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[inaudible conversations] >> you can describe what you do, it's humiliating, but thank you for that introduction, allen. we have, as many of you know, for some time now, although, this is -- we're using the occasion of the launch of your book, brian, to have a coming out party to announce the expanded initiative and array of activities. a lot of the work done in the past is some of you in the room, i hope, are aware as focused as allen mentioned on the issue of wmd and nonproliferation issues, but -- and, indeed, this is the focus of the discussion today, but maybe just send that into a broader context. we are now, at a point where with retrying to take lessoned learned over the past six to seven years to expand into're areas, be it the trafficking and conventional weapons, human trafficking, drug trafficking, and array of other transnational

issues that we believe do share some common elements. the most obvious, of course, bad stuff moving across borders, and it's our contention that we have as governments, as private industry, and even as international organizations and even private individuals, which are becoming increasingly important on the international scene, obviously, we've erected artificial barriers to how we address these various challenges, and so whether it is working on a bureau that works on human trafficking that does not communicate with the bureau working on drug trafficking that does not communicate with the bureau working on proliferation issues, we've seen a government -- between governments and certainly between governments and private industries, it's really that nexus of issues that we draw together and begin to break down artificial barriers to the extent we can see across them even if we can't eliminate them

entirely. brian, i'm extremely pleased, obviously, toking with you here to the simpson center, not only so you share in the party, but for a number of reasons. certainly, i enjoyed reading your book which i should mention to everyone in the room is available on amazon.com, and i highly recommend you rush back after the event to the offices and purchase the copy, but there are other reasons as well. i think to be topical, obviously, the issue of nonproliferation and nuclear terrorism, brian, never leaves the headlines, always there as a sub text, but it pops up and down over time, but i think in light of the reel teffly significant budget cuts, the president has announced in his 2014 budget to the sweep of nonproliferation programs the u.s. government is lev ramming,

it's a topical issue, and questions over the safety and security of the command and control of the stocks of chemical weapons in syria that was mentioned making this book, i think, and the subject today a topical one. the real reason i think the overarching reason i'm so pleased to have you here at simpson is that because in this sea of studies, but we cornered the market on it to some extempt and perfected it. brian jenkins has been throughout his career a cool head and an impassioned observer and an academic on the issue working closely with government and others in the ngo community, and i've been fitted for many years, brian, from your good work and it's a pleasure to

welcome you here to launch this book. i think you'll agree that the nuclear nonproliferation narrative today really revosms around the threat of nuclear armed terrorists. the question of iran, of other countries that potentially could be developing in nuclear weapon remains in the news, but this nuclear terrorism issue, the one that's been described by now successive presidents as the greatest threat that our country face, and i know you have strong feelings, but by the end of the cold war, the industry around nuclear terrorism, they were a self-licking ice cream cone industry of itself that after the 9/11 terrorist attacks really became for many in government and for many of us outside government almost a national obsession. to date, there's been since the end of the cold war and 9/11

billions of dollars spent in an array of agencies to control and get our arms around a whole suite of nuclear chemical, bilogical, and raid logical threats that we're told are out there and you describe in this book as well as in previous books. as a result of the programs, there's remarkable successes, thousands of russian warheads destroyed, thousands of weapon scientists engaged, tons of chemical agents, bilogical agents and pathogens have been eliminated, and former borders secured and so on and so forth, obviously, promoting not only u.s. national security, but international security as well, and even still, i think official water continues despite the successes to display a great concern over the probability of the wmd incident and one

involving terrorist acquisitions of a bilogical weapon. before coming on stage here, i just quickly racked by brain for a few examples of the prognostications about this. in 2001, a commission led by howard bake r and lloyd cutler that you remember well, brian, stated, quote, the most urgent unmet threat to the united states is inquisition of terrorist with stockpiles of a nuclear weapon. in 2002, it was stated, quote, if the chance of a weapon of mass destruction being used in a given year is 10% and the same probability exists for 50 years, the probability of an event happening at least once in the

