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NORTH KOREA. Satellite pictures show that in 1987 the country completed a 30- MW reactor. That is too big for research -- such reactors generally run 10 MW or less -- and too small for electric-power production, which generally requires a reactor producing 200 MW or more. Besides, the satellite pictures show no electric generators or power lines alongside the reactor to carry off the electricity. So the reactor appears designed to do what bombmakers need: begin the process of producing plutonium for use in weapons. Satellite photos also show another and bigger (50-to-200-MW) reactor under construction; analysts think it will come on stream next year. A plutonium-reprocessing ! plant also is nearing completion. Fuel, of course, is not enough to make a weapon; it must then be shaped into an explosive device. A recent defector says North Korea has built an underground nuclear weapons design or research facility to construct deliverable bombs. They can be dropped from airplanes; but if the aggressor has only a few bombs and the potential victim has any kind of air defense, the bombers could easily be shot down before hitting their target. Missile warheads are the preferred method for delivering a devastating blow -- and North Korea produces missiles that can carry nukes, not just for its own use but also for export. As part of the round robin among the secret developers, North Korea early this year sold to Syria (which may have a fledgling nuclear-weapons program of its own) a batch of Scuds; they carry bigger warheads than the missiles Saddam Hussein launched against Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Altogether, the evidence seems convincing that North Korea is closer to developing usable nuclear weapons than any other country that does not already have them. Nor will the West necessarily know when North Korea, or any other country, has successfully built any weapons. In days of old, the telltale sign was a test blast. But now, says Daniel Leshem, an Israeli proliferation expert at Tel Aviv University's Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, computer simulation would enable a nuclear newcomer to be "quite confident the Bomb will be effective when needed" without actually detonating one.
IRAN. Facing stalemate or defeat in the war with Iraq, Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1987 personally authorized a full-scale renewal of a nuclear-bomb program that the Shah had begun. The program has survived both the end of the Iran-Iraq war and Khomeini's death; Tehran hardly even bothers to hide its intentions anymore. On Oct. 25, Sayed Ataollah Mohajerani, an Iranian Vice President, told an Islamic conference in Tehran, "Since Israel continues to possess nuclear weapons, we, the Muslims, must cooperate to produce an atom bomb, regardless of U.N. attempts to prevent proliferation."