Carter diplomacy failed to stop Pak from going nuclear: documents

The recently declassified US government documents from the Jimmy Carter administration, published on the Internet today by the National Security Archive shed light on the critical period in the late 1970s when US first became aware of Pakistan's nuclear intentions.

The documents show that Pakistani nuclear weapons programme had been a source of anxiety for American policymakers ever since the late 1970s when Washington discovered that metallurgist A Q Khan had stolen blueprints for a gas centrifuge uranium enrichment facility.

The publication of declassified documents comes at a time when WikiLeaks cables reveal the tensions between the US and Pakistan on key nuclear issues, including the security of Pakistan's nuclear weapons arsenal and the disposal of a stockpile of weapons-grade, highly-enriched uranium.

Analysing the series documents of late 1970s, the National Security Archive said the then Carter administration helped prevent a deal that would have given Pakistan a plutonium production capability, but discovered that it could not do much to prevent that country from producing nuclear weapons fuel with the "dual use" technology that the Khan network was acquiring.

Senior US officials concluded that prospects were "poor" for stopping the Pakistani nuclear programme, within months arms controller were "scratching their heads" over how to tackle the problem.

The declassified documents disclose the US government's complex but unsuccessful efforts to convince Pakistan to turn off the gas centrifuge project.

Besides exerting direct pressure on military dictator General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, Washington lobbied key allies and China to pressure Islamabad, but also to cooperate by halting the sale of sensitive technology to Pakistan.

While Washington tried combinations of diplomatic pressure and blandishment to try to dissuade the Pakistanis, it met with strong resistance from Pakistani officials who believed that the country had an "unfettered right to do what it wishes".

By January 1979, US intelligence had estimated that Pakistan was reaching the point where it "may soon acquire all the essential components" for a gas centrifuge plant.
Also in January 1979, US intelligence pushed forward the estimate for a Pakistani bomb to 1982, for a "single device" (plutonium), and to 1983 for the test of a weapon using highly-enriched uranium [HEU], although 1984 was "more likely".On March 3, 1979, Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher spoke in "tough terms" with General Zia and Foreign Minister Shahi. The latter claimed the US was making an "ultimatum".
On March 23, 1979, senior level State Department officials suggested to Secretary of State Vance possible measures to help make the "best combination" of carrots and sticks to constrain the Pakistani nuclear programme, nevertheless, "prospects (were) poor" for realising that goal.

The decision in April 1979 to cut off aid to Pakistan because of its uranium enrichment programme was conflicted by State Department officials, who believed that a nuclear Pakistan would be a "new and dangerous element of instability," but also wanted good relations with the country, a "moderate state" that had contributed to regional stability.
In July 1979, CIA analysts speculated that the Pakistani nuclear programme might receive funding from Islamic countries, including Libya, and that Pakistan might engage in nuclear cooperation, even share nuclear technology, with Saudi Arabia, Libya, or Iraq.

By September 1979, officials at the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency said that "most of us are scratching our heads" about what to do about the Pakistani nuclear programme.

In November 1979, Ambassador Gerard C Smith reported that when meeting with senior British, French, Dutch, and West German officials to encourage them to take tougher positions on the Pakistani nuclear programme, he found "little enthusiasm... to emulate our position".

In the wake of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, when improving relations with Pakistan became a top priority for Washington, according to CIA analysts, Pakistani officials believed that Washington was "reconciled to a Pakistani nuclear weapons capability".

The National Security Archive concluded that the case of Pakistan shows how difficult it is to prevent a determined country from acquiring advanced technology to build nuclear weapons.

"It also illustrates the complexity and difficulty of nonproliferation diplomacy: other political and strategic priorities can and often do trump nonproliferation objectives," it said.

"The documents shed light on a familiar problem: a US-Pakistan relationship that has been rife with suspicions and tensions, largely because of Washington's uneasy balancing act between India and Pakistan, two countries with strong mutual antagonisms, a problem that was aggravated during the Cold War by concerns about Soviet influence in the region," the statement said.