Washington,
DC, April 13, 2006 - Long before India detonated
a nuclear device in May 1974, the U.S. Intelligence Community
was monitoring and analyzing Indian civilian and military nuclear
energy activities, according to documents released today by the
National Security Archive at George Washington University. Those
activities are at the core of the current controversy over the
Bush administration's proposed legislation that would alter U.S.
nonproliferation and export control laws and policies so as to
allow full nuclear cooperation with India.
Today's posting consists of forty documents - whose original
classifications range from unclassified to Top Secret Codeword
- produced by interagency groups, the CIA, the State and Defense
Departments, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and the Defense
Intelligence Agency. The documents cover a forty-year time span,
from 1958 to 1998.
The records were obtained by Archive Senior Fellow Jeffrey T.
Richelson while conducting research for his recently published
book, Spying
on the Bomb: American Nuclear Intelligence from Nazi Germany to
Iran and North Korea (W.W. Norton).
The documents show that as early as 1958 the CIA was exploring
the possibility that India might choose to develop nuclear weapons.
The reports focus on a wide range of nuclear related matters -
nuclear policy (including policy concerning weapons development),
reactor construction and operations, foreign assistance, the tests
themselves, and the domestic and international impact of the tests.
Documents from 1974-1975 and 1998 provide assessments of the
reason why the U.S. Intelligence Community failed to provide warning
of the 1974 and 1998 tests - assessments which are strikingly
similar. They also include recommendations to address the deficiencies
in performance that the assessments identified.
U.S.
Intelligence and the Indian Bomb
National
Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 187
Edited
by Jeffrey Richelson
As was the case with France, Israel, and a number of other countries,
India's path to a nuclear weapons capability was an incremental
and prolonged one. Homi Bhabha, the father of the Indian bomb,
moved in the same circles as Frédéric Joliot-Curie
and other atomic physicists of the pre-World War II era. Bhabha
left India in 1927 to study engineering at Cambridge, but the
doctorate he received in 1935 was in physics. After he returned
to India in 1939 the Second World War began, and Bhabha found
himself stranded. He accepted the position of "reader"
in theoretical physics at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore.
In 1941 he was promoted to professor of cosmic ray research. (Note
1)
In 1946 Bhabha became chairman of the newly formed Atomic Energy
Research Committee. In 1948 Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru submitted
legislation to create an Atomic Energy Commission - legislation
which imposed a veil of secrecy over atomic energy research and
development and established government ownership of uranium, thorium,
and all other relevant materials. By mid-August India had its
own AEC, and Bhabha was named chairman of the three-member group.
(Note 2)
In the 1950s there were further bureaucratic developments, the
creation of plans, and attempts to acquire the resources needed
for an atomic energy program. A nuclear cooperation agreement
with France was signed in 1951. In 1954 a Department of Atomic
Energy was established, with Bhabha as its secretary. In 1955
ground was broken at Trombay for the first Indian reactor, named
Aspara. (Note 3)
From the beginning of the nuclear age, U.S. leaders were well
aware that civilian nuclear research could advance a nation's
progress toward a nuclear weapons capability. Over the last five
decades the United States has gathered intelligence on Indian
nuclear activities, civilian and military, through all the means
at its disposal - human intelligence, open source collection,
communications intelligence, and overhead reconnaissance. Those
activities, as demonstrated by the documents below, allowed U.S.
intelligence analysts to provide decision-makers with far more
detailed assessments of Indian nuclear activities than would be
available from public sources. At the same time, other documents
show that the collective efforts of the organizations gathering
intelligence on Indian nuclear activities -- including the Central
Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, National Reconnaissance
Office, Defense Intelligence Agency, and State Department -- did
not result in U.S. intelligence analysts warning U.S. officials
of India's nuclear tests, carried out in May 1974 and May 1998.
The documents in this briefing book were, with some exceptions,
obtained under the Freedom of Information Act or from the CIA's
CREST data base at the National Archives and Records Administration
for use in writing Spying
on the Bomb: American Nuclear Intelligence from Nazi Germany to
Iran and North Korea
(W.W. Norton, 2006), by Archive Senior Fellow Jeffrey T. Richelson.
