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Soviet soldier taking a photograph of another soldier in Red Square, Moscow, 1959

Eastern Europe

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Portrait of Mao Zedong on Tiananmen Gate in Beijing, China, 1972.

East Asia

China

Aerial view of National Mall

North America

United States

Pyongyang photographed in March 20212

East Asia

North Korea

Emir Farid Chehab

Emir Farid Chehab Collection

Gyeongbokgung

East Asia

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Cuba's National Capitol Building, January 2010.

Central America and Caribbean

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Sino-Soviet Relations

Executive Committee of the National Security Committee during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Cuban Missile Crisis

Photograph of Zhou Enlai in 1972.

Zhou, Enlai

1898- 1976

Portrait of Mao Zedong from propaganda poster

Mao, Zedong

1893- 1976

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Stalin, Joseph

1879- 1953

Kim Il Sung, 1978

Kim, Il Sung

1912- 1994

Press Briefing by Permanent Observer of Democratic People's Republic of Korea to the UN, 7 July 1976.

Inter-Korean Relations

Dr. Syngman Rhee, 1939

Syngman Rhee Era

Sino-Soviet Split, 1960-1984

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United States. Central Intelligence Agency

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Dr. Syngman Rhee, 1939

Rhee, Syngman

1875- 1965

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December 4, 1984	Letter from International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Juan Antonio Samaranch to Fidel Castro Letter from Juan Antonio Samaranch, President of the International Olympic Committee, to Cuban leader Fidel Castro on the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul
November 29, 1984	Letter from Fidel Castro to the President of the International Olympic Committee Juan Antonio Samaranch Letter from Cuban leader Fidel Castro the President of the International Olympic Committee Juan Antonio Samaranch on the 1988 Seoul Olympics
October 12, 1976	Intelligence Community Staff, Director of Performance Evaluation and Improvement, to Deputy to the Director of Central Intelligence for the Intelligence Community, 'Nuclear Proliferation and the Intelligence Community' 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.
August 23, 1974	Special National Intelligence Estimate SNIE 4-1-74, 'Prospects for Further Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons' A few months after the Indian test, the intelligence community prepared an overall estimate of the global nuclear proliferation situation. Such an estimate had not been prepared since the 1960s, no doubt because of the White House’s lack of interest. This estimate, SNIE 4-1-74, has been released before but this version includes more information, mainly a section on the Indian nuclear program, which had previously been withheld. While finding it “likely” that India would launch a covert program to produce a few weapons, the analysts were not sure that such a decision had been made and suggested that Moscow or Washington might be able to persuade the Indians from moving in that direction.
July 1974	Intelligence Community Staff, Post Mortem Report, 'An Examination of the Intelligence Community's Performance Before the Indian Nuclear Test of May 1974' This partial release of the July 1974 post-mortem investigation analyzes why the CIA and its sister agencies failed to predict the 1974 Indian nuclear test. Two problems were especially important: 1) the lack of priority given to the Indian nuclear program for intelligence collection (further confirmed by the January 1972 INR report), and 2) the lack of communication between intelligence producers (analysts and estimators) and intelligence collectors (spies, NRO, etc.). The low priority meant that intelligence production “fell off” during the 20 months before the test (from October 1972 to May 1974). Moreover, there may have been a lack of communication between producers, with the “other guy” assuming that someone else was “primarily responsible for producing hard evidence of Indian intentions.” Trying to explain the lack of follow-up on relevant “raw intelligence,” e.g. Pinjanians’s surmises about the Indian nuclear program, the post-mortem saw no “sense of urgency” in the intelligence community, which may have “reflected the attitudes of the policymakers.” Another problem was that the intelligence community focused more on “capabilities” than on “intentions,” which implicitly raised the difficult issue of breaching the nuclear establishment or Indira Gandhi’s small circle of decision-making. The substantive discussion of satellite photography has been excised, but the recommendations were left intact, including the point that “The failure of production elements to ask NPIC [National Photographic Intelligence Center] to exploit photography that had been specifically requested from the National Reconnaissance Office suggests a weakness in the imagery requirements system.” The implication was that NRO satellites had imagery of the Thar Desert that could have been scrutinized for suspect activity, but no one asked NPIC to look into it.
May 18, 1974	State Department cable 104613 to Consulate, Jerusalem, 'India Nuclear Explosion' The day of the test, State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) rushed to update Kissinger. INR provided background on what had happened, how the United States and Canada had inadvertently helped India produce plutonium for the test device, earlier U.S. and Canadian demarches against “peaceful nuclear explosions,” and India’s capabilities to produce and deliver nuclear weapons. The report did not state whether India had made a decision to produce weapons, but it forecast that two large unsafeguarded reactors under construction could eventually “produce enough plutonium for 50-70 nuclear weapons.”
May 18, 1974	US Embassy India Cable 6598 to State Department, 'India’s Nuclear Explosion: Why Now?' 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.”
January 19, 1974	US Embassy India cable 0743 to State Department, 'India’s Nuclear Intentions' The Embassy assessed India's potential for the development of nuclear weapons amd concluded that “deeper economic problems,” among other considerations militated against a nuclear test in the near future, even though the Indian government had the capabilities to produce and test a device. While there were no rumors about a test as there had been in 1972, “we know little about relevant internal government debate.” All in all, the embassy believed that economic conditions “tip the likelihood of an early test to a lower level than previous years.” Russell Jack Smith, previously the deputy director for intelligence at the CIA, and then serving as special assistant to the ambassador (station chief), was one of the officials who signed off on this cable.
May 17, 1973	US Embassy India Cable 5797 to State Department forwarding Bombay consulate cable 983, 'India’s Nuclear Position' 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.
April 4, 1973	Bombay consulate cable 705 to Department of State, 'India’s Nuclear Position' The possibility that India had made a decision to test surfaced in a message from the U.S. consulate in Bombay (Mumbai) signed off by Consul David M. Bane. The latter reported that Oak Ridge Laboratory scientist John J. Pinajian, then serving as the Atomic Energy Commission’s scientific representative in India, had pointed out several “indications”—-notably his lack of access to key individuals and facilities in India’s atomic establishment--suggesting that India “may well have decided” to test a nuclear device. While stating that Pinajian’s evaluation was “subjective and impressionistic,” Consul Bane agreed that the atomic energy establishment did not want this American poking around because he might find out too much. Bane further observed that a nuclear test “in the not too distant future” could meet India’s political goals and help attain “greater recognition major power status.”