[Congressional Bills 106th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 380 Introduced in House (IH)]
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 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 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 pre-positioning 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
non-Government 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 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
Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Representatives that
the President should immediately transmit to Congress a report
containing--
(1) the President's certification as to whether or not the
United States Government has ever requested the Government of
Russia to provide to the United States information on the
specific sites in the United States at which either the Russian
or Soviet Government placed weapons or military equipment for
use in a possible conflict with the United States; and
(2) depending on the certification under paragraph (1),
either--
(A) a full accounting of why such a request has not
been made (if such a request has not been made); or
(B) detailed information on when and to whom each
such request was transmitted and what information (if
any) was provided by Russia in response (if such a
request has been made).
Sec. 2. It is the sense of the House of Representatives that the
President should prepare and provide to Congress a report describing in
detail the President's plan to find and remove any military equipment
or bombs (such as those identified in the so-called Mitrokhin files)
that have been placed by the Russian or Soviet Government on United
States territory.
<all>