- 6 months ago
Seymour Hersh tells the story of a Pakistani businessman who tried to ship electrical devices which can be used as nuclear bomb triggers out of the US to Pakistan.
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00:00Major funding for Frontline is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
00:06Additional funding is provided by this station and other public television stations nationwide.
00:12Tonight, Seymour Hersh, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, in his first television investigative report.
00:19This is it. This puts the line.
00:22So, I have to say that these documents we have have been in the government's possession since June at least.
00:29I don't think you've been telling the truth about your connection.
00:32And I think these documents show that you have not.
00:35Tonight on Frontline, Seymour Hersh sets out in pursuit of a man's true identity,
00:41and his role in a plot for buying a bomb.
00:53From the network of public television stations,
00:56a presentation of KCTS Seattle,
00:59WNET New York,
01:01WPBT Miami,
01:03WTVS Detroit,
01:05and WGBH Boston.
01:07This is Frontline,
01:09with Judy Woodruff.
01:15Good evening.
01:16For the past ten years, there have been repeated allegations that Pakistan has been developing nuclear weapons.
01:22Officials in the United States and Europe say Pakistan has been secretly trying to assemble technology necessary to build an atomic bomb.
01:32Pakistan has repeatedly denied these allegations, claiming its nuclear program is only for peaceful purposes.
01:39But it has permitted no independent inspection of its research and test facilities,
01:45and has refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
01:50Under the Carter administration, American aid to Pakistan was twice suspended,
01:55because officials said there were growing fears about Pakistan's nuclear intentions.
02:00But since the Soviet Union invaded Pakistan's neighbor, Afghanistan, in 1979,
02:07aid to Pakistan has been renewed and even increased to $3.2 billion in military and economic assistance,
02:16making it the fourth highest recipient of United States aid.
02:20Tonight on Frontline, Pulitzer Prize-winning former New York Times reporter Seymour Hirsch,
02:27in his first investigative report for television,
02:30raises new and disturbing questions about how close Pakistan has come to building a nuclear device.
02:38His report is produced by Mark Obenhaus and Edward Gray.
02:43It is called, Buying the Bomb.
02:50These tiny electrical switches, known as critrons, are manufactured only in the United States by EG&G,
02:57a leading defense contractor.
02:59They have use in high energy physics and oil exploration.
03:03But a critron can also trigger an atomic bomb.
03:07This man is Nazer Ahmed Vaid.
03:10He risked 12 years in an American jail when he tried to smuggle to Pakistan 50 critrons,
03:16with a value of less than $4,000.
03:19After a four-month investigation, the United States government concluded that he was nothing more than a negligent businessman,
03:26as reported on KHOU-TV in Houston, Texas, on October the 22nd, 1984.
03:33Reporting live from Houston's News Center, Chip Moody and Felicia Jeter.
03:38A 33-year-old Pakistani man was sentenced to five years probation today after admitting that he tried to export triggers for nuclear weapons to Pakistan.
03:47Nazer Ahmad Vaid, a Pakistani freight handler, was arrested at Houston Intercontinental Airport back in June.
03:54Federal Judge James Dianda said Vaid was not acting as an enemy spy, but rather was apparently just trying to accommodate one of his customers.
04:02The Pakistani said he was going to ship the high-speed nuclear triggers to someone at a Pakistan university for research purposes.
04:09My name is Seymour Hersh. This is a film about my investigation into the true identity of Nazer Ahmed Vaid.
04:16Nazer Ahmed Vaid, a Pakistani citizen who was arrested by American officials and accused of illegally attempting to export into Pakistan, your country, 50 crytrons.
04:29The government of Pakistan has absolutely nothing to do with the true identity of Nazer Ahmed Vaid.
04:35Nazer Ahmed Vaid, a Pakistani citizen who was arrested by American officials and accused of illegally attempting to export into Pakistan, your country, 50 crytrons.
04:44The government of Pakistan has absolutely nothing to do with this individual.
04:48He is a private trader based at Karachi, and that is all we know about him.
04:54And to the best of my knowledge, he is also not linked with the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission.
05:00And he acts and operates entirely in his individual capacity as a private businessman of Pakistan.
