I don't know much about radiation, but can't lead effectively block detection? And let's say, they either were smuggled via a diplomatic pouch, or, safer, a remote location (the way all sorts of contraband gets in).
I would imagine that if such smuggling attempts were made, not all devices would be discovered. If that's plausible, the question remains whether the US would disclose such incidents or keep it hush hush.
I agree - it would be difficult if not virtually impossible to keep every last one of them out. Think about how sophisticated drug smugglers are. Actually, that's some strange reassurance in a way. If it could have been done with relative ease it already would have been. My suspicion is that there were only a certain number made and that apart from portable weapons I know a considerable effort went on out of the light of the press to secure them after the Soviet Union collapsed. Former Soviet officers have an equally vested reason for securing weapons of that nature, in fact I would imagine the worst Russian oligarch you could find would agree it's bad for business and their health.
I suppose the real problem would be something like that falling in to the hands of terrorists. I can't imagine it would be all that easy to do and anyone assisting them in that sort of endeavor runs a definite risk of being discovered and have to deal with the consequences. A state-actor would have to have a damned compelling reason to get involved in that nonsense. Despite the rhetoric I don't think even Kim Jong-Un is that nuts.
While we're chatting up doomsday weapons this leads me back to what I have been ruminating on:
The Cold War, USOs, & the K-219 Submarine Incident
Just suppose you were granted a wish and could sit down on your couch nice and comfy and start flipping through channels. Except each one would reveal the most closely guarded secrets of the all the governments and militaries in the world. Sure, we'd love to find out the truth about a lot of things but what if you found out the darkest of them had nothing to do with the paranormal or UFOs ?
Once in a while you get a an idea, maybe a little peek. I think that's what all that business I was going on about in the other thread is all about. It's quite plausible that an attempt was made to launch a nuclear weapon to destroy Honolulu and Pearl Harbor and pin the blame on the Chinese. The attempt originated at the highest levels of the Soviet government, which was far from being the monolithic entity it appeared to be. We hear bits and pieces and find out that what we had accepted as fact - like the
Glomar Explorer and recovery of
part of
K-129 - was only the tiny part we were allowed to know for various reasons. And that few if any of those reasons had anything to do with enlightening the public. Probably a lot like the recent attention directed to UAPs.
I don't know what to say about Robert Hastings and the two missile silos. Certainly compelling. But as it goes, God helps those who help themselves and lacking a convenient deity I wouldn't look to ET either for help in controlling nuclear weapons. IMO the real secret hasn't been to address nuclear proliferation it's been to prevent nuclear catastrophe and that has probably taken on far larger and more complex dimensions that we might imagine. No, I honestly don't think we'll find out about any of that in our lifetimes. Maybe our grandchildren will, assuming there are any. Without going too far off on a tangent, I can't help but wonder if the attention directed at UAPs and so forth as of late isn't connected to that in some way.