| As the world’s first country to master atomic bomb technology,the United States faced dual tasks on nuclear intelligence: keeping its own nuclear secret and obtaining nuclear intelligence from other countries.The Soviet Union was the biggest challenger to US nuclear supremacy.In September 1942,State Defense Committee of USSR secretly launched the nuclear program,and for 11 years thereafter,the Soviet Union had successfully finished the bomb development and fully controlled A-bomb technology.Meanwhile,Soviet nuclear spies impinged heavily on US nuclear project which rendered serious intelligence leakage on the one hand;on the other hand,the US performance on nuclear intelligence was improved: nuclear intelligence community was gradually established;intelligence activities against Russia nuclear programme were increasing;the intelligence analysis ability was elevated and all the atomic bombs detonated in the Soviet Union had been timely and accurately identified;the United States also developed new ideas of cooperating with Allies and launched all-range nuclear intelligence containment against the Soviet Union.This thesis mainly studies targeted nuclear intelligence activities conducted by the United States during the Soviet atomic bomb research and development(R&D).The full text is divided into three parts: an introduction,six chapters of the body and the conclusion.The Introduction explains the core concepts involved in the research,defines the period involved,expounds the domestic and foreign research situation on nuclear intelligence issues,introduces the writing purposes and research methods of this paper,and analyzes the innovation points and deficiencies of this paper.Chapter 1 mainly combs the US nuclear intelligence agencies and corresponding intelligence activities.In the 1940 s,some US intelligence agencies were successively involved in nuclear intelligence.Various agencies carried out specific intelligence activities based on their own business expertise,while they were in lack of overall coordination and interaction.The establishment of Central Intelligence Agency ensured US government a state-level intelligence agency,which was responsible for coordinating secondary intelligence agencies and producing national nuclear intelligence analysis reports for the decision-maker.The US military was the most active division in nuclear intelligence community throughout the 1940 s and early1950 s.The Army was responsible for the intelligence management within Manhattan Engineer District during World War II;the Navy was capable of independent nuclear R&D and actively participated in post-war remote nuclear detection;the Air Force is the protagonist of the postwar US remote nuclear detection system,which carried out technology-based remote nuclear intelligence collection and analysis.In civilian intelligence agencies,the Office of Scientific Research and Development undertook early intelligence gathering in the United States;the FBI was responsible for domestic anti-intelligence especially the nuclear spy investigations.Atomic Energy Detection System was an integrated nuclear intelligence establishment specialized in nuclear intelligence collection and analysis.Chapter 2 introduces the struggle between the US and the Soviet intelligence agencies in the early nuclear intelligence defense.During World War II,the flawed compartmentalization,censorship,security clearance and publicity strategy in the Manhattan Engineer District caused potential intelligence leakage.At the same time,the United States was not fully aware of the latent threat from the Soviet Union and took no effective precautions,which rendered the establishment of Soviet secret intelligence network in the United States.The ample nuclear secrets stolen from the Manhattan Project through espionage accelerated Soviet nuclear programme.Although the United States noticed Soviet spies by decoding intercepted diplomatic messages during World War II,the major breakthrough in decipher happened after the closing of US A-bomb program.Thus,the United States missed the golden time to prevent intelligence leakage.The US.government and juristic agencies at all levels conducted in-depth investigations into nuclear spies based on the decoded messages,and conducted other related investigations and hearings.Post-hoc in nature,the move caused no effective interception against Soviet espionage and didn’t prevent the disclosure of nuclear secrets.Chapter 3 discusses the American collection and analysis of Soviet nuclear intelligence.During the Soviet A-bomb R&D,US intelligence gathering faced new challenges.The strict domestic control of the Soviet Union led to the classic intelligence collection means ineffective,mainly open source intelligence,artificial intelligence and signal intelligence.The United States made immediate transformation in working methods and carried out new intelligence collection activities based on science and technology: high-altitude image monitoring,seismological detection and radioactive fallout detection became the major ways in collecting Soviet nuclear intelligence.Meanwhile,the nuclear resources left by Germany after the war had been coveted by the Soviet Union and other occupation countries.By closely tracking German scientists in the Soviet Union,monitoring Soviet nuclear production activities in Germany,and large-scale interrogation of POW(Prisoner-of-War)returned from the Soviet Union,the United States also mastered part of the Soviet nuclear intelligence in time.Through intensive processing of existing intelligence,the United States tried to predict the timing of the first Soviet atomic bomb and successfully identified the