How Real Is the North Korean Threat?
Palais asked whether North Korea really poses a major threat to the United States. “First of all, there is the claim that they may have one or two nuclear weapons. Nobody has proven that they have any weapons. All we know is that they have scraped up enough plutonium that if they wanted to they could have made one or two nuclear weapons. “So far as we know there have been no nuclear weapons tests in North Korea. Anybody who builds a nuclear weapon has to test it to see if it will work. If they do test them, they will be down to one weapon.” There is enough spent fuel from the Yongbyon reactor to build some six additional nuclear bombs in the next six months. “Now suppose they do make six or even twelve nuclear weapons,” Palais said. “Are they going to start launching their dozen weapons at the United States? If they do that, there will be instant destruction. The United States has missiles, aircraft carriers, we would bomb North Korea and leave nothing but dust.” He said that both the
