Early 1976: US Intelligence Finds Pakistan Has ‘Crash Program’ to Build Nuclear Bomb

US intelligence discovers that Pakistan has begun a “crash program” to build a nuclear weapon. The weapon is to be a plutonium bomb made using fuel from a reprocessing plant that will be built in Pakistan by the French and financed by Libya. The Ford administration attempts to pressure Pakistan to give up these attempts, and in a meeting in August 1976 Secretary of State Henry Kissinger will offer Pakistan over a hundred fighter planes in return for its giving up the efforts. He will also threaten to “make a horrible example” of Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Pakistan will not respond to these threats, but will eventually abandon this program in favor of attempts to build a uranium bomb by Pakistani nuclear scientist A. Q. Khan. [Armstrong and Trento, 2007, pp. 62-63]