WASHINGTON -- The Trump administration has halted, without explanation, the recent U.S. government practice of disclosing the current size of the nuclear weapons stockpile.
The decision was revealed in a recent Department of Energy letter to the Federation of American Scientists, a private group that had requested the data.
Back in May 2010, the Obama administration for the first time declassified the full history of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile from its beginning in 1945.
As recently as last year, the Trump administration disclosed that the stockpile consisted of 3,822 nuclear warheads as of Sept. 30, 2017, down 196 warheads from 2016.
The 2017 figure was provided in response to a request by the Federation of American Scientists. When that group asked for a 2018 update, the request was denied April 5.
