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.

For years, U.S. intelligence agencies did not take seriously Muammar Gaddafi’s efforts to develop a Libyan nuclear capability and this report provides early evidence of the perspective that the Libyan program “did not know what it was doing.” According to the CIA, the program’s “serious deficiencies,” including “poor leadership” and lack of both “coherent planning” and trained personnel made it “highly unlikely the Libyans will achieve a nuclear weapons capability within the next 10 years.” The Libyan effort was in such a “rudimentary stage” that they were trying to acquire any technology that would be relevant to producing plutonium or enriched uranium.

This heavily excised report on the “well-educated committed cadre” that managed the Pakistani nuclear program demonstrates how the CIA protects its intelligence on Pakistani nuclear activities. This is the same version of the report that can be found on the Agency’s FOIA Web page; the recent version includes no new information. Details on Khan Research Laboratories and the gas centrifuge program are entirely withheld, but some information is made available on the Pakistani Atomic Energy Commission and the Directorate of Nuclear Fuels and Materials. The latter includes details on the status and purpose of major projects, for example, the Kundian Nuclear Complex, also known as the Chasma Reprocessing Plant, which was not completed until 1990. For the purposes of producing plutonium for weapons, the Pakistanis were interested in a heavy water moderated reactor of the NRX (National Research Experimental) type that Canada built at Chalk River. In 1985, the Pakistanis started that project in earnest, with construction beginning in 1987 of what became known as Khushab Chemical Plant II.

Brazilian nationalism has often posed a challenge to US official precepts on the way the world should work and these estimates convey the deep Brasilia-Washington gap over nuclear policy during the 1980s. The SNIEs from 1983 and the 1985 update emphasize Brazil’s quest for technological-industrial autonomy which in nuclear terms meant developing an indigenous program to master the fuel cycle, including uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing capabilities. In seeking those objectives, Brazil did not want to face any constraints, and its leaders were unresponsive to U.S. or other pressures for safeguards on nuclear facilities.

Argentina, like its neighbor, Brazil, was determined to develop an “independent nuclear fuel cycle,” with the capacity to reprocess plutonium and enrich uranium. Also like Brazil, Argentina was one of the few Latin American countries to refuse to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Thus, Argentina’s nuclear activities were under routine scrutiny to see if they involved anything that suggested an interest in a weapons capability. US intelligence agencies continued to monitor developments but perspectives shifted as Argentina’s domestic politics evolved. Prepared after the Argentine-British conflict over the Falklands Islands, in which Washington helped London, this special estimate professed “great uncertainty” over Argentina’s nuclear intentions. While “emotionally” the Argentine military leadership was interested in a weapons option, it had “reduced capability to fulfill this desire.”

Summary of a meeting with French non-proliferation advisor Andre Jacoment. Discussion of the consequences of the French government's cancellation of a project to build a plutonium reprocessing plant at Chashma, Pakistan.

Report on status of France-Pakistan deal for saviem trucks, which was connected with the recently canceled plutonium reprocessing plant project.

The United States wants a public announcement from the French that the Pakistan plutonium reprocessing plant project is officially canceled.

U.S. demarche and "non-paper" on Pakistan's attempts to complete the plutonium reprocessing plant and develop nuclear weapons. Sent to 12 countries to ensure that they "exercise vigilance and appropriate control to deter Pakistan from acquiring sensitive facilities."