Information about the classified Brazilian centrifuge program.

The document highlights that the export of Argentine uranium to Brazil will be a difficult operation due to diplomatic hurdles.

This document reports on CNEA’s position on the exports of uranium to Brazil and reports that the operation will not produce any economic benefit. Nevertheless, it is favorable to the export as a token of Argentina’s good will in regard to nuclear cooperation with Brazil.

A Brazilian diplomat to Argentina expresses an interest in acquiring five tons of uranium free from safeguards to Argentine authorities. CNEA and the foreign ministry of Argentina approved the request, taking into consideration the favorable diplomatic relations between the two countries at the moment.

This is a document containing talking points for Secretary of State Alexander Haig's meeting with Deng Xiaoping. Topics addressed in the document include: Chinese exportation of uranium and heavy water to South Africa and Argentina; the intention to suspend the prohibition of arm sales to China; greater nuclear and security cooperation; the increase in Chinese arm sales to countries dependent on the Soviet Union; and the desire to open a new consulate in Shenyang.

This cable summarizes Ambassador Ricupero’s mission to Argentina, where he conveyed a report that Brazil had mastered uranium enrichment. President Alfonsín’s letter of reply is included.

In this memorandum, General Director for Nuclear and Disarmament Affairs Adolfo Saracho reports on a Brazilian airplane's flight over the uranium enrichment plant at Pilcaniyeu.

In 1978 the National Security Council identified the most important shortcoming of nuclear cooperation with Germany: the non-transfer of technology for the production of uranium hexafluoride (UF6). The lack of this crucial phase for the production of nuclear fuel led Brazil to decide to develop this method by national means, in view of the unwillingness of France and Great Britain to export said technology without a full scope of safeguards. The document reports how the government decided to create an autonomous nuclear project with regard to cooperation with Germany and free from the international safeguards regime. Coordinated by CNEN and implemented by the Institute of Energy and Nuclear Research (IPEN), this project represented the first phase of the “parallel” nuclear program whose objective was the autonomous mastery of the nuclear cycle.

Outline of the government of Brazil’s decision to acquire all phases of the cycle of production of nuclear fuel through cooperation with a foreign government, in this case the Federal Republic of Germany. Reference is made to the need to develop uranium enrichment technology in accordance with the 1967 nuclear policy, which had not yet been implemented.

A secret report addressed to Minister of Foreign Affairs Mario Gibson Barbosa by Amb. Paulo Nogueira Batista (Brazilian Embassy, Bonn) describing alternatives for the establishment of comprehensive, long-term nuclear agreements between Brazil and a “country to be defined.” The report suggests that given the trends in uranium production in the US and Europe, Brazil needed to either associate itself with France to purchase gas diffusion technology or develop, together with Germany, ultracentrifugation or jet nozzle technologies. The notion was that “countries that decide to develop their own enrichment capacity will not only occupy a privileged competitive position but also will become part of an oligopoly with obvious political implications.” Nogueira Batista was worried, however, that Germany might not be able to offer Brazil centrifugation technology under existing obligations.