What did the declassified documents reveal?

From Declassified, a storyflo podcast. Today, we examine a declassified National Intelligence Estimate from the Director of Central Intelligence, dated March tenth, nineteen-sixty-five. This report, titled "Communist China's Military Establishment," offers a comprehensive assessment of China's armed forces at a pivotal moment in the Cold War. You can find this document at archive.org under the entry "US Intelligence on China CI01663." This record was approved for release on June twentieth, two-thousand-four. It was declassified under exemption B3 by the Director of Central Intelligence. This is a redacted version of a formerly Secret document, made available to the public under Freedom of Information Act requests. The document begins: National Intelligence Estimate Number 13-3-65. Communist China's Military Establishment. Submitted by the Director of Central Intelligence. Concurred in by the United States Intelligence Board. The Problem: To assess the character and present effectiveness of Communist China's armed forces, and to estimate trends which would affect their future capabilities. Note: This estimate is the first to attempt a comprehensive analysis of the broad range of questions pertaining to Communist China's military establishment. The Chinese Communist regime's intensive and highly effective security measures make China, in general, a difficult intelligence target. Estimating the nature and scope of the Chinese military production effort is made more difficult because much of the program is still in the developmental and factory construction stages. We are thus unable to make confident judgments on many important matters concerning the nature, scope, and prospects of Chinese Communist military developments and this paper should be read in the light of this general caution. Conclusions: A. Communist Party influence [one line redacted] all levels of the Peoples Liberation Army (the entire Chinese Communist military establishment). The senior political and military leaders are united by ties of comradeship in a long revolutionary war. Political commissars are assigned to every command down to company level. Although the troops are conscripts, they are selected for political reliability and receive constant political indoctrination. B. The Chinese Communists continue to proclaim the military doctrine of Mao Tse-tung which stresses self-reliance, the dominance of men and politics over weaponry, and the concept of a protracted "people's war." This doctrine, deemed applicable to "wars of national liberation," is also applied to a potential conflict with the U S. Communist China is apprehensive regarding the possibility of a U S nuclear attack followed by a large-scale invasion, but holds that in such a case China could accept nuclear devastation and still overwhelm the invaders in a protracted "people's war." The Chinese leaders hope that this prospect will deter the U S. C. The Chinese leaders, however, cannot derive much comfort from this…

Why was this case declassified?

This material entered the public record through the U.S. declassification and Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) process. The originating source document is linked on this page so the citation chain is auditable.

Army: Communist China

◆ BLUF — The short version

From Declassified, a storyflo podcast. Today, we examine a declassified National Intelligence Estimate from the Director of Central Intelligence, dated March tenth, nineteen-sixty-five. This report, titled "Communist China's Military Establishment," offers a comprehensive assessment of China's armed forces at a pivotal moment in the Cold War.

Date: AUG 29 · 2026
Release: Declassified · U.S. public record (FOIA)
Source document: View the primary source document

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What was Army: Communist China about?: From Declassified, a storyflo podcast. Today, we examine a declassified National Intelligence Estimate from the Director of Central Intelligence, dated March tenth, nineteen-sixty-five. This report, titled "Communist China's Military Establishment," offers a comprehensive assessment of China's armed forces at a pivotal moment in the Cold War.
Why was this case declassified?: This material entered the public record through the U.S. declassification and Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) process. Storyflo narrates it directly from the public release.

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