detonation of Soviet bombs through scientific analysis of the information collected.Chapter 4 examines the nuclear intelligence blockade of the US against the Soviet Union.Nuclear raw material was an indispensable physical basis for the atomic bomb project.In order to prevent the Soviet Union and other competing countries from threatening the United States due to sufficient possession of nuclear raw materials,the United States carried out secret geological exploration and investigation of global nuclear raw materials,and then seized available nuclear raw materials through commercial procurement.For untapped nuclear raw materials,the United States allied with the United Kingdom to conduct diplomatic negotiations with raw material producing countries.Through diplomatic negotiations with Belgium,Sweden,Brazil,the Netherlands,etc.the US and UK has jointly enjoyed most-favored-nation treatment in uranium and thorium ore purchasing for a relatively long time to come,and had received the official guarantee of export restrictions.Besides,the United States also relied on constant improvement of regulations to strictly control nuclear-related information and technology,thus realized the nuclear intelligence blockade against the Soviet Union from multiple perspectives.Chapter 5 discusses the US nuclear intelligence cooperation with allied countries.The United States was unable to obtain complete Soviet nuclear intelligence with its own strength,and it was unable to conduct a comprehensive blockade of the Soviet nuclear program.The nuclear intelligence cooperation with the UK is due to the comparable level of nuclear technology between the US and the UK,and the consistent strategic goals on the Soviet nuclear issue.At the same time,the intelligence resources of the two countries are complementary,and the cooperation will bring the maximum intelligence output.The United States and the UK had secretly signed a series of agreements and built various types of cooperation platforms.The promulgation of the Atomic Energy Act 1946 and the exposure of Soviet nuclear spies brought to an abrupt end to comprehensive nuclear cooperation between the two countries,but the two remained close in the field of nuclear intelligence.Through the active exchange of information and joint operations,they closely monitored the Soviet nuclear program and promptly discovered the first,second,and third atomic bombs detonated in the Soviet Union.Cooperation in nuclear intelligence had also played a positive role in the resumption of complete nuclear cooperation in the future.Chapter 6 summarizes the overall characteristics of the US nuclear intelligence against the Soviet Union.In the construction of nuclear intelligence community,the United States breaks through traditional thinking,created national-level intelligence agencies,and gradually established specialized agencies engaged in nuclear intelligence.However,the interaction and coordination between different agencies were not sufficient,competition and restriction were obvious.As to the US nuclear intelligence defense,the performance of the intelligence community was characterized by both “early failure” and the “late success”,which meant a transfer from the initial passive response to the Soviet nuclear espionage to the active all-round intelligence blockade in the later stage,the US intelligence control and protection ability was continuously improved.In intelligence gathering,the United States mainly obtained Soviet nuclear information from the periphery: the US intelligence personnel did not fully enter the Soviet Union,let alone penetrating the Soviet nuclear program;the main intelligence gathering devices and surveillance operations were also outside the Soviet Union;even many nuclear information about the Soviet Union was obtained from Germany.In this process,the traditional and artificial intelligence collection tends to be modern and scientific in nature.In nuclear intelligence analysis,the United States presented a division of "complete failure" and "great success".Failure referred to the inaccurate prediction of the time when the Soviet Union could have the first atomic bomb.Predictions made by different agencies could not reach a consensus and the time predicted was far later than the reality.Success referred to the accurate judgement of the Soviet atomic bombs: in addition to the timely detection of Soviet nuclear explosion,the United States also reached a positive conclusion about the nature of the explosions as well as the explosives in a very short time.In the nuclear intelligence cooperation,the collaboration between the United States and the Allies ran through the whole Soviet nuclear program.The intelligence activities of the each side echoed each other and was significantly homogenized.In the process of cooperation,there were also competition and constraints between the United States and the Allies.It is concluded that during the Soviet atomic bomb R&D,the US nuclear intelligence sprung up from nothing to something,from passive to active,and achieved certain results.The construction of nuclear establishment went parallel with the nuclear intelligence activities and influence each other simultaneously.Nuclear intelligence cooperation with the UK brought both advantages and disadvantages to the US.Gaining more intelligence about Soviet atomic bomb on the one hand,the United States had to share nuclear intelligence with Britain on the other hand.The relationship between intelligence and science-technology was turning closer.Scientists and scientific research institutions had played a prominent role in nuclear intelligence. |
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