(Note 4) Five appeared in a previous National
Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book: India
and Pakistan - On the Nuclear Threshold, which contains
other documents of interest concerning Indian and Pakistani nuclear
activities.
The first 16 documents in this briefing book
deal with one or both of two questions: does India have the capability
to build a nuclear device? and what is likelihood that it will
do so? Answering the first question required analysts to examine
and evaluate the data concerning Indian organizations involved
in atomic energy activities; the availability of resources (uranium,
heavy water); the reactors in operation, under construction, or
on the drawing board; the ability to produce plutonium or highly
enriched uranium; and possible delivery systems.
Addressing the second question required analysts to examine the
histories of key political and scientific personnel (for information
as to their views on nuclear weapons) as well as the domestic
political pressures facing the nation's leaders. In addition,
there was a need to assess the external pressures faced by Indian
leadership - including security threats from China and Pakistan,
and pressures to conform to international norms concerning nuclear
proliferation.
India's May 18, 1974, test settled conclusively the questions
of whether and when, but also required the U.S. to venture into
new areas, as demonstrated by Documents 17-27.
One new task was to produce an independent assessment of India's
technical claims concerning the test (particularly its yield).
Intelligence analysts also needed to explain why India chose to
test, assess the immediate impact of the test, and look ahead
in an effort to answer the question, "what next?" It
was also vital to examine not only what had happened and was going
to happen in India, but to explore why, despite the Intelligence
Community's awareness of Indian nuclear capabilities and the incentives
to test, it had not been able to provide senior U.S. officials
with advanced warning of the test.
By the 1980s, the 1974 test was well in the past and there had
not been another. The documents from this period (Documents
26-35) thus continued to explore Indian capabilities for building
a bomb - particularly the July 1988 CIA assessment, India's
Potential to Build A Nuclear Weapon (Document
34), and the factors - both technical and political (domestic
and foreign) - that helped shape India's nuclear policies.
By the beginning of 1998 India had come close to conducting its
second test on several occasions but had pulled back - in 1995
due to American pressure that followed the discovery of test preparations
by U.S. spy satellites. That may have helped convince U.S. analysts
that despite the pledge by the newly-elected Hindu nationalist
BJP-led administration to "induct" nuclear weapons into
the Indian arsenal, no nuclear test would actually take place.
Thus, an early assessment of BJP policy (Document
36) suggests that a change in Indian nuclear policy was not
imminent.
Once the test did occur, without warning from the U.S. Intelligence
Community, the Community was left, as in 1974, to assess the details
of the test and explore its implications (Document
37). As in 1974, it was also necessary for the Community to
probe the causes of the failure and determine what steps should
be taken to reduce the chances of a similar failure in the future
(Document 38, Document 39).
Documents
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Document
1: Office of Scientific Intelligence, Central Intelligence
Agency, Indian Nuclear Energy Program, February 18, 1958.
Confidential
Source:
Freedom of Information Act Request
This study attempts to evaluate the Indian nuclear energy program
with regard to its personnel, facilities (including the Atomic
Energy Establishment at Trombay and the Tata Institute of Fundamental
Research), resources (including uranium, thorium, and heavy water),
achievements, and plans. It also examines relationships with the
foreign atomic energy programs and assesses the possibility that
the Indian government would pursue military applications.
Document
2: Department of State, Subject: Indian Capability and
Likelihood to Produce Atomic Energy, June 29, 1961. Secret
Source:
Decimal File 1960-1963, Central File of the Department of State,
Record Group 59, National Archives and Records Administration
(NARA)
This cable constituted a cover instruction to a requirements
statement prepared by the Joint Atomic Energy Intelligence Committee
(JAEIC), an interagency committee that reported to the U.S. Intelligence
Board. The distribution indicates that the search for information
on India's capability to produce nuclear weapons, and its likelihood
of doing so, covered both the South Asia and Europe. It also specifies
that the recipients should feel free to report on political and
economic factors as well as the technical items that were the
focus of the JAEIC requirement.
Document
3: American Consul, Bombay, Subject: Inauguration of Indian
Plutonium Separation Plant, April 29, 1964 w/att: Plutonium
Plant at Trombay. Unclassified
Source: Freedom of Information
Act Request
This cable transmitted a copy of the press release, issued by
the Indian Department of Atomic Energy concerning the construction
of a plutonium extraction facility at Trombay. The press release
focuses on the start up of the plant, its purpose, and safety
factors.
