But the means used to gather that knowledge should not be narrowly construed, and the intelligence problem will not be solved by the minimalist tinkering with organizational structures and management carried out so far by Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet. Given the inherent difficulty of successfully gathering intelligence regarding proliferation, more nuclear shocks such as that of May 11 are virtually inevitable if present procedures are followed. Several classes of phenomena, if that is the right word, comprise the information-gathering problem. In the case of India and Pakistan, their nuclear-weapon programs were well known. No proliferation expert, whether in the CIA, in Washington, at the United Nations, or elsewhere, was unaware of Indian and Pakistani nuclear activities.
Known programs are the easiest cases from an intelligence standpoint.
As was true with India, photographic satellites can be trained on test facilities for periodic coverage, imports of critical materials can be tracked, movements of scientific talent followed insofar as possible, and government pronouncements recorded and analyzed. All these things were done regarding India, and no doubt there was little that could have been done very differently. But the general dimensions of the intelligence problem were well understood and the information targets were mostly identified. Becoming aware enough of a proliferator's activity to put it on the intelligence radar screen, not to say the policy screen, is a challenge. The Pakistani program became known through the inadvertent discovery of certain key technology imports.