More Nukes

Some U.S. intelligence officials believe North Korea has resumed a serious effort to build nuclear weapons. Evidence from multiple sources has persuaded them that leader KIM JONG IL is pushing the construction of a new reactor–underground to confound U.S. spy satellites–and trying to design usable atom bombs, possibly including missile warheads. Other analysts disagree; some Clinton Administration officials think hard-liners are leaking these reports to choke off congressional support for oil shipments to North Korea, which the U.S. pledged to fund in 1994 as part of a deal that shut down Pyongyang’s known nuclear program. Even if the bad news is true, the new reactor is not expected to generate more bombmaking material for several years. But if North Korea is able to design a working bomb, analysts generally believe it stockpiled enough plutonium before 1994 to build one or two of them.

–By J.F.O. McAllister/Washington