Another thing on Red October

The first October after the Kennedy Assassination in 1963, China detonated it's first nuclear weapon on October 4, 1964.

https://www.ctbto.org/specials/testing-times/16-october-1964-first-chinese-nuclear-test/

With the cooling of Sino-Soviet relations in the late 1950s, the Soviet Union withdrew all assistance. In June 1959, Nikita Khrushchev decided to refuse the provision of a prototype bomb to the Chinese. This rupture prompted China to embark on its own nuclear testing project, code-named 59-6 after the month in which it was initiated.

Russian Help?

https://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/soviet_policies_twrds_chinas_nuclear_weapons_prgm_1.pdf

• Summer 1958 marked the beginning of the end of Soviet nuclear assistance to China, when the

PRC bombardment of Jinmen Island, off Taiwan, caught Moscow off guard.

o China’s failure to turn over a captured US-made Sidewinder missile to the Soviet Union for

study contributed to the deterioration of Sino-Soviet nuclear relations.

• By 1959, with Khrushchev’s position as leader of the USSR now secure, the flow of Soviet

nuclear aid to China became increasingly limited in pace, scope and depth.

o The Soviet decision not to send a long-promised Atomic bomb teaching model to China

was among the most concrete manifestations of the deteriorating Sino-Soviet relationship.

o By August 1960 the last of the Soviet nuclear advisors in China had returned to the USSR.

• Soviet assistance had helped China establish a comprehensive nuclear science and technology

industry. The end of Soviet aid was a significant set-back, but it came far too late to halt China’s

nuclear development completely. China’s first atomic bomb test took place on 16 October

1964.

Sauce on the "plutonium" trigger used is thin, but speculation/allegation isn't hat this is where Israel came in. JFK had plans for both China and Israel nuclear projects.