Document
4: Office of Scientific Intelligence, Central Intelligence
Agency, "Swedish Assistance to the Indian Nuclear Power Program,"
Scientific Intelligence Digest, May 1964. Secret
Source:
Freedom of Information Act Request
This OSI report concerns negotiations for Swedish sale of a heavy
water reactor to India. It also reviews the history of September
1961 Swedish-Indian agreement for collaboration in developing
the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. It also summarizes the state
of the Indian nuclear power station program.
Document
5: Central Intelligence Agency, Subject: Indian Government
Policy on Development of Nuclear Weapon, October 24, 1964.
[Classification Redacted]
Source:
Freedom of Information Act Request
This report, from the CIA's Clandestine Service, briefly reports
that while India has the capability to develop an atomic bomb
the present government does not plan to do so, why it does not,
and expected pressures to change its position.
Document
6: Office of Scientific Intelligence, Central Intelligence
Agency, Indian Nuclear Energy Program, November 6, 1964.
Secret
Source:
Freedom of Information Act Request
This study reports on India's reactors, uranium reserves, nuclear
power stations, and capability to produce plutonium. It notes
that, "Construction of a plant for plutonium metal production,
which is necessary for weapons manufacture, is now under way and
planned for operations in 1966; should the Indians so decide,
it could be in operation in the fall of 1965."
Document
7: Henry S. Rowen, Department of Defense, The Indian Nuclear
Problem, December 24, 1964. Secret
Source:
Mandatory Declassification Review Request
This paper by a senior member of the Defense Department's International
Security Affairs bureau, begins with the observation that "India
may be near the point of deciding on starting a nuclear weapons
program" and goes on to examine the current situation in
India. It goes on to explore possible Indian nuclear programs
and their costs, the consequences of an Indian program, and a
number of other issues - including the impact of an Indian program
on proliferation, and U.S. aid leverage.
Document
8: Donald F. Chamberlain, Office of Scientific Intelligence,
Central Intelligence Agency, to Charles E. Johnson, National Security
Council, Subject: The Indian Nuclear Weapons Capability,
October 18, 1965. Secret
Source:
Freedom of Information Act Request
This memo was produced by (or for) OSI chief Chamberlain in response
to a request from Johnson on the current status of India's nuclear
energy program. It examines the decision whether or not to develop
nuclear weapons, the Canadian-Indian Research Reactor, the Chemical
Reprocessing Plant at Trombay, plutonium research, resources (including
uranium and heavy water), and nuclear power development.
Document
9: Director of Central Intelligence, SNIE 31-1-65, India's
Nuclear Weapons Policy, October 21, 1965. Secret
Source:
Freedom of Information Act Request
This special national intelligence estimate assesses India's
nuclear weapons policy for the remainder of the decade. In doing
so, it examines India's technical capabilities, the pressures
for a weapons program, and the opposition to a weapons program.
A final section, "The Indian Decision," tries to assess
India's decision calculus and notes that India might try to represent
any underground test as being for peaceful purposes.
Document
10: Office of Scientific Intelligence, Central Intelligence
Agency, "The Indian Nuclear Weapons Program and Delivery
Capabilities," Scientific Intelligence Digest, December 1965.
Secret
Source:
Freedom of Information Act Request
This article states that India's nuclear energy facilities "would
enable India to proceed into a nuclear weapon development program
at any time" but that "it is believed the Indian government
has not yet decided to develop nuclear weapons." The body
of the article reports on Indian nuclear energy research (including
its plutonium production capability), Indian Air Force weapons
delivery systems and which ones could be used to deliver nuclear
weapons, and the chances that Indian could develop a long-range
ballistic missile.
Document
11: Department of State to Amembassy, New Delhi, Subject:
Possible Indian Nulcear Weapons Development, March 29, 1966. Secret
Source:
Subject-Numeric File 1964-1966, Central File of the Department
of State, Record Group 59, NARA
This airgram provides information about various aspects of Indian
nuclear capabilities and notes the lack of any evidence that India
had decided to build a nuclear weapon as background to a request
that the embassy report on any of five topics of information that
may become available - including signs of activity in remote areas
which might indicate construction of a test site and covert establishment
of nuclear facilities.
