CIA: "Declassified", a storyflo podcast

This is "Declassified", a storyflo podcast. Today, we examine a declassified Central Intelligence Agency record from July tenth, nineteen-sixty-four, concerning the Chinese Communist nuclear program. This document, originating from the Commander in Chief, Pacific, known as CINCPAC, offers an assessment of China's nuclear ambitions and potential global impact. The full document is available at documents2.theblackvault.com. This document was released by the Central Intelligence Agency in October, two-thousand-fourteen, under the automatic declassification provisions of Executive Order twelve-thousand-nine-hundred-fifty-eight. No specific FOIA case number is cited for its release. The document, an intelligence cable, begins: To Department of State, Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, The White House. From Commander in Chief, Pacific. Subject: CHICOM Nuclear Program. One. Evidence is growing that the CHICOMs are making progress in their nuclear program. We note reports of a suspected test site in the Tarim Basin, as well as reports of [four lines redacted under exemption B1]. This, coupled with the estimate that the reactor at Pao-T'ou may have gone critical in nineteen-sixty-three, suggests that it may not be too long before the CHICOMs will be ready to try detonating a nuclear device. Two. When this happens, it is estimated that the effect on Asia at large will be very great. The Asian rank and file will not discriminate between a breadboard test article and a genuine bomb, and the Chinese will acquire overnight the stature of a nuclear power in their minds. Three. Such a development cannot help but hurt our cause, and everything possible should therefore be done to defer the day when the Chinese detonation takes place. Four. Has the national intelligence community identified any critical components item(s) against which action could be taken in any form to impede their delivery or degrade their quality so they will not function properly? The Black Vault, an independent civilian archive, provides this context for the document: "This declassified Central Intelligence Agency document shows a cable from the Commander-in-Chief Pacific, or CINCPAC, warning the State Department, CIA, NSA, and the White House, about the Chinese Communist Nuclear Program. It warned that if the Chinese detonated a device, they would acquire overnight the stature of a nuclear power. The document then asks if the intelligence community has identified critical components against which action could be taken to impede their delivery or degrade their quality." This is what the public record looks like at its most ordinary. Find more at storyflo.com, and view this document at archive.org/download/us-china-intel-CI01620/CI01620_djvu.txt.