50 years is 99.5%. in 2008, the grand talent commission stated there's better than even chance of a weapon of mass destruction incident involving terrorists occurring somewhere in the world before the end of 2013, and in 2011, director of fbi said the properties are mute because so as i look back on this, brian, and as i survey the record of washington in predicting a wmd incident, it's clear to me we ain't very good at predicting when the wmd terrorist incidents occur, and that got me thinking deeply. a lot of our work crossed this divide between the role of private industry and role of government in addressing the big transnational challenges

incoming the challenges of wmd proliferation, and when insurance companies assess the probability of an incident, any incident, it is, for them, a very serious and certainly a precise business because it means the difference between profits and loss for the company, and so whether it's an quick, whether it's a hurricane, a tornado, a fire, or my driving habits, they have developed very sophisticated models to predict future incidents based upon historical track records. of course, as we talk to the insurance policy industry on this particular issue, underwriting a wmd terrorist event whose implications are extremely significant and could run into the hundreds of billions of dollars, it's a very different and a very serious business, clearly. the question for them that they pose to us is how do you predict what's essentially an unpredictable event?

one in which there is essentially no or rather very few hard precdence. the nsurance industry, i know, struggled mightily with the question even if i think we here in wasrein occasionally loose with our own predictions, and that is what i think what makes your book that you have released such a useful exercise. it really begins to paint, you know, an admittedly scant historical record of incidents that could ultimately lead to the up conventional incidents of proliferation, focusing, i think, as much on demand side as it does on the supply side and looking at various pathways to terrorist acquisitions of a weapon so i commend you for that. that's my rationale for you writing the book, so let's hear from you in terms of what your rationale was in this particular

piece of scholarship. >> by the way, we're both named brine so we'll do that as much as possible. >> as much as possible. >> you mentioned the concerns about syria's chemical arsenal right now given the civil war in that country. reportedly, according to recent headlines and say with reportedly that the united states has planned to secure pakistan's nuclear arsenal against threats, and there was recently a -- a game at the pentagon to explore how the united states might secure nuclear weapons in north korea, should that country's government implode, and this raises a number of questions about what would we really do? what would we really face in these situations where a country

with nuclear weapons or other weapons of nays destruction face a revolt, a civil war, that was great concern. now, henry had recently a conference on this and looked at a number of cases, and his -- at the center, and he looked at cases in pakistan, pakistan since they acquired nuclear weapons, and there's certainly been political upheaval in china, and most dramatically the fall of the soviet union, and all of those in a sense are good news. they are good news in the sense that armies are conservative obedient organizations, and even when they seize power from a civilian government or the state

ceases to exist in its current form like the collapse of the soviet union, the army chain of command stays in tact, soldiers follow orders, the weapons are secured, but that raises the question what happens if the army divides? what happens when armies divide? when the commanders split, when the loyalties of those who are in charge of nuclear arsenals or others with weapons of mass destruction can no longer be guaranteed, and at that point, we can say that that security exists any longer. now, fortunately, we don't have a rich history of that, but we do have one event that turned

out all right, but one event that is faze enating, and it's a terrific story anyway, and that is in 1961. france was testing nuclear weapons in the test site in the is sierra. it was a unique circumstance because at the same time the french army in nigeria where the test site was was engaged in a bloody war with the fln, the algeria fln fighting for algeria's independence. there was already growing tension between the french military and the government led by charles in paris. remember the french army overthrew the french republic in 1958 that led to the return of the gull with the expectation that the gull would keep algeria

french. whatever his initial attitudes. by 1961, the president concluded that this would confine fraps to an endly, costly colonial war and rather than be a colonial nation bogged down in algeria, that algeria could gain independence as far as he was concerned, and france could move on to become a great power by developing nuclear weapons. this did not sit well with the army. move forward to april 1961, and the french regimes in algeria revolted against the french government, and their plan was to take over all of algeria,

destroy the rebel forces, and present fraps with a french algeria. this was only three days before a scheduled nuclear test, and we know now according to some work done by a french scholar there had been a phone call made by the commander of the french rebels in algiers to the general commanding the test sites in the where the general said do not detonate the small bomb, keep it for us. it may come in handy. at this point, we have a dramatic choice. with the retelling of story over various his tore yaps over years, the story gets better and better, and we have the weapon

being detonated just as rebel troops are closing in on some of the test sites which was not true. we have the weapon being -- it's not really a weapon,ing but a test device scuttled in order to prevent it from falling into the hands of the rebels. the test took place -- actually, it turned out that not as many commanders and units went with the rebellion as commanders hoped and rather than making plans or efforts to require the device, they spent the next two days before the revolt timely collapsed on the third day attempting to persuade officers who were sitting on the fence to join in the rebellion. the test came off all be it with disappointing results for largely technical reasons.

