Report of the Indian Mission in Lhasa from January 1951

The Department of State requests additional reports from the Indian mission in Lhasa.

American diplomat Fraser Wilkins rebuts claims made by Prince Peter of Greece and Princess Irene.

US Consular Office William Gibson and Prince Peter of Greece discuss developments in Tibet and Indo-Tibetan trade. Princess Irene offers unflattering views on a group of White Russian refugees who exited Xinjiang via Kalimpong and later immigrated to the United States. In a cover note, Evan M. Wilson dismisses Irene's comments but notes that Prince Peter's information was 'quite accurate.'

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

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.

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.”

As this report indicates, the recommendations made in the 1974 post-mortem of the Indian nuclear test failure had little impact. The authors identified a basic disconnect between “national level users”—-the top policymakers-—and those who “set analytical and collection priorities in the intelligence community.” The latter were not sure how high a priority that the policymakers had given to nuclear proliferation intelligence. Moreover, a study for the Defense Department produced by MIT chemistry professor (and future DCI) John Deutch questioned whether the intelligence community “is adequately focused and tasked on proliferation matters.” This would be a recurring problem for the CIA and other intelligence agencies.

Having written off an early test, the day that it took place the Embassy scrambled to come up with an explanation. Deputy Chief of Mission David Schneider signed off on the telegram because Moynihan was in London. While the Embassy had no insight on the decision-making, it saw domestic politics and “psychological” explanations for the test: the need to offset domestic “gloom” and the need for India to “be taken seriously.” According to the telegram, “the decision will appeal to nationalist feeling and will be widely welcomed by the Indian populace.”

A follow up to John J. Pinajian's 4 April 1973 report on "India's Nuclear Position." Pinajian got some access to the Bhabha Atomic Research Center, but noticed the absence of personnel responsible for experimental work. Moreover, he was getting cooperation from the Institute for Fundamental Research to conduct an experiment.