The memorandum describes Ambassador Smith's stance on US policy permitting the use of plutonium for demonstration programs.

The note contradicts a view of Smith and argues that abandoning President Carter's 1977 policy is a mistake.

The memorandum describes a difference between President Carter and the West Europeans over their commitment to limiting reprocessing and plutonium supplies for R&D work on breeder reactors.

The memorandum describing Japan's latest plutonium supply and demand.

The cable describing an importance of the Japanese offer to delay construction of the plutonium conversion plant in exchange of them postponing a decision for two years on co-processing.

The memorandum describes Japan's hope that the US will recognize an importance of plutonium technology for Japan and its desire to continue plutonium research and development activities.

An intelligence report that the fuel core of the Canadian-Indian Reactor (CIR) at Trombay was being changed every six months raised questions about India’s nuclear objectives: a six-month period was quite short for “normal research reactor operations,” but it was the optimum time for using the CIR’s spent fuel for producing weapons grade plutonium. According to INR, India had taken the “first deliberate decision in the series leading to a nuclear weapon,” which was to have “available, on demand, unsafeguarded weapons-grade plutonium or, at the least, the capacity to produce it.”

Canada’s safeguards had failed to prevent India from converting spent fuel from the CANDU reactor into plutonium. Kissinger acknowledged to Canadian Foreign Minister Mitchell Sharp that U.S. safeguards had also proven to be “lousy,” failing to prevent India from using U.S.-supplied heavy water for its nuclear activities. Sharp asked Kissinger how the proliferation of nuclear technology could be prevented and what should be said to the Argentines and the Egyptians, who were also seeking to use nuclear energy. But Kissinger evidently had no answer.

U.S. embassy officials report on an interview with Lauren Gray, the chairman of Canada’s Atomic Energy Control Board (AECB), who had recently visited India. Having spoken with Homi Nusserwanji Sethna, Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, and other officials, Gray believed that Sethna opposed a test and that as long as Sethna and Indira Gandhi were in office “there was no chance” that India would test a nuclear device, which would take three to four years to prepare. Other officials with the AECB disagreed with Gray's estimates - based on their assessment of Indian’s ability to produce weapons grade plutonium, they argued that it would take no more than a year to produce a device. They also pointed out that about 18 months earlier there had been a “blackout” of statistical information on plutonium production in India.

ACDA report on the lasting effects of the November 1978 demarches on inverters and plutonium reprocessing technology. Describes the objectives of the demarches and the direct effects on the Pakistani nuclear program, including preventing the shipment of equipment from France, West Germany, Norway, and Switzerland. Concludes with an overview of international norms of nuclear commerce.