what's interesting in it is all the issues that arose, that the government had to deal with would arise in future circumstances whether it's an event on the korean peninsula, pakistan, or in some future nuclear arms state or in a syria br we face these questions now. all the questions would arrive. first of all, a fast moving event, everything took place within a 72-hour period. second, i mean, complete unpredictable. not only did the government in paris not know what's going to happen and was in a state of panic, but the commanders of the rebellious forces and the loyal forces in algeria did not know what was going to happen next because at that point it came down to, and this is the next

observation, it was a malter of every individual commanders making personal calculations about which way they would go in this revolt, and if one looks at circumstances that we worry about, again, that could -- that could arise. not only was their ability to know the outcome limited, but this was completely beyond the capacity of any outsider to know what was going on. not that there was any notion of intervening, but i managed to get at least, i don't believe that i have the full count, but i have a fairly good selection of cia cables sent from paris and algeria at this time declassified in the last half century, and we didn't know what

was going on at the time. we knew there was a nuclear test about to take place, and any type of intervention would be brought with risk, uncertain about individual loyalties, and it struck me that this was instructive, not for the good historical story, but that it really highlighted a lot of the decisions that we would face or any government would face in responding to an incident like this in the future. >> so, brian, let me go back to a couple appointments you made. what sort of evidence have you managed to turn up in terms of the decision making both in paris and at the site among the military commanders? would you not -- which you did get to, but was there -- is

instructive for how we might project forward into future incidents in which we see this break down in command and control? >> well, what's fascinating in paris is that the political leadership was basically in a state of paralysis, did not know what to do, and the only elements functioning were the directers of the security services, and they were still funking, and, in fact, making key arrests of generals of the commanders of garrison both in france and germany, a loyalty suspect, but they, themself, as heads of the security services were suspected of this loyalty

by the groups surrounding the gull itself. in other words, within the government, it was not simply that people knew that algeria was in revolt, but if the army was in revolt, why should we trust the heads of these services? they might be part of this. a tremendous amount of mistrust had spread through the. turns out that in paris, alled good equipment was in syria, and france rolled out old world war ii sureman tanks that were dpsh that the police had and they used to break up demonstrations, not to fire, just to clang up the streets. they had no ammunition. they surrounded the buildings. the minister of the interior had the brilliant idea of handing

out weapons to civilians in case paratroopers from algeria would b land in paris. this was considered by the directors of the security services to be a very bad idea, and they reversed that and tried to get the weapons back. a great deal of mistrust. the other interesting thing is, well, while no one saw the nuclear device in algeria likely to be used either on the rebel side or government side. it's not like they were going to take this device and drop it on paris. it was a test device anyway. it didn't have that capacity, but possession would, in this uncertain atmosphere, position would have had enormous sierk logical importance. in other words, would the rebels be able to claim, we have the nuclear device, even if they could conothing where it, that

could have been a psychological tipping point in terms of bringing down the government. on the other hand, on the rebel side, well, they had absolutely no intentions of attacking paris. the fact is there were some in the rebel command that were not satisfied with the degree of ruthlessness, and when they became frustrated that the army units were not joining the revolt, their proposed solution was we have to get tough whereas the leader of the revolt himselfmented to do everything he poly could to avoid soldiers shooting at soldiers, they want to avoid bloodshed. there was a lot of bluff, maneuver, and units going back and forth, but heaven for bid no

