Dodging Doomsday

Sam Roe of The Chicago Tribune exposes the story of America's efforts to recover uranium that the U.S. government distributed to other nations in its Cold War-era "Atoms for Peace" program. The enriched uranium, suitable for making bombs, still circulates in politically unstable countries. "Today, roughly 40 tons of the material remains out of U.S. control--enough to make more than 1,400 nuclear weapons," Roe reports. He gained exclusive access to archives and interviews with an Argonne National Laboratory scientist who led the recovery efforts for decades. The stories also draw on congressional testimony, previously classified records, research papers and reports, and the International Atomic Energy Agency.