On the eve of President Bill Clinton's January trip to Moscow, Sen. Sam Nunn passed on the rumor in the Washington Post that Ukraine was "feverishly working" to gain control of Russian nuclear missiles on its territory by cracking the launch codes.

North Korea and the United States struck a deal to inspect seven of the North's nuclear sites. Not good enough, skeptics said; the North's real strategy is to focus attention away from mountain hideaways that contain the true jewels. The intelligence community "believes" that the North has two nuclear weapons-or at least has the materials to make them, and therefore must have them.

Iraq reaches the end of the most comprehensive and intrusive disarmament scheme ever by the U.N. Special Commission. Not certifiably clean, some continue to claim; it is concealing an underground plutonium reactor- and besides there is still the knowledge of the bomb. Meanwhile, Iran extends an open-door invitation to the International Atomic Energy Agency to inspect any site on its territory. We believe, says the State Department's head of nonproliferation, that the Iranians are still secretly pursuing the bomb, even if there is no evidence to prove it.

Seems like there's no nuclear news that ain't bad news. Loose nukes, covert assets and suppliers, sinister intentions. One might think nothing has changed with the end of the Cold War. The Pentagon and the White House label the "increased threat" of the spread of weapons of mass destruction the foremost danger facing the United States. The world is now a more dangerous place, the new threat assessment concludes, demanding prudence, vigilance, and, of course, tax dollars.

Fact or fiction, proliferation is methadone for Cold Warriors who can no longer get the real thing. With the nuclear arms race over and janitorial recovery not nearly interesting enough for the former Dr. Strangeloves and the nuclear priesthood, the spread-or the potential spread-of nuclear weapons is the rolling Cuban missile crisis of the 1990s. An endless stream of voices are willing to opine on the threat posed by the world's outlaws, renegades, and despots, committing all the sins of worst-case analysis and mindless speculation reminiscent of the "gaps" and "crises" of the Cold War era. Country X could have the bomb . . . does have the bomb . . . has two . . . has dozens.

What is it about proliferation that binds arms controllers, disarmament advocates, environmentalists, proliferation experts, unreformed nuclear advocates, conservatives, moderates, and liberals together? Is it a genuine crisis-that in fact there are more countries seeking the bomb than before, that there are more warheads around, that the arms race could restart? Or is it just peculiar timing that encourages the addicted to find a way to remain relevant in the new world?

Continued nuclear dangers "prove" that nuclear weapons are still needed and must be modernized, that force is crucial, that conventional war strategies should be embellished. That's what the "counterproliferation" warriors now argue. Without Iraq, and Korea, and Iran, and Libya, they would face surer declines in budgets, deeper inquiries into their futures.

To diplomats, the same dangers prove that arms control efforts, verification schemes, more treaties, and more negotiations are crucial. To the anti-nuclear crowd, the same problem proves the need for more absolute controls on testing and nuclear materials, and for complete nuclear disarmament-even the elimination of nuclear power. The crisis atmosphere advances a set of vastly different agendas. Everyone wins when the sky is falling. Everyone in the profession, that is.
Given the still-endemic secrecy in the nuclear and intelligence worlds, the half-life of unlimited gossip and unsubstantiated exaggeration exceeds the half-life of tritium. As President George Bush learned when he used Saddam's nukes to mobilize public support for his stance in the Persian Gulf War, the nuclear issue is still the most powerful one, a reality that is not lost on the news media.

But it is not hype alone that is to blame. Left and right are both selling their wares, competing over who can be the most rabid nonproliferation watchdogs. All are fueled by myopic foundation grants in the nonprofit sector and by the not-so-subtle fundraising efforts of the proliferators themselves. Whether you are the Russian nuclear establishment or the Ukrainian government or North Korea, one thing is clear. Nuclear weapons are effective attention-getters and, therefore, moneymakers.

The trick is to scare the pants off everybody, but not make a move that is so egregious or threatening as to force an Iraq-type solution. Admittedly, such a skeptical view dismisses the true danger of more nuclear weapons as a real motivating force. That is because current policy prescriptions and positions-whether they come from the Pentagon, the United Nations, the arms control community, or the anti-nuclear movement-seem either hysterical or opportunistic. They are not thoughtful. And they promise nothing in the long term that would end the nuclear problem once and for all.