The U.S. and the Pakistani Bomb, 1984-1985: General Zia, President Reagan, and Seymour Hersh
William Burr (ed.)
National Security Archive
October 14, 2015
Washington, D.C., 14 October 2015 - In July 1984, U.S. customs agents arrested a Pakistani national, Nazir Ahmed Vaid, at Houston International Airport for trying to purchase krytrons–useful for triggering nuclear weapons–and smuggle them out of the United States Some months later, Vaid was found guilty of violating export control laws, but a plea bargain produced a light penalty: deportation. Months later, journalist Seymour Hersh wrote a major article about the Vaid case for the New York Times and quoted a U.S. government official who said that the State Department had been “blase” about the case.
Declassified documents, published today by the National Security Archive for the first time, portray State Department officials on the defensive in their discussions with Hersh, denying his implication that the Department “had deliberately tried to soft-pedal” the case. Other officials were not so sure. Arch Turrentine, a senior official at the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA), conceded that State “may have been reluctant to push too hard … for fear of upsetting US-Pakistani relations.” According to Turrentine, “we should do better next time.”
Today’s posting thus explores important divisions within the U.S. government over Pakistani nuclear proliferation as it played out against the backdrop of the war in Afghanistan, exposing some difficult and controversial trade-offs in support of U.S. foreign policy interests. At the same time, the documents open a fascinating window into official attempts to manage outside scrutiny of a sensitive U.S. policy by one of America’s hardest-hitting investigative reporters.
Check out today’s posting at the National Security Archive -http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/nukevault/ebb531-U.S.-Pakistan-Nuclear-Relations,-1984-1985/
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