May 18, 1974: India Tests First Nuclear Device

India detonates a nuclear device in an underground facility. The device had been built using material supplied for its ostensibly peaceful nuclear program by the United States, France, and Canada. The test, and this aspect of India’s nuclear program, is unauthorized by global control mechanisms. India portrays the test as a “peaceful nuclear explosion,” and says it is “firmly committed” to using nuclear technology for only peaceful purposes.
Kissinger: 'Fait Accompli' - Pakistan, India’s regional opponent, is extremely unhappy with the test, which apparently confirms India’s military superiority. Due to the obvious difficulties producing its own nuclear bomb, Pakistan first tries to find a diplomatic solution. It asks the US to provide it with a nuclear umbrella, without much hope of success. Relations between Pakistan and the US, once extremely close, have been worsening for some years. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger tells Pakistan’s ambassador to Washington that the test is “a fait accompli and that Pakistan would have to learn to live with it,” although he is aware this is a “little rough” on the Pakistanis.
No Punishment - No sanctions are imposed on India, or the countries that sold the technology to it, and they continue to help India’s nuclear program. Pakistani foreign minister Agha Shahi will later say that, if Kissinger had replied otherwise, Pakistan would have not started its own nuclear weapons program and that “you would never have heard of A. Q. Khan.” Shahi also points out to his colleagues that if Pakistan does build a bomb, then it will probably not suffer any sanctions either.
Pakistan Steps up Nuclear Program - Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto then decides that his country must respond to this “grave and serious threat” by making its own nuclear weapons. He steps up Pakistan’s nuclear research efforts in a quest to build a bomb, a quest that will be successful by the mid-1980s (see 1987). [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 11-14; Armstrong and Trento, 2007, pp. 39-40]