Document
12: Office of Scientific Intelligence, Central Intelligence
Agency, "Indian Nuclear Plans," Scientific Intelligence
Digest, April 1966. Secret
Source:
Freedom of Information Act Request
This article notes that despite India's stated policy was to
refrain from embarking on a nuclear weapons program "the
Indians are reportedly conducting a limited amount of research
devoted to reducing the time it would take to develop a weapon
once a decision was made." It goes on to provide details
on the Canada-India Reactor at Trombay, the plans for a second
nuclear power reactor at Rajasthan, India's attitude toward international
safeguards, and the amount of weapons- usable plutonium that could
be produced at Trombay.
Document
13: Office of Scientific Intelligence, Central Intelligence
Agency. "Views of the New Head of the Indian Nuclear Program
on Atomic Weapons," Weekly Surveyor, June 20, 1966.
Secret
Source:
Freedom of Information Act Request
This item reports on the views of Dr. Vikram A. Sarabhai, the
newly appointed Secretary of the Indian Department of Atomic Energy
and Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission on possible development
of nuclear weapons by India as well as providing commentary on
Sarabhai's professional and personal background.
Document
14: American Embassy, New Delhi to Department of State, Subject:
Uranium Exploration Development and Exploitation in India,
May 9, 1968. Limited Official Use
Source:
Freedom of Information Act Request
This cable provides additional information on Indian uranium
production. It notes that while certain information about the
topic was released by the Indian Department of Atomic Energy,
"detailed technical data is withheld for purposes of security."
It notes currently "known" ore reserves were restricted
to the Singhbhum District of Bihar, and goes on to devote three
single-space pages to exploration and development in the district.
The cable also examines exploration in other states and economic
considerations.
Document
15: American Embassy, New Delhi to Department of State, Subject:
Atomic Power Project at Kalpakkam, Tami Nadu, April 21, 1969.
Unclassified
Source:
Freedom of Information Act Request
This cable on the Madras Power Project describes the progress
of construction at Kalpakkam, plans for a fast breeder reactor
at the site, and nuclear power in South India. In India's
Nuclear Bomb (p.249) George Perkovich described the Madras
facility, which would not be completed until 1982, as an "unsafeguarded
plant [that] could produce plutonium for explosive purposes as
well as for the nascent breeder reactor program."
Document
16: National Security Agency, Capital Projects Planned
in India, August 31, 1972. Top Secret Umbra
Source:
Freedom of Information Act Request
The unredacted portion of this report reports on intelligence
derived from NSA intercepts concerning two Indian atomic energy
projects, including the Madras nuclear power project. The Top
Secret Umbra classification indicates that the intelligence is
derived from highly-sensitive communications intelligence collection.
Document
17: Central Intelligence Agency, "India [Redacted],"
Central Intelligence Bulletin, May 20, 1974. Top Secret
[Codeword Redacted]
Source:
CIA Electronic Reading Room
On May 18, to the surprise of the U.S. Intelligence Community,
India conducted an underground nuclear test at a site in the desert
at Pokhran - making it the world's seventh nuclear power and the
sixth to test (Israel having achieved nuclear status in 1966 without
testing). India claimed as CIA analysts had previously suggested
(Document 9) it might that the test was for peaceful purposes.
This Top Secret Codeword item in the CIB relays press reporting
and public statements by officials of other governments, including
Pakistan, and contains analysts assessments of the implications
for China.
Document
18: Daniel O. Graham, Memorandum for: Director, Defense Intelligence
Agency [and others], Subject: Forthcoming Community Post-Mortem
Report Concerning the Indian Nuclear Detonation, May 24,
1974. Secret
Source:
CIA Records Search Tool (CREST), National Archives and Records
Administration (NARA), College Park, Md.
This memo from Daniel O. Graham, the Deputy to the Director of
Central Intelligence (William E. Colby) for the Intelligence Community
is addressed to the directors of several intelligence agencies,
the JAEIC, and the deputy directors of the three CIA directorates.
It informs them that Graham has asked the Intelligence Community
Staff to assess the community's performance with respect to India's
nuclear test.
