U.S. Intelligence and the French Nuclear Weapons Program

Documents Show U.S. Intelligence Targeted
French Nuclear Program as Early as 1946

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 184

Posted - March 21, 2006

Washington, DC, March 21, 2006 - The U.S. Intelligence Community devoted significant effort to the collection and analysis of intelligence concerning the French nuclear weapons program beginning in the early days of the Cold War through the mid-1970s, according to documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and archival research and posted on the Web today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University.

Today's posting includes more than 30 documents -- many originally classified Top Secret -- produced by interagency groups, the Manhattan Engineer District's Foreign Intelligence Section, the CIA, the State Department, the U.S. Pacific Command, and the Strategic Air Command.

The records were obtained by Archive Senior Fellow Jeffrey T. Richelson while conducting research for his recently published book, Spying on the Bomb: American Nuclear Intelligence from Nazi Germany to Iran and North Korea (W.W. Norton), and by Archive senior analyst William Burr.

The documents show that French nuclear activities were of sufficient concern to prompt the Manhattan Engineer District's intelligence section to produce a series of reports in 1946 -- based on a variety of sources on French nuclear research and development activities -- on the possibility that French scientists were willing to sell nuclear know-how to the right bidder and described the French search for uranium deposits. Documents from the early 1950s show U.S. intelligence interest in personnel changes in the French atomic energy organization.

The documents also indicate that new technological improvements in U.S. nuclear intelligence gathering were used to closely monitor the French program. The collection effort included the use of overhead reconnaissance systems (including satellites and U-2 aircraft), drones, communications intercepts systems, aircraft to gather debris and signatures from French nuclear tests, and specially-equipped ships stationed near the French Pacific test site.

Intelligence analysts used the results of these collection efforts to produce the classified periodicals, reports by the Office of Scientific Intelligence, and national and special national intelligence estimates included in the electronic briefing book.

Pour voir le document complet : George Washington University AP tl/v