one opens fire here because then we're in a civil war. some of them were not satisfied # with that saying, no, we have to take the wraps off, which would have been especially a problem because most of the unites with the revolt were the elite units, the paratrooper, and the foreign ledge, most of whom soldiers were german and so to have jeer maps shooting at french soldiers would have created a hell of a problem. on the other hand, in paris, one of the ministers proposed that the only solution was to bomb algeria. the idea of having french air force planes come over and bomb the french army in algeria. what was interesting is -- fortunate, the revolt just collapsed. it was an improvised affair that

didn't go very, very far, but had this continued for days more for a period of time, one can see very, very quickly, i mean, there's a french term for this which, i mean, in english, we say the grinding of the gears. there's a different connotation in france that you begin to grind into this, and you do this and they do that and then you do this and they do that. you can see very, very quickly where things descend into fighting, bombing one another, and at that point, there's a great deal of uncertainty whether they are used. if you look at syria right now, we've -- our chairman of defense and joint chiefs of staff said

there's not a lot we can do to prevent the use of chemical weapons in syria. we can warn of consequences, try to respond, but can we actually move in and prevent that? the answer is no so we have uncertain circumstances where it appears that, although there's uncertainty, chemical weapons may have been used. had they been used upon orders from the central leadership in the government from the top, did assad order their use? worse, are they dispersed among military units and now it's down to individual command earns making decisions about this, or if rebels use them as there's some reports, worse because it says now they are out of the hands of an organized force, and they may be dispersed throughout

the country. that works for chemical weapons, but fortunately with nuclear weapons, one knows if they are used or not. back to the french case, suppose rebels got their hands on it, didn't use it, but the device simply disappeared. that could be a real game changer because what we have and take it forward, our ability to respond to various threats of nuclear terrorism is always based upon the premise that they do not have the capability. we don't believe they have. even while we exaggerate as you pointed out correctly that the likelihood of it occurring there's great skepticism they have the weapon or sufficient my sile material or what, but if it

is publicly known that weapons have disappeared that have not been recovered, then that lends credibility to every future threat by a group, and i think that fundamentally changes things going forward. >> so then let's stick with the syria example, brian. let me draw you out on the last point. the debate is, as you know, on both sides of pennsylvania avenue today and internationally, do we intervene militarily in syria in light of the current circumstances? it's a different situation. perhaps more complex. you recognize the incidences

that happened in your book was a 72-hour period, and syria has not happened in a 72-hour period of time. this has been a complex situation. recognizing the other cables and foreign correspondence you see in the process of your research, what was the debate in it? was there debate at the time in terms of foreign intervention, what did it look like, and is there comparison between the debate then and what you have the debate today to look like? >> at that time, there was no notion had foreign intervention. to say the exterm powers knew the test was taking place, knew the revolt was taking place, and the united states, the timing here, the revolt in algeria took place one week after the bay of

pigs. the u.s. government, washington, was preoccupied with other things on its mind. it -- the u.s. position was -- it was -- it did not think a french nuclear program was a good idea, and we would not support it, but we would not interfere with it, and things happen so fast, as i said, there was no notion of intervening, although, and this is -- this point could be an issue in the future -- there were deep suspicions on the part of some in france that the united states was, in fact, behind the revolt, and that this was some sort of an effort potentially to sabotage france's nuclear program. the -- one of the reasons the french testing was an irritant to the united states and others

have written about this, is that at this time there was an international effort to halt atmospheric testing, and there was a mother tore yum on atmospheric testing which the french were not going along with. the soviets would become suspicious that, in fact, the u.s. was behind the french testing and ordered to basically provide cover for the u.s. to test things. i think the broader lesson drawn out of that is in future circumstances, we may not be the only actors in the these -- in this -- in these episodes. there may be other interveners. there will be suspicions on l part of everyone else about everyone else's intentions.

