The Pakistani Bomb?

Globalization, what a concept. You can get a burger prepared your waypractically anywhere in the world. The Nike Swoosh appears at eliteathletic venues across the United States and on the skinny frames of t-shirtedchildren playing in the streets of Calcutta. For those interested in buying anAmerican automobile -- a word of warning -- it is not so unusual to find more"American content" in a Japanese car than one built by Detroit's BigThree.

So don't kid yourself about the Pakistani bomb. From burgers to bombs,globalization has had an impact. Pakistan's nuclear arsenal -- as many as 120weapons -- is no more Pakistani than your television set is Japanese. Or is thatAmerican? It was a concept developed in one country and, for the most part,built in another. Its creation was an example of globalization before the termwas even coined.

A Proliferation Chain Reaction

So where to begin? Some argue that Pakistan started down the nuclear roadunder President Dwight D. Eisenhower's 1953 Atoms for Peace program, billed as ahumanitarian gesture aimed at sharing the peaceful potential of atomic energywith the world. But Atoms for Peace was a misnomer -- a plan to divert growingdomestic and international concern over radioactive fallout from America'snuclear tests. It would prove to be a White House public relations campaign todwarf all others.

In fact, Atoms for Peace educated thousands of scientists from around theworld in nuclear science and then dispatched them home, where many later pursuedsecret weapons programs. Among them were Israelis, South Africans, Pakistanis,and Indians. Homi Sethna, chairman of the Indian Atomic Energy Commission,spelled out the program's impact after his country tested its first nucleardevice in 1974. "I can say with confidence," he wrote, "that theinitial [Atoms for Peace program] cooperation agreement itself has been thebedrock on which our nuclear program has been built."

If you think that India's program, in turn, did not inspire Pakistan's, thinkagain.

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the late Pakistani prime minister and father of BenazirBhutto, first talked publicly about nuclear weapons in the early 1960s when hewas Pakistan's energy minister. In his 1967 autobiography, Bhutto wrote,"All wars of our age have become total wars… and our plans should,therefore, include the nuclear deterrent." But Pakistan's generals rejectedhis ideas, arguing that the cost of producing a nuclear bomb would cut toodeeply into spending on conventional weapons. It wasn't until after Bhuttobecame prime minister that he officially launched Pakistan's nuclear weaponsprogram in 1972.

Consider here, yet another atomic beginning: Pakistan, a poor, backwardcountry, with little indigenous technical or industrial infrastructure, madenext to no progress on the nuclear front, despite Bhutto's enthusiasm, until thearrival of Abdul Qadeer Khan at the end of 1975.

The Indian-born Khan had fled his home in Bhopal in the 1950s to settle inthe new state of Pakistan. There, he went to university, quickly becomingfrustrated by the lack of opportunity. Study and advanced degrees in Europefollowed until, finally, Khan found himself working at the Physics DynamicsResearch Laboratory in Amsterdam in the spring of 1972.

At the time, powerful companies like Westinghouse and General Electriccontrolled the facilities that provided enriched uranium to civilian reactorsthroughout the Western world. In 1971, in an effort to protect the fledglingU.S. commercial nuclear industry, President Richard M. Nixon had ordered thatthe closely guarded enrichment technology not be shared with any other country,not even allies. That led other nations to begin developing their own enrichmenttechnology to ensure continual access to an adequate fuel supply. The lab whereKhan was employed, known by its Dutch initials FDO, was the in-house researchfacility for a Dutch conglomerate that worked closely with Urenco, a consortiumformed by the governments of Britain, West Germany, and the Netherlands todesign and manufacture centrifuges.

To cut right to the chase, Khan, who was able to work at the lab withoutserious scrutiny from the Dutch security police, found that he had easy accessto the latest uranium-enrichment technology. Within three years, he had left thelab -- in possession of plans for Europe's most advanced centrifuge and ashopping list of relevant equipment manufacturers, experts for hire, and sourcesfor the necessary raw materials to enrich uranium for a nuclear bomb, allscattered across the globe.

Before leaving the lab, Khan wrote Prime Minister Bhutto, offering hisservices and returned to Pakistan to launch that country's ownuranium-enrichment laboratory.

FDO was just the start of Khan's reliance on the outside world forbomb-making help. With the support of Pakistani scientists and militaryofficers, working undercover as "diplomats" at the country's missionsaround the world, he set up what became known as "the Pakistanipipeline," securing high-tech equipment from literally hundreds ofcompanies in 20 or more countries.

While some of this is well known, a series of little-publicized lettersbetween Khan and a Canadian-Pakistani engineer, Aziz Abdul Khan, in 1978 and1979 offer a revealing look at the degree to which globalization shapedPakistan's nuclear program. The so-called Islamic bomb turns out not to be anindigenous product, but instead a little bit American, Canadian, Swiss, German,Dutch, British, Japanese, and even Russian.

Aziz Khan was one of dozens of Pakistani scientists living abroad whom Khantried to recruit for what he described as a "project of nationalimportance." According to the letters between them, while Aziz Khandeclined the offer, he agreed to provide A.Q. Khan with scientific literatureand to spend his vacations at A.Q. Khan's laboratory outside of Islamabad,training and mentoring young engineers.

We obtained the letters -- which cover the comings and goings of nuclearexperts from nine different countries -- from an American government official,who, in turn, received them from Canadian law enforcement officers after theywere taken from Aziz Khan, following his arrest in Montreal in 1980.

