U.S. TO STOP MAKING NUCLEAR WEAPONS

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, January 25, 1992                   TAG: 9201250171
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                  LENGTH: Short
U.S. TO STOP MAKING NUCLEAR WEAPONS
The Bush administration has decided to cancel production of the only nuclear warhead that had remained on the U.S. military's order books, halting the nation's nuclear bomb-building indefinitely, senior U.S. officials disclosed Friday.
The decision, scheduled to be announced Wednesday by Energy Secretary James Watkins, reflects what the officials described as waning concern about the nuclear threat to the United States and a desire to cut defense expenditures further.
The officials said the move to cancel production of the warhead, known as the W-88, is consistent with other recent steps to shrink the nation's nuclear-weapons production complex. They said some of the savings, estimated at more than $1 billion, would likely be shifted to cleaning up environmental damage wrought by decades of bomb-building during the Cold War.
The officials, who spoke on condition they not be named, said the move will also lead to a partial shutdown of the nuclearweapons plant at Rocky Flats, Colo., outside Denver, where plutonium triggers for the warhead were to have been made this year. The government has spent more than $1 billion since 1989 to repair environmental and safety problems there in expectation that nuclear-warhead manufacturing would be resumed.
No U.S. nuclear warheads with new triggers have been built since July 1990 because of repairs at Rocky Flats. Independent experts said cancellation of the W-88 marks the first time since the dawn of the nuclear age that the United States has no warheads in production, on order or under development.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB