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The iron tower tens of meters high was surrounded by more than a dozen vehicles and hundreds of soldiers and staff yesterday. With the help of heavy trailers and cranes, France's first nuclear bomb "Blue Desert Rat" was slowly lifted up. At the top of the iron tower, after the equipment detected everything was normal, on January 1, the "Blue Desert Rat" was confirmed to be ready for test explosion.
Around the iron tower, there are tanks, trucks, cannons, buses, cars placed at specific distances, buildings of various materials and degrees of strength, and even dolls inside the buildings, and a few outside the buildings. a dummy.
If only discarded vehicles were placed, and a few temporary buildings were built to test the shock wave of the nuclear explosion, then this nuclear test would be too common. The first nuclear test in France must be ingenious, and there cannot be only old routines.
At two places 6 kilometers and 4 kilometers away from the tower, two groups of Algerian natives stayed quietly in the desert.Each of these indigenous people received a salary equivalent to one month's salary, and their job was only to stay in the desert for half a day, and they could even carry drinking water and play umbrellas.
Although the natives had doubts about the job, no one had trouble with the shiny golden franc, and more than 200 people happily came in a big truck.
After getting off at the designated place, it didn't take long to settle in. A few Algerian natives looking around had their eyes lit up, and then felt that they couldn't see anything.
France did not inform the natives of the exact time of the nuclear bomb explosion, so when the "Blue Desert Rat" exploded, the eyes of several natives who were looking in the direction of the iron tower suffered permanent damage. Those who looked in other directions were fine, but only temporarily blind.
After a while, the shock wave of "Blue Desert Rat" came, and the sky was full of yellow sand, which was more violent than any sandstorm.
……
"Both monitoring stations in Gibraltar and Libya have detected nuclear explosions. The explosion yield is about 65000 tons. This is a fission bomb that does not contain fusion material, but the yield is indeed very large."
Allen Dulles hurried into the Oval Office. Six hours after the nuclear explosion, the CIA sorted out the basic information of France's first atomic bomb.
Eisenhower: "The French are very good at timing. January 1st is a memorable moment."
Allen Dulles: "Our intelligence system shows that French nuclear bombs arrived in Algeria in December last year. It is no secret within our alliance that France is going to conduct a nuclear test, but it is big news to the world. … ...President, do you need to condemn or sanction France?"
"Condemnation? No, the White House would issue a statement expressing regret. But I bet the Soviet Union would be the loudest in condemning France."
……
Cleveland, CIA headquarters.
Director Allen Dulles was off to Washington with his first briefing, but the CIA's work wasn't over.
"France's first atomic bomb was a plutonium bomb," said a nuclear expert. "Britain took off a monitoring plane and obtained the first batch of data over the Sahara Desert. What's more interesting is that this atomic bomb used a considerable amount of plutonium." .”
"This shows that the design of French nuclear weapons is relatively crude, and the utilization rate of fissile substances is not high, resulting in a serious waste of raw materials."
"Perhaps," the nuclear expert said, "but this will cause serious pollution to the French nuclear test base and even the entire southern part of Algeria."
"Anyway, this has nothing to do with us, neither did we do it, nor will it hurt Americans..."
……
"Gentlemen," said Fernandez, director of the Nuclear Energy Office of the CIA's Military Intelligence Division, "we have two tasks today, one is the analysis of the results of the French nuclear test, and the other is the intelligence of China's nuclear weapons. Don't forget."
"China? Our intelligence monitoring of China is almost blank."
Fernandez: "After the U-2 was shot down for the first time, we still conducted reconnaissance flights, but they entered from Xinjiang. Has anyone analyzed the photos of Xinjiang?"
"Everyone has seen the photos and can confirm that China has built a nuclear test base in Xinjiang, but the U-2 did not take pictures of the nuclear explosion tower, so we don't know now whether the nuclear explosion tower has not been built yet, or the nuclear explosion tower It was built but not photographed by U-2. This makes it impossible for us to speculate when China will conduct a nuclear test."
"I also hold the same opinion. If the nuclear explosion tower has been erected, then China will conduct a nuclear test within one or two months; if there is no nuclear explosion tower, then China's nuclear test will be at least three months later. "
"Fernandez, we have an indirect method that may be able to deduce the progress of China's nuclear weapons."
It was Franklin, a researcher at the RAND Corporation, who spoke.As the "outsourcing unit" of the CIA, the RAND Corporation has successively received many contracts from the CIA in the past three to four years, and its business scope is not limited to the air force and aviation technical intelligence.
Fernandez: "The indirect method, do you mean collecting the People's Daily, reference sources and current affairs handbooks from Hong Kong?"
Franklin: "...contains this method, but there is something else, the meeting."
Picking up the chalk, Franklin began to write one by one on the blackboard:
"The All Japan Prohibition of Atomic Bombs and Hydrogen Bombs Conference. Since 1955, China has sent a delegation to participate in every meeting. In February 1959, Guo Moruo led a delegation to participate in the meeting. In August 2, the 1959th meeting, China did not send a delegation to participate in the meeting."
"On August 1959, 8, the Asia, Africa and Latin America Conference Against Nuclear Weapons Tests was held. China had representatives to attend the conference every time before, but this time it was absent."
"In September 1959, China was absent from the World Peace Council Conference on Nuclear Abolition."
"On October 1959, 10, China was absent from the All-India Conference against Nuclear Weapons. Of course, there may be factors that have deteriorated Sino-Indian relations."
"Japan's Asian-African Solidarity Committee 'Conference for the Total Abolition of Nuclear Weapons', held on October 1959, 10, China was absent."
"November 1959, 11, Sweden's 'Total Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons' Conference, China did not send a telegram of solidarity and congratulations."
……
"China has been participating in these international conferences or organizing activities in the past few years, or sending telegrams to express its solidarity and support," Franklin said, "However, since August 1959, China has rejected these conferences for various reasons. , although they gave enough reasons every time, the absence of so many meetings happened, which proves..."
"It proves that China's nuclear weapons are ready soon." Fernandez said.
"But we still have to figure out what kind of 'almost good' is." A nuclear expert said.
Franklin: "The watershed before and after these meetings is August 8st. I would like to ask experts who are familiar with the development and manufacture of nuclear weapons to help me..."
"There are more than a dozen important nodes in the development of nuclear weapons. If we say which node is the most important, it means that nuclear weapons have completely achieved a technological breakthrough," the nuclear expert just thought hard. Or plutonium-235."
"Isn't the breakthrough in nuclear warhead design the most significant?"
"It is also the most important, but today, I think that countries that start to develop nuclear weapons will design nuclear warheads earlier than weapons-grade nuclear materials. After all, the structural design of atomic bombs is not so much a secret."
"Assume that on August 8, China obtains weapons-grade uranium and plutonium, and then the processing of nuclear materials, nuclear bomb manufacturing, transportation, inspection, and test explosion... It will take another 1 to 5 months."
Fernandez: "That means China can conduct an atomic bomb test between January 1st and January 1st?"
……
The whole world was disturbed by the French "blue desert rat", and almost forgot the changes in the war situation in eastern India.
In the past week, the slogan of the Indian army has changed from "recovering lost ground" to "consolidating the front", then "orderly retreat", and finally "protecting the country with death".
The division headquarters of the Second Division of the Indian Army is in Jonai, 30 kilometers south of Pasikkan. The acting division commander of the Second Division is burning documents and destroying artifacts that cannot be taken away, and is withdrawing to Tezpur lightly.
Tespur was the headquarters of the former Fourth Army, and Commander Kaur was crossing the Brahmaputra River with the newly rebuilt headquarters.
It is impossible for the newly rebuilt military headquarters not to be bombed.However, the U.S. military asked someone to tell the Indian army to be careful with radio positioning, because China may have electronic reconnaissance planes circling over eastern India at any time.Kaur asked the rebuilt military headquarters to place the radio station 500 meters away from the headquarters, which was really effective. From then on, he and his staff were basically safe, except that two communication soldiers died.
The reason for the withdrawal of troops from Tespur was that the Chinese army not only recovered Bundila, but also moved forward to the side of Baruch.Although the communique of the Chinese government says that the counterattack in self-defense is limited to within China's traditional border line, and ground troops will not cross this line to enter India's legal territory, but who knows if it is.
Next to Baruch is China's traditional border, and further south is Indian territory, which is an absolute plain with no danger at all.
On the easternmost battlefield, the situation is even more strange. On December 500, 12 infantrymen of the Chinese army suddenly attacked and recovered the Warong. The Indian army had 31 troops in Tezu behind the Warong. They planned to call back to support Pasika. , Now forced to turn back and march northeast along the river valley to recover Walong.
Then, from January 1, the 3 people who went to retake Walong lost contact.
……
"Our reinforcements, the 23th Division and the [-]rd Division both crossed the Siliguri Corridor. However, I asked them to change the marching destination and no longer rushed to Tespur to join the [-]th Army. Rushing to Tespur is Dangerous move. Both divisions are between Bangegaon and Narbari."
Defense Minister Menon is in a bad state, worse than Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Mukherjee.