear powers develop new weapons and others, like Iran, edge closer—Iran may have untested weapons
now—we require new samples. For example, Pakistan’s current warheads use
uranium. If they go to plutonium, we need to update our sample library. We
can’t keep Paternity ready if we reveal our sources and methods.”
    The room was silent, all aware that
Hendricks would not be moved on this, except by the president, who said nothing.
    Understanding the president’s silence,
Dorn moved them to a different question. “There’s more to the sources than
their identity. There’s the question of reliability. I remember some Iraqi
scientist, who was the main source of information tying Saddam to an active
biological weapons program, turned out to be bogus. How are we gonna handle the
reliability issue?”
    “We point to three instances when
Paternity was validated,” replied the DNI. “In 1998 the Paks tested six weapons
underground. A plume of debris escaped, and we flew a U-2 collection aircraft
through it. Analysis demonstrated, to President Clinton’s satisfaction, that
some of the HEU in those warheads was of Chinese origin and identified the
specific facility that produced it. He had Madeline Albright call in the
Chinese Ambassador and read the riot act, backing it up with specifics. We
learned a couple of years later that the Chinese halted all nuclear cooperation
with the Paks.
    “When the North Koreans announced in 2006
they had tested a nuclear weapon underground we collected a sample the same
way. Their bomb was plutonium and we got an exact match to the reactor fuel
reprocessing facility at Yongbyon. Incidentally, we also determined that the
weapon didn’t work well; the yield was very low, probably because they didn’t
have a good understanding of beryllium tamping. We repeated that analysis when
they tested again, in