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Nuclear Proliferation

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French Nuclear History

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Kissinger, Henry

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United States. Department of State

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Sonnenfeldt, Helmut

1926-

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Vest, George

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Berlin Wall

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Sauvagnargues, Jean

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Israeli Nuclear History

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February 1, 1958	US Embassy Paris Telegram 3600 to Department of State In this telegram, U.S. government officials were troubled by the possibility of shared nuclear weapons research in Western Europe. Jean Laloy, the French Foreign Ministry’s director of European affairs, confidentially shared his apprehensions with an Embassy official.
December 14, 1957	John Foster Dulles, Memorandum of Conversation with Chancellor Adenauer Conversation between John Foster Dulles and Chancellor Adenauer at a NATO meeting. Dulles learned from Adenauer that the French-West German project on nuclear weapons research would soon come to include Italy, to which Dulles expressed reservations and suggested a broader arrangement including the U.S. and the U.K.
November 3, 1979	Memorandum by C.U.D., 'Observations on Our Differences with the West Europeans Over Non-Proliferation' 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.
March 3, 1967	Research Memorandum REU-14 from Thomas L. Hughes to the Secretary, 'How Major NATO Countries View the Prospect of an ABM Deployment' Despite new information that the Soviet Union was deploying anti-ballistic missile defenses around Moscow, the United States had not yet decided to deploy its own ABM defenses (although a decision would be made later in the year) and there was some hope that U.S.-Soviet talks would prevent an ABM race. If, however, talks failed, some NATO allies worried about the “adverse consequences” of an ABM race, especially whether having an ABM system might incline Washington toward risk taking.
May 22, 1963	Research Memorandum RFE-40 from Thomas L. Hughes to the Acting Secretary, 'A French Nuclear Testing Site in the Pacific? – Plans and Repercussions' France’s staging of atmospheric and underground tests in Algeria became increasingly untenable when neighboring African countries protested and even temporarily broke diplomatic relations with Paris. Once Algeria became independent in 1962, French authorities made plans to develop a test site in Polynesia.
January 31, 1962	Research Memorandum REU-25 from Roger Hilsman to Mr. Kohler, 'European Attitudes on Independent Nuclear Capability' Concerns about the credibility of US nuclear deterrence generated Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) General Lauris Norstad’s proposal for a NATO-controlled medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) force. This lengthy report represented INR’s assessment of “present and future European interest in national or multinational nuclear weapons capabilities,” including the MRBM proposal, and the extent to which an “enhancement of NATO's nuclear role” could “deter national or multinational European nuclear weapons programs.”
May 13, 1959	Department of State Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Intelligence Information Brief No. 139, 'Disarmament Negotiations: The Fourth Power Problem: France' According to intelligence reports, the French were trying to acquire from US firms the diagnostic technology needed to measure a nuclear explosion. INR did not believe that France had identified a specific test site and noted that France was under pressure to hold a test somewhere other than North Africa; nevertheless it went ahead with one in Algeria in early 1960.
June 4, 1957	Department of State Office of Intelligence Research, 'OIR Contribution to NIE 100-6-57: Nuclear Weapons Production by Fourth Countries – Likelihood and Consequences' This lengthy report was State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research's contribution to the first National Intelligence Estimate on the nuclear proliferation, NIE 100-6-57. Written at a time when the United States, the Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom were the only nuclear weapons states, the “Fourth Country” problem referred to the probability that some unspecified country, whether France or China, was likely to be the next nuclear weapons state. Enclosed with letter from Helmut Sonnenfeldt, Division of Research for USSR and Western Europe, to Roger Mateson, 4 June 1957, Secret
February 22, 1972	Memorandum of Conversation between Richard Nixon and Zhou Enlai
September 23, 1977	State Department telegram 229507 to U.S. Embassy London et al., 'Nuclear Suppliers Meeting – Assessment' This document describes the progress made up to that point and the various concerns of countries within the group regarding the scale of safeguards, particularly from the French and Germans. The NSG also agreed to make the guidelines available to the IAEA so that it could publish them. The State Department had been reluctant to publish them, not least because they did not include full scope safeguards, but overriding that was an interest in dispelling Third World concerns about a “secret cartel.”