Before July 1987: ’High-Ranking US Officials’ Tip Off Pakistan about US Arrests over Nuclear Weapons Program

The CIA sets a trap to catch operatives connected to Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program who are buying components in the US, but “two high-ranking US officials extremely close to the White House” tip off Pakistan and only a minor player is caught. Initially, a Pakistani businessman contacts a Pennsylvania company called Carpenter Steel and asks to buy a specific type of metal used only in constructing centrifuges to enrich uranium. The Department of Energy learns of the contact and informs Richard Barlow, a CIA analyst focused on Pakistan’s nuclear program. Barlow realizes that both the businessman, Arshad Pervez, and his handler, Inam ul-Haq, a retired brigadier in the Pakistani army, are well-known Pakistan government operatives. Barlow and US Customs set up a sting at a bugged hotel room, but Pervez arrives without ul-Haq, the main target. Barlow then finds that the officials have tipped off Pakistan, even though the information about the operation was closely held (see Mid-1986 and After). Barlow finds cables implicating the two high-ranking officials in the tip-off: Robert Peck, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State of Near East Affairs, and another official at the under secretary level. A trail of paperwork definitively proves sabotage within the State Department and the tip-off is found “buried within the lawyerly language of a demarche to Islamabad, subtly phrased so as to protect those who had sent it.” Barlow will later comment: “The CIA went mad. These were criminal offenses.” However, the State Department argues an inquiry would disclose state secrets and the investigation is abandoned, just before President Ronald Reagan again certifies that “Pakistan does not possess a nuclear explosive device.” There will later be a stormy congressional hearing about the affair (see July 1987 or Shortly After). [New Yorker, 3/29/1993; Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 169; Guardian, 10/13/2007] Ul-Haq will later be arrested in Germany and extradited to the US, but he will only serve a very short sentence. His nuclear transactions in the US will also be linked to the criminal BCCI bank (see July 11, 1991).