Document
19: Milo D. Nordyke, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory,
Subject: The Indian Explosion, May 29, 1974. Unclassified
Source:
Freedom of Information Act Request
This analysis begins by accepting Indian claims concerning the
depth of the test as well as a yield of between 10 and 15 kilotons.
If those numbers were accurate then, judging from the size of
the crater and the absence of venting, it appeared that the device
had been detonated in hard, dry rock - the type of rock that a
peaceful nuclear explosion might be used to excavate.
Document
20: Department of State, Assessment of Indian Nuclear
Test, June 5, 1974. Secret
Source:
Freedom of Information Act Request
This State Department assessment examines India's motivation
for testing, the estimated cost of the testes, reactions from
the USSR, South Asia, China, near-nuclear powers such as Japan,
and the security of information and materials. In South Asia it
reports that "the impact has been hardest on Pakistan."
China, it concludes, "probably calculates that the Indian
program will not alter the balance of power or threaten China
for a number of years."
Document
21: Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Department of State,
India: Uncertainty Over Nuclear Policy, June 13, 1974.
Confidential
Source:
Freedom of Information Act Request
This INR assessment asserts that the initial euphoria of the
Indian public after the May 18 test has given way to uncertainty
about impact of the nuclear program on development needs and India's
status as a non-weapons nuclear state. Specifically, it examines
the calculation of benefits, skepticism about peaceful uses, the
weapons option, costs of future testing, India and the nonproliferation
treaty, and the public's impact on future decisions.
Document
22: Intelligence Community Staff, Post Mortem Report, An
Examination of the Intelligence Community's Performance Before
the Indian Nuclear Test of May 1974, July 1974, Top Secret
Source:
CREST, NARA, College Park, Md.
The 15-page body of the post-mortem has also been excised before
release. The partially redacted executive summary does provide
some important conclusions, judgments, recommendations: that the
U.S. Intelligence Community failed to warn of the test, that the
failure was due to the target not being considered a sufficiently
high priority and inadequate communications among the elements
of the community "whose combined talents were essential to
resolving the problem." The need to increase the priority
attached to the nth country problem is also noted.
Document
23: Daniel O. Graham, Memorandum for: Director of Central
Intelligence, Subject: Indian Post-Mortem Report w/att:
Executive Summary, July 18, 1974. Top Secret
Source: CREST, NARA, College Park, Md.
This memo sent by Deputy to the DCI for the Intelligence Community
to Director of Central Intelligence William Colby, recommends
creation of an ad hoc committee under the chairman of the JAEIC,
with representatives from the relevant agencies, to develop specific
collection strategies against the nuclear proliferation target
in key nth countries.
Document
24: Central Intelligence Agency, The 18 May 1974 Indian
Nuclear Test, September 1974. Top Secret
Source:
Freedom of Information Act Request
This heavily redacted report on the May 18 test presumably incorporates
new information obtained by the CIA and other U.S. intelligence
organizations in the months after the test. What remains of the
study notes the role of the Canadian supplied reactor in producing
the plutonium used in the device.
Document
25: Milo D. Nordyke, Subject: More on the Indian Explosion,
October 1, 1974. Confidential
Source:
Freedom of Information Act Request
This technical analysis follows up on Nordyke's earlier assessment
(Document 19) of the Indian test. He concludes
that given the estimated depth of the size of the crater, the
depth of the explosion (109 meters), and that the test took place
in shale rather than hard rock, the yield was probably 10 kilotons.
Document
26: Chief Product Review Division/Intelligence Community Staff,
Memorandum for: [Redacted], Subject: IC Responses to Post-Mortem
Recommendations, January 15, 1975. Secret
Source:
CREST, NARA, College Park, Md.
This memo contains the recommendations and actions taken in response
to the recommendations that appeared in several Intelligence Community
post-mortems - including the May 18, 1974 nuclear test post-mortem.
Five recommendations are listed - concerning the priority attached
to proliferation, the importance of HUMINT, the need to insure
that imagery requested by analytical elements is exploited by
the community's imagery interpreters, technical analysis to HUMINT,
and the importance of new analytical approaches. Nine corresponding
actions taken in response to the recommendations are listed. Another
three were redacted.
Document
27: Central Intelligence Agency, Intelligence Checklist, September
29, 1975. Top Secret
Source: CIA Electronic Reading Room
This brief item notes the possible impact of an India's desire
for nuclear assistance from Canada on any Indian plans for a second
nuclear test.
