From the United States National Archives and Records Administration, this declassified presidential memorandum provides an immediate assessment of China's first nuclear test. This document is available at documents2.theblackvault.com.
This document was declassified under Executive Order Twelve-Three-Five-Six, Section Three-Point-Four, on October twenty-fourth, nineteen-sixty-four. The declassification authority was N-A-R-A. This is a copy from the L-B-J Library.
Memorandum to the President. Subject: Chicom Test Site. October twenty-fourth, nineteen-sixty-four. The attached sheet shows a remarkable intelligence feat. Our satellites have already photographed the Lop Nor test site and confirm our other intelligence reports on the Chinese shot. I have asked John McCone to do his best to see how much of this could be quietly put out, but he and I agree that we should be very careful about the degree of our skill here, because we really do not want the Russians to know how good our cameras are.
Signed, McG. B. Enclosure.
On Chinese Communist Mission seventeen to twenty October, produced of the Chinese Communist nuclear test site at Lop Nor.
There is a darkened, charred area [four lines redacted under exemption B-One] feet in radius around the former location of the shot tower. A lighter, somewhat circular area extends out to about [three lines redacted] from the center. This ground scarring is about what would be expected from a device with an eighteen Kilo-Ton yield.
The test camp, vehicle park, and temporary buildings [three lines redacted] in the operations area prior to the test appear to have been totally removed. This suggests that as of October twentieth, there were no immediate preparations for further testing. Tents at the probable control bunker twelve-point-five miles southwest of the shot area provide the only evidence of any current activity at the test site proper. However, many tents remain at the support area about thirty miles to the west.
This is what the public record looks like at its most ordinary. storyflo.com. That's S-T-O-R-Y-F-L-O dot com. This document can be found at archive.org/download/us-china-intel-CI-zero-one-six-four-one/CI-zero-one-six-four-one_djvu.txt.