the final thing i'll say about that is you used the term, you know, our efforts to manage the situation. in a sense, that's very much a washington approach that we somehow can manage the situation when we talk about situations that, you know -- the notion that when all of the mechanisms in place to guarantee security, to provide all of the predictability we want and circumstances have broken down that we can still manage the situation is, in a sense, a very american notion. final point. final point. a real concern in circumstances like this, if any country goes

to intervene, and in the course of the intervention the realms are either used or accidently used or chemical weapons disperse in the course of an attempt to take them over or somebody in the last ditch effort says, well, instead of giving them up, we're going to blow them up or something like that, does the intervening force that is attempting to secure them then bear relittle for the consequences of their use? back to, you know, your insurance example. were we to go in to secure nuclear weapons in the country or intervene in a country to let's say hypothetically prevent the development of nuclear weapons, and there are nuclear

expotions or the dispersal of nuclear material, do we bear the liability for those consequences? we've spoken briefly about syria. >> you reference in the book there's other historical examples of this, and they are all imperfect, but at least they may be instructive. we have the collapse of the soviet union, the culture in china, the coo in pakistan, and as you pointed out at the front end of discussion, brian, in each of the cases, we had a good news story, that the command and control of the professionalism of the military maintained strict control over these weapons. in syria, it could be an environment with a different story perhaps. we don't know yet, but let's try to project and press more into

two other geographic regions, thinking specifically of returning to pakistan where i know you've done thinking, but also press you further and walk us through what you believe having examined this particular incident in algeria in some detail, what are the lessons learned to apply to those contacts, and should we get to a point in either of those countries down the road where we see a break down in central authority, are we going to -- are we more likely to see a most soviet model or likely to see something more potentially more dangerous? >> you know, i'm a former soldier, and it depends on the situation and the terrain.

these are each one of these episodes are highly individual, and if will depend on the nature of the precise scenario. i suppose in looking at specific circumstances in the episode in algeria in looking at some of the hypothetical scenarios for something like pakistan or north korea or a future nuclear weapon state, it is sobering in the sense that the first lesson to draw from this is this is a perilous venture. that is outside intervention in these circumstances is a long shot at the best, and i'm not saying therefore we should never consider it, therefore, action may not be necessary, but one should not have any degree of

optimism that we can do this. this is much more complicated then, for example, going after bin laden. i know we have -- and justifiably so, great pride in our abilities to carry off these spectacular scheffel operations -- successful operations, but in the case of algeria, there was one device. in the case of a pakistan, for example, we're talking about a arsenal of a hundred devices and different places plus weapons productions facility and so on so this really gets complicated. the notion we operate in a benign environment is also nonsense in this. these are long shots, desperate at the end.

if they are that desperate at the end, that brings back the argument for nonproliferation efforts that if you can't solve the problem that might occur, you probably want to do everything you can to prevent people from going down that past. that's interesting is i think we exaggerate the threat of nuclear terrorism and make claims that states readily provide nuclear weapons to terrorists which i think is less likely. i just cannot see that as a likely scenario used as an argument against proliferation, and i'm certainly against proliferation, but we take say why against proliferation? because they'll give it to terrorists, and terrorists

promptly use it. if ewe look at the history of terrorism, yes, there's state sponsorship of terrorism. yes, there's efforts to maintain deniability in some things, but nations have approached individual bombers are rarely suicidal, nations don't like to give precious powerful weapons where they could bear the consequences to entities that could be penetrated by add veer sorry intelligence. i just don't see that as a likely scenario. on the other hand, looking ahead, if there's further proliferation in the middle east and in the gulf or something and with a nuclear iran and nuclear saudi arabia and nuclear all of these discussed, and we look at

the -- we look at what's happening in the arab spring and libya, syria, and so on, that, itself, is a scary scenario. it's not to invent this boogy man as an argument, but to say we are really dealing here with circumstances that very quickly get out of control, and there's not a lot to be done about it. now, there's an element here where the international community gets together and thinks not only about nonproliferation efforts, but does think more seriously about what would we do as an international community in these circumstances? we have hot lines, and we try to think about things. in the cold war, actually, before the collapse of the

soviet union, there were great concerns that if somebody gets on top of our of our nuclear devices or their nuclear devices, rogue military commanders, terrorists, or somebody else, how would the two superpowers communicate with each other to keep this from turning into world war ii? it may be appropriate to start revisiting some of those things in a complex situation. is it realistic where a weapon goes missing or a situation like that, can we effectively quarantine a nation? i'm doubtful, but in terms of intelligence, can we rapidly mobilize a swarm of sensors and

