Long before the terrorist group Al Qaeda burst onto the world stage, Lawrence Livermore and other national laboratories were quietly working far from home to secure a first line of defense against nuclear terrorism. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the security apparatus for protecting the vast stocks of Soviet nuclear materials was in jeopardy as guards, scientists, and other nuclear workers went unpaid for months. Former Laboratory director John Nuckolls was one of the first to call attention to the possibility that poorly secured weapons or materials could fall into the hands of proliferators or terrorists or that economic necessity might tempt weapons scientists to accept employment with rogue states or terrorist groups.
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