Date

Feb 28, 1975

Description

As it had promised, the U.S. embassy in Seoul assembled the sensitive information that it had collected and sent it in a highly classified "NODIS" telegram to the State Department. Apparently State Department officials saw this message as so sensitive that either they did not log it in, or they removed it from, the telegram databases that eventually became available on the National Archives Web site. According to the embassy, the evidence supported the "strong presumption that the Korean government had decided to proceed with the initial phases of a nuclear weapons development program." Most of the details are excised from this release, even the fact that Seoul had been negotiating with Paris to purchase a reprocessing facility. At the National Security Archive's request, this document is undergoing a new declassification review.

Source

Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library, National Security Adviser Presidential Country Files for East Asia and the Pacific, Box 9, Korea (4), copy from South Korean Nuclear History Collection, Nuclear Proliferation International History Project.

Document published in following posting(s):

Stopping Korea from Going Nuclear, Part I

Mar 22, 2017