Page 2 of
2 How you helped
build Pakistan's bomb By Catherine Collins
and Douglas Frantz
ineffectiveness
of American and European export controls. By
setting these letters - often colorfully
translated from Urdu by the Canadian authorities -
against the backdrop of the news coverage of the
time, you can see just how disturbingly
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 centrifuge
designs, referring to the process of substituting
helium for uranium gas as putting "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 wrote
proudly to his Canadian friend just a week later
to recount the trip made by a member of his
clandestine procurement network to Japan to obtain
some critical, though unexplained help. "Colonel
Majeed is back from Japan and thanks God all the
problems have been solved. Next month the Japanese
would come here and all the work would be done
under their supervision."
The following
month, he wrote Aziz Khan about one of his
Pakistani proteges: "Dr Mirza is back from
America. He had gone to get the training for the
control room of the air-conditioning plant." In
the same letter, he announced that "the plant of
Switzerland has arrived", probably a reference to
a specialized pumping system to move uranium gas
in and out of the centrifuges during enrichment.
In August, the scientist told Aziz Khan
that Colonel Majeed was on the road again,
"leaving for Germany, England and Switzerland. He
would be looking for cable and sub panels. Our
friend from Kuwait will join us in November and in
this 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 was
quite a busy time."
A Q Khan was also in
the hunt himself. Mentioning that he had sent a
cable to California, he wrote in the autumn of
1978, "If our two units are ready, then myself and
Dr Mirza would come for thanks and maybe we could
meet you." The "two units" was probably a
reference to two huge air-conditioners that Khan
bought from an unidentified US company.
In
the spring of 1979, Khan would explain: "Dr Alam,
Dr Hashmi and myself are going to Germany and
Switzerland for two or three days. We have to buy
some material there and then we will return
through London."
Khan's project was seen
abroad as a potentially profitable market, and the
Russians, too, were rushing to sell their wares.
Using a primitive code, Khan wrote: "Hopefully, in
winter there will be ducks from Russia. This is a
big job. Now the emergency generators are going to
be installed very soon."
But all was not
perfect. During the summer of 1978, a British
member of Parliament asked why a British
subsidiary of the American Emerson Electric Co was
selling Pakistan the same high frequency inverter
that Britain was using in its own
uranium-enrichment project - and by the autumn,
shipments to Pakistan had been stopped. Khan
complained that a German supplier had tipped the
British off when 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. He once 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 US officials
occasionally complained in public, prompting Aziz
Khan to write in June 1979: "There is no doubt
that you guys made people here sleepless ... These
days you are famous all over the world."
In August of 1979, still struggling, Khan
wrote his friend of a deal that he could not
consummate in Canada, probably a reference to
difficulties in obtaining a specialized type of
inverter essential to operating the uranium
enrichment plant.
"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 his friends around the
world. And he had learned his lesson well. When he
was finished helping Pakistan build its bomb, he
turned his talents to another kind of
globalization - marketing his wares, and those of
his associates from Europe, Asia and South Africa,
to a new set of clients.
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