Date

Jun 4, 1957

Description

This recently declassified, lengthy report was INR's contribution to the first National Intelligence Estimate on the nuclear proliferation, NIE 100-6-57, which the bureau itself had requested in late April 1957. 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.

While not part of the National Declassification Center’s recent release of INR lot files, this study has enough significance to merit inclusion as an exception. According to INR Soviet expert Helmut Sonnenfeldt, it was the “first time that systematic treatment has been given the fourth country problem from an intelligence standpoint.” The countries which received substantial assessments, in terms of their capabilities, the likelihood that they would go nuclear, and the impact of a nuclear weapons decision were: France, West Germany, Sweden, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Japan, China, India, Israel, and Brazil. INR considered the first three countries, including Sweden and West Germany, likely to develop nuclear weapons within the next 10 years, but subsequent events would prove this estimate to be partly mistaken. INR also argued that East Germany and Czechoslovakia had the technological capability to develop weapons, but that Moscow would not permit that to happen. As for China, for prestige reasons among other considerations, it would “almost certainly attempt to initiate a weapons phase in the development of its nuclear program” during the next 10 years, but China outperformed this estimate, acquiring a capability by 1964. Japan was estimated to have a capability to produce nuclear weapons by 1967, but proponents of weaponization would have to prevail against popularly-based anti-nuclear sentiment.

In light of its security concerns, "If Israel had the opportunity to acquire nuclear weapons, it would do so." The extent of French-Israel nuclear cooperation was unknown to U.S. intelligence, but it was "not impossible that France might give [weapons] assistance to Israel." Anti-nuclear sentiments were powerful in India, yet "one circumstance which might bring about a change in India's attitude toward the possession of such weapons [would be], their possession by neighboring states." Among the Latin American countries, Brazil was the only one which could produce nuclear weapons within 10 years but only "with substantial and continuing outside assistance." Nevertheless, Brazil had "evidenced no desire to develop an atomic war potential," and that was unlikely to change in the near future.

Source

Record Group 59. Department of State Records, Special Assistant to the Secretary of State for Atomic Energy, Records Relating to Disarmament, 1948-1962, box 57, 2 15d: Armaments Nuclear Fourth Countries, 1956-57.

Document published in following posting(s):

Will China Help Pakistan Get the Bomb?

May 18, 2016

"OIR Contribution to NIE 100-6-57: Nuclear Weapons Production by Fourth Countries - Likelihood and Consequences," 31 May 1957, enclosed with letter from Helmut Sonnenfeldt, Division of Research for USSR and Western Europe, to Roger Mateson, 4 June 1957, Secret