IV

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106TH CONGRESS

1ST SESSION H. RES. 380

Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives concerning the location

and removal of weapons caches placed in the United States by the

Russian or Soviet Government.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

NOVEMBER 16, 1999

Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania (for himself, Mr. OBERSTAR, Mr. GILMAN, Mr.

SAXTON, Mr. BURTON of Indiana, Mr. HILL of Montana, Mr.

KUYKENDALL, Mr. CAMPBELL, Mr. WALDEN of Oregon, Mr. SWEENEY,

Mr. TRAFICANT, Mr. PITTS, Mr. LEWIS of Kentucky, Mr. BARTLETT of

Maryland, Mr. WICKER, Mr. LOBIONDO, Mr. WELDON of Florida, Mr.

PACKARD, Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi, Mr. GOODE, Mr. CONDIT, Mr.

CRAMER, Mr. REYES, Mr. RODRIGUEZ, Mr. DICKS, Mr. ANDREWS, Mr.

BORSKI, Mr. HOLDEN, Mr. KLINK, and Mr. ABERCROMBIE) submitted

the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on International Relations, and in addition to the Committee on Armed Services,

for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case

for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the

committee concerned

RESOLUTION

Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives concerning the location and removal of weapons caches

placed in the United States by the Russian or Soviet

Government.

Whereas General Alexander Lebed, Secretary of the Russian

Security Council, told a United States congressional delegation in May 1997 that an audit of Russia’s nuclear
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stockpile found that dozens of atomic demolition units

(often referred to as ‘‘nuclear suitcases’’) were unaccounted for and could be in terrorist hands;

Whereas the Russian Government has denied the existence of

any such nuclear suitcases and the United States administration has stated that there is no reason not to believe

the Russian Government;

Whereas Alexei Yablokov, a former Member of the Russian

Security Council, in testimony before the Military Research and Development Subcommittee of the Committee

on Armed Services on October 2, 1997, supported General Lebed’s claims that Russia had in fact manufactured

nuclear suitcase weapons;

Whereas General Lebed, in testimony before that subcommittee on March 19, 1998, publicly acknowledged the

existence of Russian nuclear suitcase weapons for sabotage purposes;

Whereas Stanislav Lunev, the highest ranking GRU defector

in the United States, testified before that subcommittee

that while he was stationed at the Russian Embassy in

the United States, he was assigned the task of identifying

sites for the pre-positioning of man-portable nuclear

weapons in the United States and was specially trained

to disguise and camouflage such weapons;

Whereas in a December 1998 meeting between Defense Minister Sergeyev of Russia and a delegation of Members of

the House of Representatives, the Russian administration

admitted to having built nuclear suitcase weapons;

Whereas Christopher Andrew (author of ‘‘The Sword and the

Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of

the KGB’’) and Oleg Gordievsky (author of ‘‘KGB: The
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Inside Story’’) testified before the Military Research and

Development Subcommittee of the Committee on Armed

Services on October 26, 1999, about KGB operations

during the Soviet era and contemporary Russia threat

perceptions;

Whereas Oleg Gordievsky was the KGB’s station chief in

London during the early 1980’s and is the highest ranking KGB defector in the United States;

Whereas Vasili Mitrokhin, a KGB defector and a former

KGB archivist who absconded from Russia with the most

comprehensive collection of classified notes on KGB operations ever to reach the West, revealed the KGB’s prepositioning on NATO and United States territory of

caches of arms and high explosives intended for sabotage

operations in the event of war;

Whereas the disclosure of the KGB’s weapons predeployment

plan has led to the unearthing of weapons caches and explosives in Switzerland and Belgium and has resulted in

searches for such caches in the United States by nonGovernment entities;

Whereas the Mitrokhin files state that there are numerous

sites for such caches throughout the United States, in

places including Montana, Minnesota, California, Texas,

and New York, but do not give specific locations of those

caches;

Whereas the United States Government has made almost no

efforts to locate Russian weapons sites on United States

territory;

Whereas the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has confirmed that the United States has information as to the

general vicinity of predeployed Russian weapons caches in
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the United States, such as the one reported to be located

near Brainerd, Minnesota, but does not have specific locations;

Whereas both the FBI and Department of Defense have confirmed that the United States Government has not asked

the Russian Government about these sites, despite the

fact that the United States has known about these sites

since the Mitrokhin files were opened to the West in

1992;

Whereas the United States still lacks the critical information

necessary to remove the known dangers to its citizens

posed by those pre-positioned weapons caches;

Whereas the testimonies of Christopher Andrew and Oleg

Gordievsky corroborate Stanislav Lunev’s testimony concerning GRU operations involving the predeployment of

nuclear suitcase weapons in the United States; and

Whereas the testimonies of Andrew, Gordievsky, and Lunev

leave open a window of opportunity that the caches that

have been located in NATO territory could include the

nuclear suitcase weapons that General Alexander Lebed

was unable to inventory: Now, therefore, be it

1 Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Rep2 resentatives that the President should immediately trans3 mit to Congress a report containing—

4 (1) the President’s certification as to whether

5 or not the United States Government has ever re6 quested the Government of Russia to provide to the

7 United States information on the specific sites in the

8 United States at which either the Russian or Soviet
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1 Government placed weapons or military equipment

2 for use in a possible conflict with the United States;

3 and

4 (2) depending on the certification under para5 graph (1), either—

6 (A) a full accounting of why such a request

7 has not been made (if such a request has not

8 been made); or

9 (B) detailed information on when and to

10 whom each such request was transmitted and

11 what information (if any) was provided by Rus12 sia in response (if such a request has been

13 made).

14 SEC. 2. It is the sense of the House of Representa15 tives that the President should prepare and provide to

16 Congress a report describing in detail the President’s plan

17 to find and remove any military equipment or bombs (such

18 as those identified in the so-called Mitrokhin files) that

19 have been placed by the Russian or Soviet Government

20 on United States territory.

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