• Korea, the estimate of the American intelligence community in was
that it would need perhaps another ten years to develop such a weapon
without outside assistance.
The SNIE was intended only as a point of departure for more detailed
analysis of several other countries considered to have a possible interest in
manufacturing nuclear weapons, including Pakistan, Brazil, and Iran. Pa-
kistan was thought most likely to pursue such a policy and was high on the
watch list. Near the end of , however, we were studying information
on a number of other countries, including the ROK, because nonprolifera-
tion had become such a major concern of the U.S. government.
In an effort to determine if any of those countries might be attempting
to develop a nuclear weapon, we analyzed a number of different factors. One
was the existing threat to each nation. In this area South Korea ranked high
because of North Korea and its strong military capability. Another consid-
eration was human resources, that is, whether or not the country had the
scientific and technical expertise to produce a weapon. In this area Korea
again ranked high due to its intelligent and well-educated professional class
and good scientific and engineering capability. A third factor was the abil-
ity to manufacture a weapon from domestically available industrial mate-
rials and equipment. Korea ranked low here. We estimated that the Koreans
would have to import a significant amount of material and equipment, such
as power reactors, uranium fuel, and other items. The fourth factor was
political will. At the time, there was no firm evidence that the ROK had this,
a situation we expected to continue as long as the U.S. security guarantee
was in place. This later proved to be an inaccurate assumption.
As part of our efforts to determine whether Korea might be moving to-
ward a nuclear weapons capability, we began to systematically review what
information we already had available. Beginning with a detailed and exten-
sive list of components and equipment that could be used in a nuclear weap-
ons program, we examined import-export licenses and requests and began
to pay much more attention to reports from other countries. It soon became
evident that the ROK was actively investigating the international market
for a number of items on the list and had actually purchased some of them.
Also, Korea was negotiating with the French for a fuel-reprocessing facility
capable of extracting plutonium and with another country for the purchase
of a nuclear-fuel laboratory capable of further processing plutonium.^2
About this time we also became aware of field-intelligence reports indi-
cating that we might have misjudged the intent of President Park to con-
tinue to rely solely on the American nuclear deterrent. Of special interest