other things to try to quickly locate and track? i'm talking about an all-out push. all of these are issues raised. i don't have the knowledge myself to say whether it's possible, but they could be explored. i think exercises what took place at the pentagon, what, if anything, could we do? the answer is not a lot, then that's a conclusion, and let's not have any illusions about what we can do. again, back to the french case. the algeria case worked out okay. i don't think the device was scuttled or in any great danger. nonetheless, it's so instructive in terms of raising the other complications >> so our audience here is almost filled with wall

flowers; right, have nothing to say and sit quietly, but i suspect there's a question or two that's arisen out of your comments, and i wonder if i could ask a couple things before we go on. one, unless your name is brian, you can't ask the question -- no, i'm kidding. one, if you would, wait for the microphone, which is thee most important thing, and secondly, if, when you do ask your question, keep it prefer preferably in the form of a question and speak your name and affiliation for brian's benefit. we'll start right here and go back to the corner. >> want me to stand up? >> please. >> i'm a professor, strategic nuclear studies of all things, but i'm current by working with

johns hopkins. very interesting. i enjoyed your talk, your question and answer session here. very small comment. i think i have a privilege in that because we talk about pakistan is that pakistan had very highly professional army, protocols, the nuclear and strategic plan decisions, for example, highly confidential, and any plans made would be very difficult to make because we don't dispersed verge information to everybody, and barely everybody in the army knows where everything is. that's continued within a very small community. secondly, and this is where the question comes. i think every state has a right to make contingencies and plans for any potential threat in the future.

you wouldn't exist if you didn't plan for the future, and any threats that might occur, and that is within any security environment. i've been working on counterterrorism as well. i understand that. i understand the feelings in the west as if there's a wall and the media produces that imagery making people very nervous, and unfortunately, there's a media that prop gaits that image for pakistan, which is not good for us, but having said that, and this is where the question comes, what if there was a situation like this in the united states, and china, russia, made plans to lev at a time? this is hypothetical. it's hypothetical games here, war games, for example, what about that situation in how do you deal with that, or how would they deal with that?

because that could be the same. >> it is a fair question, and within it, of course, what you're raising is a question of what is it that gives the united states the exclusive right of being the first responder to nuclear security emergencies around the world, and the answer is there is nothing, and in the book i mention why would we be the only first responders, only ones concerned, or even the only legitimate responders in that? as to what occurs here in the united states, the fact is that historically the united states is worried about this issue.

the development action links in which we have shared with a number of other countries including pakistan is based upon the premise that we don't want some rogue commander to be able to knishuate the use -- initiate the use of nuclear weapons by himself, and so we have created a very elaborate structure which we, as i say, offer as a model to ensure that a chain -- that this cannot happen. now, i think it is remote, but it wouldn't surprise me if in the archive of the kremlin

there's not contingency plans for addressing, you know, similar scenarios in the united states. the difference is, i think, however, is where, you know, when we are talking about nations now in a state of active civil wars, active conflicts going on, and while wildfire i come to washington, i'm reminded of the active conflicts going on in this city, and, in fact, i regularly fly back to california convinced that al-qaeda's enemy number two, nonetheless, we're not in shooting wars here. if you go out to warren buffet's 60 years, you know, look, forecasts, i think people can

make reasonable forecasts over the next year or two accepting the likelihood of surprises, maybe get out to five years, you know. beyond that, we're in the entertainment industry, and so i wouldn't say what could happen in the future. if there's plans for dealing with a civil war break down in the dwriets wouldn't bother me, and i'm curious to see what they are. [laughter] >> let me ask you about possible number two, for example, and if you find anything unusual about the october 27th, 1966 fourth chinese test, which, as you recall, was the firing of the launching of a ds2 missile and

the atmospheric detonation. i should add someone told me about the incident whose business it was to know about these things, i mean, period. what happened was rogue elements of the second artillery seized the missile and fired it. i have not been able to corroborate this, and there is a ph.d. dissertation of someone i know who wrote it. i have yacht checked there. i wondering if you came across anything like this, and, of course, it's timely for rage elements, i don't know, making it up here, rt north korean military to fire a missile in the middest of the crisis situations. it sounds and i don't know enough about that particular

episode. i mean, that's going to have to be a subject of the future, but, you know, we -- henry is in the audience. >> where this was discussed and published. >> but i -- i personally, i mean, i was not the author of the paper, and it was fascinating, but i don't know the details. >> he's not at the conference. >> we'll get to -- actually -- >> for what it's worth, can we -- it's been written about. it's published, it's on the website. it's been there for years. >> okay. >> all right. >> it's true, take a look. >> i'm happy to, by the way, i'm happy to say when i know things, i'm happy to say when i don't know enough to go down the path to get myself in deep trouble. other questions?

