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Documents

February 1985

Central Intelligence Agency, Directorate of Intelligence, 'The Libyan Nuclear Program: A Technical Perspective'

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.

December 1982

Central Intelligence Agency, Directorate of Intelligence, 'India’s Nuclear Procurement Strategy: Implications for the United States'

This CIA report on India, “India’s Nuclear Procurement Strategy: Implications for the United States,” has comparatively few excisions. It discusses in some detail Indian efforts to support its nuclear power and nuclear weapons development program by circumventing international controls through purchases of sensitive technology on “gray markets.” The report depicts a “growing crisis in the Indian civil nuclear program,” which combined with meeting nuclear weapons development goals, was forcing India to expand imports of nuclear-related supplies. The purchasing activities posed a “direct challenge to longstanding US efforts to work with other supplier nations … for tighter export controls.”

November 18, 1978

'Pakistan Proliferation Problem,' Department of State Cable 292469 to US Embassy United Kingdom

Discussion of a British list of countries that were actual or potential manufacturers of inverters. The U.S. does not want to approach any "nuclear threshold states" yet because some might not cooperate or might inform Pakistan. Also discusses strategies for approaching the Soviet Union and China in the future.

November 24, 1978

'Pakistan Proliferation Problem,' US Embassy United Kingdom Cable 19322 to Department of State

Britain agrees with U.S. thinking on the matter of State Department cable 292469, except on its approach to the Soviet Union. Britain decided not to approach the Soviets because they were unsure whether Moscow’s “commitment to nonproliferation outweighs their special political interests vis-à-vis Pakistan.”