Document
28: National Foreign Assessment Center, Central Intelligence
Agency. Indian Nuclear Policies in the 1980s, September 1981.
Secret
Source:
Freedom of Information Act Request
The one unredacted key judgment of the paper is that "China
- not Pakistan - is perceived as the major long-term threat to
Indian security. This perception has propelled New Delhi to reject
the Non-Proliferation Treaty and full-scope safeguards in order
to retain the nuclear weapons option." The body of the paper
addresses the dangers to India associated with Indian nuclear
decisions, Indian short-term policy responses, nuclear relations
with the United States, and other nuclear considerations - particularly
technology development.
Document
29: Office of Scientific and Weapons Research, National Foreign
Assessment Center, Central Intelligence Agency, "India: Nuclear
Device Calculations," Science and Weapons Daily Review,
November 17, 1981. Top Secret
Source:
Freedom of Information Act Request
This article reports on a recently published paper by three Indian
scientists, which describes "the behavior of certain materials
at sufficiently high pressures to interest nuclear weapons designers."
The work, according to the article, "is likely part of the
Indian nuclear explosives program."
Document
30: Central Intelligence Agency, India's Nuclear Program
- Energy and Weapons, July 1982. Top Secret
Source:
CIA Electronic Reading Room
The single paragraph of this document that has been released
reports on Indian progress in laser isotope separation.
Document
31: Central Intelligence Agency, Memorandum, India: The Tarapur
Dispute, July 22, 1982. Classification Redacted
Source:
Freedom of Information Act Request
This memo reports on a dispute that dated back to the late 1970s,
between the United States and India, over the supply of fuel for
the reactors at the Tarapur Atomic Power Station near Bombay.
The U.S. had suspended shipments of low enriched uranium in 1980
after India refused to comply with the provisions of the US Nuclear
Non Proliferation Act of 1978. This memo reviews the Tarapur impasses,
the 1963 cooperation agreement and the spent fuel controversy,
India's options for fueling Tarapur, and the outlook.
Document
32: National Security Agency, India's Heavy Water Shortage,
October 1982, Top Secret Umbra
Source:
Freedom of Information Act Request
This article, from an unidentified NSA journal, and based on
highly-classified communications intelligence begins by noting
that India's inability to produce sufficient heavy water, along
with its aversion to international safeguards, represents a significant
factor in constraining India's nuclear power program. It also
notes that India's heavy water facilities or the heavy water they
produce are under international safeguards. It goes on to explore
the problem at length - examining indigenous heavy water plants,
the upgrading of facilities, requirements and operations, and
foreign supply. The classification of the references at the back,
either Top Secret Umbra or Secret Moray, indicate the extensive
use of communications intelligence used in preparing the report.
Document
33: U.S. Defense Attaché Office, New Delhi, Subj:
IIR [Deleted] Update on GOI Nuclear Program, November 21,
1986. Confidential
Source:
Freedom of Information Act Request
This report focuses both on problems in the nuclear program,
specifically with regard to the production of heavy water and
operation of a nuclear power station, and the internal Indian
government debate on the acquisition of nuclear weapons. With
regard to the later, the DAO reports on the comments of Indian
prime minister Rajiv Gandhi at a joint conference of military
officers.
Document
34: Central Intelligence Agency, India's Potential to
Build A Nuclear Weapon, July 1988, Top Secret
Source:
Freedom of Information Act Request
The unredacted version of this report discussed nuclear weapons-related
research and development, nuclear test preparations, fissile material
(plutonium and enriched uranium), potential delivery systems,
military training, and political aspects of nuclear weapons development.
It also provided information on India's principal nuclear weapons-related
facilities, the ranges of India's nuclear capable aircraft, and
India's nuclear diagnostic equipment. The redacted version provides
some information on nuclear diagnostic equipment, research reactors
at the Bhabha Atomic Research Center, and India's nuclear principal
nuclear weapons related facilities.
Document
35: Defense Intelligence Agency, "India's Nuclear Fuel
Troubles," Miiltary Intelligence Digest, June 27,
1994. Secret
Source:
Freedom of Information Act Request
One portion of this heavily redacted item reports on India's
declaration that it will not purchase foreign enriched uranium
but will fuel its Tarapur reactor with plutonium extracted from
Tarapur's spent fuel. It goes on to discuss the two risks that
such a decision holds for India.