henry? >> i think he was drinking too much. it was not maybe, sort of. there was a lot of detail in there, and when you're at the conference, we discussed that. i think it was a result of bad presentation and brunos that generated your interest in writing this boom k. by the way, i think you are all to be commended in bringing us back to old-time religion which you have to worry about states again, not just masked me. we have tried to interest the pentagon in doing analysis of what it would take to intervene. couldn't get anywhere. i played in classified games, terrible, terrible, ridiculous consequences when they played it out. it's clear we're not up to intervening, at least in the games i played in. do you have any sense how much

planning there is and how much contracts there is in this regard? if, as i suspect, based on the analysis i have commissioned, it is as grim as you say. that ought to bring us back to old time sincere concerns about nonproliferation rather than worrying about all the chain-linked fences and dogs and locks and things. we need to, perhaps, focus back to the old stuff. >> i'm just curious. >> no, i agree with that. by the way, it was primarily the very rich discussion between myself on the algeria case. bruno is a french scholar that's looked at this that brought about, that really impelled me to look deeply into the algeria episode, and one historically

point to it, i was benefited enormously from the fact that is fellow who was at rand in the 1950s named constantine left rand in 58 to go back to become the coordinator of french intelligence for algeria in the government and the prime minister's office, and he was there at the time of the event i write about, and, in fact, constantine is in paris today writing his memoirs, and was kind enough not only to share many details about the discussions that went on in the cabinet and the intelligence

coming from the period but was kind enough because i was fascinated by it to add a historical essay in the book itself talking about these events. i mean, this is the man that was at the center in the government in paris talking about it at the time. while i completely share the idea we should be looking at proliferation in the old-fashioned way, i honestly do not know the extent of contracting either by the department of defense or the intelligence community, the magnitude of contracting going on. >> [inaudible] >> i do, and i'll say again i don't know the extent of u.s. government contracting in this

area, how extensive it is and exactly what they are looking at. i mentioned the games involving north korea and what the u.s. might do. there's participation in that so i know builts and pieces, but not enough to be able to temperature you the size of the forest. >> don't have every ounce of information privy to the rand course? brian, i'm shocked. sandy. hold on a second here. sorry, can you hold on one seconds. there is a second microphone that has to make its way to you, and now go ahead. >> thank you. first of all, thank you for the new information about this terrific case.

it's just i'm sure there's more in the book because the turmoil in paris at the time was extraordinary. i wonder if there's not another set of cases that predates nuclear weapons that have reel haven't. there's episodes in which the ultimate episode of the period changed hands. one episode is after the fall of france. some of the french navy in north africa, eventually, the british have to attack it, even though they are brothers they are attacking. i don't know enough about the russian revolution to know what happens to that set of assets in that instance, and, obviously, there's the attempt to go over to the rebels, some states with the royal forces i imagine, and it play be worth identifying instants and adding a little bit to the background of the episodes there of the current

era so i'd like to make that comment. >> no, that's fascinating, and there may be colt thus z to -- some clues here to give us additional case studies 20 look at. one of the things i've always been fascinated by bringing us back to the nuclear realm was i don't believe that it was ever a nuclear black market that was made. people talk about nuclear black markets and quantities that end up are tiny qualities in most cases, and the buyers turn out -- turns out to be sting operations, and it's a fascinating area, but not a market like the market in drugs where # market is made and

there's transfers. nonetheless, in the area of red mercury, which is a hoax substance that was believed would contribute to, enable people to have a shortcut path to the fab bring cation of nuclear weapons. .. sadd