05:08Do you know anything else about him? Who is he?
05:11Well, he came into prominence, in fact, first time I heard about him, when he was detained at Houston.
05:18And then we came to know that he owns a private trading firm. Beyond that, I don't know much about him.
05:24And you have checked with your officials in Islamabad?
05:27Yes, of course I have. Of course I have. And they have confirmed that he has nothing to do whatsoever with the government of Pakistan.
05:35What is your government's position on nuclear arms?
05:39Well, I want to reiterate this as emphatically as I can, Mr. Hirsch, that the government of Pakistan is not engaged in the production of a nuclear weapon.
05:50The dimensions of our nuclear program are entirely peaceful. It is a very modest research and development program, mainly meant to meet our requirements in the energy sector, and also the application of nuclear technology in the field of medicine, in the field of agriculture, and in the field of industry.
06:10The United States administration has repeatedly made its position clear that they would not welcome any development or any proliferation of nuclear weapons in the world, and that includes Pakistan also.
06:23And we are fully aware of that. And we have equally made our position clear that Pakistan is not engaged in the production of nuclear weapons.
06:30The public record contradicts the ambassador. This man, S.A. Butt, shown here in a British television film, is a director of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission.
06:41It has been documented that in the 1970s, while based in Paris, Mr. Butt orchestrated Pakistan's clandestine efforts to buy the bomb.
06:49It had been assumed that Butt would not risk operating in the United States because of Pakistan's dependence on American aid.
06:56Nazar Vaid was arrested for doing exactly what S.A. Butt and his operatives had done in Europe, and yet nothing was made of his capture.
07:04No press conference, no major news coverage, and the American government claimed it found no evidence that Vaid was operating as an agent.
07:12As a former senior official in the arms control agency, what do you think Pakistan wanted with the Krytrons?
07:18Oh, I don't, I don't have much doubt. I always try to leave myself a little residual doubt, but I have real trouble in this case.
07:2450 Krytrons is a whole lot of Krytrons. And when you put it together with all of the other things we know about the Pakistani efforts to acquire nuclear materials,
07:33which are not subject to IAEA safeguards, the long tradition they've had of using covert purchasing means to acquire things for their nuclear program.
07:45I don't have much doubt at all that they wanted those 50 Krytrons for nuclear explosive purposes.
07:50Does Pakistan have a high-tech research apparatus capable of absorbing 50 Krytrons? Is there any possible need for that many Krytrons in Pakistan?
07:58No, the suggestion that they needed 50 of these for the university is ridiculous.
08:02Well, I'll tell you this much. If I were in the government and somebody walked in like Vaid, you caught, you know, you just, you just fell through the transom on, you know, glasses flying, Krytrons flipping all over the place.
08:14I would sure make a case out of it. If I were the U.S. Attorney down in Texas, Houston, I would sure want the public to know how good we were, how bad the Pakistanis were.
08:23I would want some, I would want some clear demarcations made public about what this country will, will tolerate and will not.
08:29If you're trying to convince other countries that we have a well-established legal regime for controlling our exports and that we bolster that with some kind of strong criminal penalties for people who violate it, then this case sends the wrong signal.
08:47I think it's my function as a journalist to try and get as much as I can out there for people to make judgments about. And in this case, if what we believe to be true is true, we have a very cynical operation going on by Pakistan.
09:09And we have a government that's not paying enough attention to it. And maybe the press by focusing an enormous amount of public attention, television in this case, can force enough people in Congress and enough people in the public to make, raise a stink so that maybe we can deal directly with the issue.
09:26We have a renegade country. Pakistan is behaving as a renegade. And it's important, I think, to try and tell people that.
09:33On October the 22nd, the day he was placed on probation, Nazir Vaid was still in the custody of federal officials, awaiting deportation. No reporter had heard his side of the story.
09:52Do you think we can arrange to have a conversation tomorrow morning at the prison? What time should we come?
09:59It's up to you because I don't know if I'll be there long because I could be transferred to the immigration.
10:07But you're certainly going to be there overnight, aren't you? I think so, yes.
10:11Well, why don't I call out there to the facility tomorrow and see if we can arrange an interview in the morning. And if not, certainly before you leave, we'd very much like to talk to you.