These exchanges provide a rare behind-the-scenes glimpse into Khan's nuclearWal-Mart in its infancy, long before he began peddling his finished wares toIran, North Korea, and Libya. After a decade of diplomatic rhetoric about theneed to stop the spread of nuclear technology, they also offer a window into theineffectiveness of American and European export controls. By setting theseletters -- often colorfully translated from Urdu by the Canadian authorities --against the backdrop of the news coverage of the time, you can see just howdisturbingly international the assistance was that Khan received.

Buying "Ducks" from Russia

It was an exciting time for Pakistan's fledgling nuclear program. On June 4,1978, A.Q. Khan wrote to Aziz Khan, describing early tests of his centrifugedesigns, referring to the process of substituting helium for uranium gas asputting "air in the machine."

"June 4 is a historical day for us. On that day we put 'air' in the machine and the first time we got the right product and its efficiency was the same as the theoretical… As you have seen, my team consists of crazy people. They do not care if it is day or night. They go after it with all their might. The bellows have arrived and like this we can increase the speed of our work."

Khan's international nuclear shopping spree was soon on display as he wroteproudly to his Canadian friend just a week later to recount the trip made by amember of his clandestine procurement network to Japan to obtain some critical,though unexplained help. "Colonel Majeed is back from Japan and thanks Godall the problems have been solved. Next month the Japanese would come here andall the work would be done under their supervision."

The following month, he wrote Aziz Khan about one of his Pakistani protégés:"Dr. Mirza is back from America. He had gone to get the training for thecontrol room of the air conditioning plant." In the same letter, heannounced that "the plant of Switzerland has arrived," probably areference to a specialized pumping system to move uranium gas in and out of thecentrifuges during enrichment.

In August, the scientist told Aziz Khan that Colonel Majeed was on the roadagain, "leaving for Germany, England and Switzerland. He would be lookingfor cable and sub panels. Our friend from Kuwait will join us in November and inthis way we will not have to worry about generators and emergency power supply.He has 15 years experience." Within weeks, Khan wrote enthusiastically that"a German team was here. After staying five days, they went back. It wasquite a busy time."

A.Q. Khan was also in the hunt himself. Mentioning that he had sent a cableto California, he wrote in the fall of 1978 that, "if our two units areready, then myself and Dr. Mirza would come for thanks and maybe we could meetyou." The "two units" was probably a reference to two huge airconditioners that Khan bought from an unidentified U.S. company.

In the spring of 1979, Khan would explain: "Dr. Alam, Dr. Hashmi andmyself are going to Germany and Switzerland for two or three days. We have tobuy some material there and then we will return through London."

Khan's project was seen abroad as a potentially profitable market, and theRussians, too, were rushing to sell their wares. Using a primitive code, Khanwrote: "Hopefully, in winter there will be ducks from Russia. This is a bigjob. Now the emergency generators are going to be installed very soon."

But all was not perfect. During the summer of 1978, a British member ofParliament asked why a British subsidiary of the American Emerson Electric Co.was selling Pakistan the same high frequency inverter that Britain was using inits own uranium-enrichment project -- and by the fall, shipments to Pakistan hadbeen stopped. Khan complained that a German supplier had tipped the British offwhen he did not get the nod on a business deal.

"That man from the German team was unethical. When he did not get the order from us, he wrote a letter to a Labour party member and questions were asked in Parliament. Work is still progressing satisfactorily but the frustration is increasing. It is just like a man who waited for 30 years but cannot wait for a few hours after the marriage ceremony."

By the spring of the following year, Khan's team was feeling the strain. Heonce again wrote Aziz Khan about his troubles in a clumsy code:

"For such a long time, no one has taken a single day's holiday. Everybody is working very hard so that by the end of the year, the factory should start working and should start providing cake and bread. Here there is shortage of food and we need those things very badly. From everywhere our food is being stopped."

Khan's success in obtaining nuclear material abroad did not go unnoticed.American intelligence watched his procurement operation and U.S. officialsoccasionally complained in public, prompting Aziz Khan to write in June 1979:"There is no doubt that you guys made people here sleepless…. These daysyou are famous all over the world."

In August of 1979, still struggling, Khan wrote his friend of a deal that hecould not consummate in Canada, probably a reference to difficulties obtaining aspecialized type of inverter essential to operating the uranium enrichmentplant.

"You must be reading that your countrymen have decided to drink our blood. The way they are after us, it looks as if we have killed their mother. Their building of castles in the air has beaten the Arabian Nights. There is lots of pressure, but I have trust in God in doing my work. I am thinking, if I finish this job, then I would solve the purpose of my life."

Khan did indeed overcome the obstacles -- with plenty of help from hisfriends around the world. And he had learned his lesson well. When he wasfinished helping Pakistan build its bomb, he turned his talents to another kindof globalization -- marketing his wares, and those of his associates fromEurope, Asia, and South Africa, to a new set of clients.

Douglas Frantz, the former managing editor of the Los Angeles Times and atwo-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, is a senior writer at Conde Nast Portfolio.Catherine Collins, a former Chicago Tribune reporter, is now a Washington-basedwriter. They are co-authors of TheNuclear Jihadist: The True Story of the Man Who Sold the World's Most DangerousSecrets… and How We Could Have Stopped Him (Twelve, 2007). Copyright 2007Catherine Collins and Douglas Frantz. Courtesy, TomDispatch.com