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Documents

October 4, 1967

Minutes of the Fortieth Session of the Brazilian National Security Council

Guidelines for the Brazilian nuclear policy in Costa e Silva’s government (1967-1969) and defines the diplomatic attitude of Brazil regarding the negotiations of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). During the meeting of the National Security Council, participants agreed on the need to cooperate with another country to start a national nuclear program. On the NPT negotiations, the members of the National Security Council agreed to establish a condition to adhere to the Treaty: the defense of the right to develop peaceful nuclear explosions. Several ministers defended the possibility of using nuclear energy in the future for international security reasons.

August 30, 1956

Minutes of the Twentieth Session of the Brazilian National Security Council, Second Brazilian Nuclear Plan

At this meeting the National Security Council decided to reform the Brazilian nuclear sector by placing it under the direction of CNEN (National Nuclear Energy Commission). The CSN suggested young technicians and academics should be instructed abroad in order to stimulate the development of professionals in that field. One of the objectives of the nuclear policy was the production of nuclear fuel from domestically-sourced minerals. The Brazilian government criticized the monopoly on nuclear fuel by the big powers.

August 27, 1947

Minutes of the Tenth Session of the Brazilian National Security Council, Alvaro Alberto’s proposal to establish a Brazilian Atomic Energy Program

The minutes describe the internal discussion at the National Security Council of a proposal to establish a nuclear program sent from New York by Admiral Alvaro Alberto, who was representing Brazil at the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission (UNAEC). The Council approved the Admiral’s proposal and one of its members, Colonel Bernardino Corrêa de Matos Netto declared that "it is not convenient that Brazil relinquishes [nuclear energy], because it is necessary to prepare the ground for future generations."

April 19, 1971

Memorandum, Ambassador Paulo Nogueira Batista, Information for the President of Brazil, 'Enrichment of Uranium'

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.

November 19, 1983

Letter, Brazilian President Figueiredo to Argentinian President Bignone

In his answer to Argentinian President Bignone, Brazilian President João Batista Figueiredo expresses satisfaction for the result achieved by the neighbor country.

July 1991

National Intelligence Estimate, NIE 5-91C, 'Prospects for Special Weapons Proliferation and Control'

With the term “weapons of mass destruction” having not yet fully come into general usage, this NIE used the term “special weapons” to describe nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons (formerly the term “special weapons” was sometimes used to describe nuclear weapons only). With numerous excisions, including the names of some countries in the sections on “East Asia and the Pacific” and “Central America,” this wide-ranging estimate provides broad-brushed, sometimes superficial, pictures of the situations in numerous countries along with coverage of international controls to halt sensitive technology exports to suspect countries.

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.

October 5, 1984

National Intelligence Estimate, NIE 73/5-84, 'Trends in South Africa’s Nuclear Security Policies and Programs'

Seeking “constructive engagement” with the apartheid regime, the Reagan administration wanted the South Africans to keep a lid on their nuclear weapons program. The NIE’s top-secret status was compatible with one of the elements of the 1984 estimate: that any revelations that broke the regime’s “calculated ambiguity” about its nuclear status would put Washington in an “awkward position” by “fir[ing] the drive” for the sanctions and disinvestment campaigns which the administration was trying to avoid. Analyzing the motives for the nuclear program, the CIA found it “irrelevant” to any threat that the regime was likely to face.A key issue was whether South Africa had a nuclear arsenal. On that problem, the NIE dovetailed with the view taken by NIE-4-82: South Africa “probably has the capability to produce nuclear weapons on short notice.” That was accurate, but U.S. intelligence may not have known that the regime’s leaders had already decided to build a stockpile of 7 weapons, with six weapons assembled during the 1980s.

August 1977

Central Intelligence Agency, Directorate of Intelligence, Office of Scientific Intelligence, 'South African Uranium Enrichment Program'

With South Africa’s status as a pariah state, its nuclear program was a thorny problem for a series of U.S. presidents. In August 1977, the Carter administration, working with the Soviet Union, lodged protests against South Africa’s apparent preparations for a nuclear test, forcing a shut-down of the Kalahari test site if not the entire nuclear program itself. Indeed the CIA’s analysis of South Africa’s innovative “aerodynamic” uranium enrichment plant at Valindaba brought it to the conclusion that South Africa would be able to produce enough weapons-grade uranium “to make several nuclear devices per year.”

November 1985

Central Intelligence Agency, Directorate of Intelligence, Research Paper, 'Pakistan’s Nuclear Weapons Program: Personnel and Organizations'

This heavily excised report on the “well-educated committed cadre” that managed the Pakistani nuclear program demonstrates how the CIA protects its intelligence on Pakistani nuclear activities. This is the same version of the report that can be found on the Agency’s FOIA Web page; the recent version includes no new information. Details on Khan Research Laboratories and the gas centrifuge program are entirely withheld, but some information is made available on the Pakistani Atomic Energy Commission and the Directorate of Nuclear Fuels and Materials. The latter includes details on the status and purpose of major projects, for example, the Kundian Nuclear Complex, also known as the Chasma Reprocessing Plant, which was not completed until 1990. For the purposes of producing plutonium for weapons, the Pakistanis were interested in a heavy water moderated reactor of the NRX (National Research Experimental) type that Canada built at Chalk River. In 1985, the Pakistanis started that project in earnest, with construction beginning in 1987 of what became known as Khushab Chemical Plant II.

Pagination