Document
36: Office of Near Eastern, South Asian, and African Analysis,
Central Intelligence Agency, India: Problems and Prospects
for the BJP Government, April 13, 1998. Secret
Source:
Freedom of Information Act
This paper, published less than a month before India's nuclear
tests of May 11, 1998, reviews a series of domestic and foreign
policy challenges facing the new Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata
Party (BJP) administration. Notable for its absence is virtually
any explicit discussion of the nuclear issue. When it does discuss
the issue (p.8), it suggests that a decision to alter India's
policy on nuclear weapons is not imminent.
Document
37: Office of Near Eastern, South Asian, and African Analysis,
Central Intelligence Agency, India: BJP Flexing Muscles, But
How Far Will It Go?, May 29, 1998. Secret
Source:
Freedom of Information Act Request
One of the pledges of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata
Party (BJP) in its 1998 election campaign was to induct nuclear
weapons into India's arsenal. It carried out that promise with
two sets of tests on May 11 and 13 - to the surprise of the U.S.
Intelligence Community. Among other topics, this paper examines
the questions of why India chose to test, which Indian official's
knew of the plans to test, and the BJP's next moves - both externally
and domestically.
Document
38: Director of Central Intelligence, Recommendations of the
Jeremiah Report, June 1998. Unclassified
Source:
Freedom of Information Act Request
In the wake of the Intelligence Community's failure to provide
warning of the Indian tests, Director of Central Intelligence
appointed a panel of outside experts, chaired by Admrial David
Jeremiah, a former vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The actual report remains classified, but an unclassified list
of recommendations mentions specific recommendations in four different
areas - analytic assumptions, collection management and tasking,
manning and training and organizing and integrating the Intelligence
Community.
Document
39: Director of Central Intelligence, Jeremiah News Conference,
June 2, 1998. Unclassified
Sources:
www.cia.gov
At a press conference at CIA headquarters, Admiral David Jeremiah
provided reporters with an unclassified description of his group's
findings concerning the U.S. Intelligence Community's failure
to anticipate the Indian tests of the previous month. He talked
about the problems in collecting information about the indigenous
Indian program, analysts who refused to believe that the BJP (see
Document 36) would carry through on its promise
to test, and discussed his recommendations. He also responded
to questions ranging from the seriousness of the intelligence
failure, the role of Indian security measures in preventing U.S.
detection of test plans, to whether with warning of India plans
the U.S. government could have taken diplomatic action to prevent
the tests.
Document
40: Defense Intelligence Agency, Subject: Nuclear Situation
in India and Pakistan, November 8, 1999. Unclassified
Source:
Freedom of Information Act Request
This unclassified background paper was prepared for Senator Tom
Daschle and his staff prior to their trip to India and Pakistan.
It reviews the size of the two nations stockpiles and the systems
they possess to deliver the weapons, their attitudes toward the
various nuclear treaties (the Non-Proliferation Treaty and the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty), the intention of each nation to
improve its nuclear weapons, India's draft nuclear policy, and
each nation's policies with regard to the authorization of the
use of nuclear weapons.
Notes
1. George Perkovich, India's Nuclear Bomb:
The Impact on Global Proliferation (Berkeley, Ca.:
University of California Press, 1999), p.16; Raj Chengappa, Weapons
of Peace: The Secret Story of India's Quest to Be a Nuclear Power
(New Delhi: Harper Collins Publishers India, 2000), p. 74.
2. Perkovich, India's Nuclear Bomb,
p.16; Chengappa, Weapons of Peace, p. 77; George Greenstein,
"A Gentleman of the Old School: Homi Bhabha and the Development
of Science in India," American Scholar, Summer 1992,
pp. 409-419.
3. Perkovich, India's Nuclear Bomb,
pp. 21-22; "Department of Atomic Energy: Milestones,"
www.barc.enet.in, accessed February 28, 2004.
4. Jeffrey T. Richelson, Spying
on the Bomb: American Nuclear Intelligence from Nazi Germany to
Iran and North Korea (New York: W.W. Norton, 2006).
