Suitcase Nuclear Bomb Unlikely to Exist

Then House Armed Services Committee staff member Peter Pry displays a model of what a nuclear suitcase bomb "might look like" during a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington in this Oct. 26, 1999 file photo. Hollywood has made TV shows and movies about the devices and the Federal Emergency Management Agency has alerted Americans of the threat - information that the White House redistributes on its web site. But government experts and intelligence officials say such a threat gets vastly more attention than it deserves. (AP Photo/Dennis Cook, File) (Dennis Cook - AP)

During the 1960s, intelligence agencies received reports from defectors that Soviet military intelligence officers were carrying portable nuclear devices in suitcases.

The threat was too scary to stay secret, government officials said, and word leaked out. The genie was never put back in the bottle.

But current and former government officials who have not spoken out publicly on the subject acknowledge that no U.S. officials have seen a Soviet-made suitcase nuke.

The idea of portable nuclear devices was not a new one.

In the 1950s and 1960s, the U.S. made the first ones, known as the Special Atomic Demolition Munition. It was a "backpack nuke" that could be used to blow up dams, tunnels or bridges. While one person could lug it on his back, it had to be placed by a two-man team.

These devices never were used and now exist _ minus their explosive components _ only in a museum.

Following the U.S. lead, the Soviets are believed to have made similar nuclear devices.

Suitcase nukes have been a separate problem. They attracted considerable public attention in 1997, thanks to a "60 Minutes" interview and other public statements from retired Gen. Alexander Lebed, once Russia's national security chief.

Lebed said the separatist government in Chechnya had portable nuclear devices, which led him to create a commission to get to the bottom of the Chechen arsenal, according to a Center for Nonproliferation Studies report. He said that when he ran the security service, the commission could find only 48 of 132 devices.

The numbers varied as he changed his story several times _ sometimes he stated that 100 or more were missing. The Russians denied he was ever accurate.

Even more details emerged in the summer of 1998, when former Russian military intelligence officer Stanislav Lunev _ a defector in the U.S. witness protection program _ wrote in his book that Russian agents were hiding suitcase nukes around the U.S. for use in a possible future conflict.

"I had very clear instructions: These dead-drop positions would need to be for all types of weapons, including nuclear weapons," Lunev testified during a congressional hearing in California in 2000, according to a Los Angeles Times account.