Shortly Before December 29, 1993: Aide Warns Pakistani Prime Minister Bhutto about North Korea Trip, Refuses to Go

Husein Haqqani, an aide to Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, tells her that a planned trip to North Korea at the request of nuclear scientist A. Q. Khan to facilitate nuclear co-operation between the two countries (see December 29, 1993 and Shortly After) is a bad idea and she should not go. Haqqani will later say: “North Korea was an outlaw state, with few morals or qualms about trading in anything illicit and it was at loggerheads with the US. I told her the military and Khan were trying to trick her and that we should not be doing arms deals with [North Korea]. But she ignored me and asked me to accompany her. I cried off. I let a colleague go in my place. I let him think I was giving him a chance when I was actually watching my own back. All I kept thinking was, what happens many years down the line when this trip to North Korea is gone over? Such a thing could ruin a career. There was this bad smell about it.” [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 245]