According to this CIA evaluation, the West German governing coalition was so divided and so antagonistic to the Soviet Union in light of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia on 20 August that action was “unlikely for the time being.”

This NIE estimated that within two years Bonn could produce enough fissile material to produce a nuclear weapon, but only by violating safeguards on its nuclear facilities.The estimators, nevertheless, believed that Bonn “will probably want to keep open what options it has for the eventual production of nuclear weapons.”

In this report, the CIA and the AEC found that because the French underestimated the cost of the Pierrelatte plant, they had a reason to consider West German financial aid.They conclude that the West Germans had relevant technical skill and the French may have regarded cooperation as a tactic to dodge Adenauer’s 1954 commitment and also as a “way for German industry to improve its position in the nuclear technological race.”

In the weeks following the November 1961 West German federal elections when a new cabinet formed, CIA sources in Bonn provided information on the thinking of the group of “Young Turks” in Chancellor Konrad Adenauer’s cabinet that included Defense Minister Franz-Joseph Strauss and Foreign Minister Gerhard Schroeder.