Their creative work has sparked hot debate among arms controllers and Government officials over whether the secret labors undermine the nuclear test ban treaty.

Unless arms controllers concentrate on building higher fences around fewer technologies, they'll be overwhelmed.

But arms controllers increasingly worry that today it is being undercut by the march of technology and a scientific elite eager for new challenges.

Today, for the first time, nuclear arms policies are no longer the exclusive province of arms controllers.

When the cold war ended, some arms controllers argued that even more progress could be made to curb both vertical and horizontal proliferation.

They are easily hidden, a plus for military planners and a total headache for arms controllers.

"It is something that will accompish what the arms controllers want," one expert in Congress said.

Another new role for American arms controllers is that of referee between feuding former Soviet republics.

Another new mantra likely to be heard from arms controllers in the Clinton era is that "arms control begins at home."

Some arms controllers may denounce that as a Faustian bargain.