Summer-Autumn 1974: Pakistan Considers A. Q. Khan’s Proposals for Uranium Bomb

Pakistani government leaders consider a secret proposal made by Pakistani nuclear scientist A. Q. Khan that it build a uranium bomb (see After May 18, 1974) and find it to be a good idea. Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto writes of Khan, “He seems to be making sense.” Siddique Butt, an employee of Pakistan’s embassy in Belgium who will go on to help Khan’s future nuclear smuggling ring, investigates Khan and finds he is a top scientist who can be helpful to Pakistan. Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood, another future key associate of Khan’s, is asked to write another assessment, which finds that, if implemented, Khan’s ideas could give Pakistan enough uranium for a bomb by 1979. Based on these reports, the Pakistani government starts working with Khan, who begins to steal secrets for them (see October 1974). [Armstrong and Trento, 2007, pp. 49-50]