However, despite this and other opportunities for the United States to revisit the plutonium component of U.S. non-proliferation policy, transparency and gradualism still dominate U.S. policy today. But achieving transparency of the world s plutonium stockpiles in no substitute for getting rid of them, while gradualism can be an excuse for not doing anything effective. The rapid growth of stocks of plutonium serves to illustrate this point. The growth has not been as rapid as we projected in 1983 when NCI commissioned David Albright to do his first study of this subject. At that time, we projected 600 tons of separated civilian plutonium by the year 2000.
Plutonium is a different story, however.
I t is important to note the pivotal role of Japan in all of this. Those of you familiar with the activities of NCI know that we focus attention on the Japanese plutonium program. We are sometimes criticized for doing so. Questions have been raised as to why we are so concerned about plutonium in Japan, given Japan s adherence to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and to IAEA safeguards. The answer is that Japan strongly resisted U.S. efforts to avoid commercial use of plutonium and is now the lynchpin for world plutonium commerce.