Editing Nuclear terrorism (section)

==History==
As early as December 1945, politicians worried about the possibility of smuggling nuclear weapons into the United States, though this was still in the context of a battle between the [[superpower]]s of the [[Cold War]]. Congressmen quizzed the "father of the atomic bomb," [[J. Robert Oppenheimer]], about the possibility of detecting a smuggled atomic bomb:

{{blockquote|Sen. Millikin: We... have mine-detecting devices, which are rather effective... I was wondering if anything of that kind might be available to use as a defense against that particular type of use of atomic bombs.<br />
Dr. Oppenheimer: If you hired me to walk through the cellars of Washington to see whether there were atomic bombs, I think my most important tool would be a screwdriver to open the crates and look. I think that just walking by, swinging a little gadget would not give me the information.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Kingsbury |first=Alex |date=February 18, 2007 |title=History's Troubling Lessons |url=https://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/070218/26nuclear.b.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130512013912/http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/070218/26nuclear.b.htm |archive-date=May 12, 2013 |website=U.S. News & World Report}}</ref>}} This sparked further work on the question of smuggled atomic devices during the 1950s.

Discussions of non-state nuclear terrorism among experts go back at least to the 1970s.  In 1975 ''[[The Economist]]'' warned that "You can make a bomb with a few pounds of plutonium. By the mid-1980s the power stations may easily be turning out 200,000&nbsp;lb of the stuff each year. And each year, unless present methods are drastically changed, many thousands of pounds of it will be transferred from one plant to another as it proceeds through the fuel cycle. The dangers of robbery in transit are evident.... Vigorous co-operation between governments and the [[International Atomic Energy Agency]] could, even at this late stage, make the looming perils loom a good deal smaller."<ref>"Nuclear Terrorism," ''The Economist'' (January 25, 1975) p. 38.</ref>  ''[[The New York Times]]'' commented in 1981 that The [[Nuclear Emergency Search Team]]'s "origins go back to the aftershocks of the [[Munich Olympic massacre]] in mid-1972. Until that time, no one in the United States Government had thought seriously about the menace of organized, international terrorism, much less nuclear terrorism. There was a perception in Washington that the value of what is called 'special nuclear material' - plutonium or highly enriched uranium (HEU) - was so enormous that the strict financial accountability of the private contractors who dealt with it would be enough to protect it from falling into the wrong hands. But it has since been revealed that the physical safeguarding of bomb-grade material against theft was almost scandalously neglected."<ref>Larry Collins, "Combating Nuclear Terrorism," ''The New York Times'' (December 14, 1980) Sec. 6 pg. 37.</ref>

This discussion took on a larger public character in the 1980s after [[NBC]] aired ''[[Special Bulletin]]'', a television dramatization of a nuclear terrorist attack on the United States.<ref>Sally Bedell, "A Realistic Film Stirs NBC Debate," ''The New York Times'' (March 17, 1983) B13; Sally Bedell, "NBC Nuclear Terror Show Criticized," '' The New York Times (March 22, 1983) C15; Aljean Harmetz, "NBC Film on Terror Wins Prize," ''The New York Times'' (July 8, 1983) C19.''</ref>  In 1986 a private panel of experts known as the International Task Force on the Prevention of Terrorism released a report urging all nuclear-armed states to beware the dangers of terrorism and work on equipping their nuclear arsenals with [[permissive action links]].  "The probability of nuclear terrorism," the experts warned, "is increasing and the consequences for urban and industrial societies could be catastrophic."<ref>D. Costello, "Experts Warn on Nuclear Terror," ''Courier-Mail'' (June 26, 1986).</ref>