Date

Dec 14, 1962

Description

By late 1962, the intelligence community had published several estimates of China's nuclear weapons potential. A National Intelligence Estimate completed earlier in the year suggested that Beijing could test a plutonium device by early 1963, but found it "unlikely that the Chinese will meet such a schedule." It was more likely that the first Chinese test would be "delayed beyond 1963, perhaps by as much as several years." Later in the year, at the specific request of the State Department, the CIA's Board of National Estimates drafted Special National Intelligence Estimate 13-6-62, which found that the "evidence is not now adequate to make a confident judgment about the likely date of a first nuclear test in China." It could "occur as early as 1963," but "we believe that it is more likely to occur some years later." The Air Force strongly dissented, arguing that China was "likely to conduct [its] first nuclear test in 1963-1964." This estimate remained in draft form, never finalized by the U.S. Intelligence Board, in order "to await further evidence" [See document 10 below].

Source

RG 59, Records of the Policy Planning Staff for 1962, box 232, China

Document published in following posting(s):

China's First Nuclear Test 1964 -- 50th Anniversary

Oct 16, 2014

Acting Deputy Assistant Director National Estimates, Central Intelligence Agency, to U.S. Intelligence Board, Special National Intelligence Estimate 13-6-62 Central Intelligence Agency, "Communist China's Nuclear Weapons Program," December 14, 1962, Top Secret, Draft, excised copy, under appeal