Project Vinca: Lessons for securing civil nuclear material stockpiles

By late afternoon the nuclear fuel, containing sufficient highly enriched uranium (HEU) for several nuclear bombs, had been loaded onto a canvas-sided flatbed truck.2 The technicians and scientists were shepherded into a nearby building.3 For the next dozen hours, they waited under heavy security, with strict orders not to contact friends or family and perhaps accidentally leak information about the impending transport.4 Then, in the early morning hours of August 22, 2002, at a time kept secret even from participating American nuclear scientists, the transport operation began.5 Project Vinca, a multinational, public-private effort to remove nuclear material from a poorly secured Yugoslav research institute, was entering its final phase.