Office of the Historian

70. Memorandum From the President’s Military Representative (Taylor) to President Kennedy0

Washington, September 8, 1961.

SUBJECT

  • Intelligence Aspects of Nuclear Testing
1.
In the course of consideration of the report of the Ad Hoc Panel on Nuclear Testing (the Panofsky Panel) at the August 8, 1961 National Security Council meeting,1 you directed me to prepare a report on the disagreements on the intelligence aspects which were revealed in the discussion of the report.
2.
I have met with General Lemnitzer, representing the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mr. Allen Dulles, Director of Central Intelligence, and Dr. Jerome Wiesner, representing the Panel because of the unavailability of Dr. Panofsky. We have agreed that the differences of view on the intelligence bearing upon nuclear testing fall into two areas: (a) evaluation of the evidence as to whether the Soviets have tested since 1958 and (b) the adequacy of our intelligence to make a judgment on the qualitative aspects of the Soviet nuclear weapons stockpile.
3.

With regard to the first point, whether the USSR has tested since 1958, all parties are in agreement that we cannot conclusively establish that the Soviets have or have not tested. Beyond this basic agreement, there are gradations of view somewhat as follows:

a.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff, impressed by the negligible risks involved in testing, the technical needs of the USSR, and the consequent strong motivation to test, feel that there is a strong possibility that the Soviets have tested since 1958.
b.
The CIA takes into account the same factors as the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but tends to attach greater weight to the possible political cost of exposure as a deterrent to the Soviets from any kind of testing with an appreciable chance of detection. For these reasons, CIA believes the conclusion that the Soviets have been conducting nuclear tests since the moratorium cannot be drawn from the available evidence.
c.
The Panel assumed an unqualified position of uncertainty with regard to whether or not there has been clandestine testing, basing its view on technical information without attempting to evaluate Soviet motivation.

It may be added that the divergent views of the JCS and the CIA are not new, but have been reflected in the National Intelligence Estimate drawn up last April2 on the possibility of Soviet nuclear testing.

4.
With respect to the qualitative aspects of the Soviet nuclear stockpile, the Panel and CIA believe that reasonable estimates on yield, weight, efficiency, and material composition of specific weapons can be made on the basis of Soviet tests and extrapolations therefrom, while the JCS believe that these estimates are subject to considerable uncertainty. However, the discussion on this point brought out that the authors of the JCS paper submitted to the National Security Council3 may not have had access to some recently received covert information available to the CIA and other elements of the JCS. General Lemnitzer agreed to review this information with the CIA and then decide whether any significant difference of opinion remained.
5.
Although not directly relevant to the Panel’s technical findings, the uncertainty concerning the Soviet stockpile was emphasized by the JCS to stress the absence of substantial hard information on the Soviet nuclear weapons program. On this point, there is agreement that, except for estimates derived from information on Soviet technical capabilities, the amount of fissionable material available, the probable size of the Soviet bomber and missile forces, and the existence and size of certain nuclear storage sites, the United States has no detailed knowledge of the numbers of various types of nuclear weapons within the Soviet stockpile.
6.
In spite of some divergence of view with regard to the intelligence, our discussion brought out clearly that all parties agreed to the need for the United States to resume nuclear testing within a reasonable time.
Maxwell D. Taylor
  1. Source: Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Subjects Series, Nuclear Testing, 9/8-9/26/61. Top Secret. A note on the source text reads: “Sent to H[yannis] P[ort] weekend of 9/9/61.” Copies were sent to Wiesner, Lemnitzer, Dulles, and Bundy.↩
  2. See Document 53.↩
  3. Document 17.↩
  4. Document 48.↩