10:19Fine.
10:20Will that be all right? Fine, sir.
10:21Okay, thank you very much.
10:22All right, sir.
10:28Did you know at the time what a Krytron was?
10:31I came to know the name Krytron. In fact, I might have read it once or twice before, but in real sense after I was arrested.
10:40Did they ask you to buy Krytrons by name?
10:43No, they never used the word Krytrons. In fact, they gave me a product number. Every product has a number.
10:52KN22.
10:53Exactly, yeah.
10:54You got this order asking you through a district from the University of Islamabad, asking you to purchase a KN22 from EG&G.
11:03Exactly.
11:04And do you think it's possible that the order that came to you, appearing to be from the University of Islamabad, may have had a different purpose?
11:12It's not appearing to be. It is from the University of Islamabad, and it was definitely for research purpose.
11:19And it could never have ended up as people in the United States suspect.
11:28Why would the university be so foolish as to ask you and cooperate with you in breaking the law?
11:33They didn't break or encourage me to break the law. They just placed an order, and they are not supposed to know the American laws.
11:40But you sent them a cable, according to the Justice Department, you sent them a cable in which you made it clear to them that you understood that you would have to violate the law by shipping the material.
11:52These cables are what, the cables exist, I am correct?
11:55Yeah, that's right.
11:56And why did they not tell you to stop at that point?
12:00I sent this cable to my office. It was never communicated or never physically presented to the buyers.
12:07And I thought it's a simple export license requirement.
12:10So I sent with proper, or at least, it's a generic description.
12:15I don't know a proper word, but I described them as bulbs and switches.
12:19And I sent it to my freight forwarder to present it to the customs.
12:23I thought that if they feel that this is not allowed without a license, they'll simply say that they won't do.
12:32In fact, this is my main grievance, main grief, that the undercover agent collected the payment.
12:38The undercover agent delivered the goods.
12:40The undercover agents were watching each movement.
12:45They were waiting for me. They trailed me.
12:48At any single stage, they should have simply told me that,
12:51Look, we feel that you're going to break the law. Why don't you take an export license?
12:57But they, in fact, they don't have much job, I believe.
13:00So they try to encourage people to commit crime and then make a big propaganda that they have all the laurels for them.
13:08And it is typical of Americans in that they always exaggerate things.
13:12If I really wanted to smuggle it out, there were a handful of switches.
13:16And I can suggest, as a freight forwarder, I can suggest 1,000 ways to smuggle them out.
13:21I could have put it in somebody's briefcase who could have flown without any problem.
13:26But I never felt that I'm smuggling out something.
13:29I'm not trying to say that I'm innocent.
13:31I did commit a crime. I knew that this needed an export license.
13:35But I never knew its usage till I was arrested.
13:39So I was used as a scapegoat.
13:42Do you think it's possible you were perhaps used also by people back in Pakistan?
13:47Do you think it's possible? Definitely not.
13:49Definitely not. There is no chance.
13:51Vaid's earnestness in presenting his case was appealing.
13:56He seemed to lack the guile associated with a foreign agent.
14:00He had retained three attorneys in Houston.
14:02William Burge was in charge of the criminal aspects of the case.
14:06One of the amazing things about this case is the little press attention that's generated here and around the country.
14:11Although it is, as you said, it's big news in Pakistan and India.
14:15Have you had any contact with local media and local television at all significantly in this case?
14:21No, I haven't. But you have to understand that there was a gag order entered prior to indictment in this case just a few days after the arrest to prevent me or anybody else connected with the case from talking to the media about the case.
14:35How did the gag order originate?
14:37It was at my request.
14:38Why did you do it?
14:39I did it after CBS News nationally contacted me and wanted to interview me concerning the case.
14:45I didn't want to stir up publicity about the case.
14:48I was afraid it would adversely affect my client at a jury trial.
14:52Why do you think the government went along?
14:54I think the government, I'm speculating at this point, I think the government went along because we are friendly with Pakistan.
15:02This case apparently was embarrassing to the government of Pakistan and they didn't want any more publicity than was necessary about the case.
15:11Do you have any real basis for saying that? Let me ask this question very toughly or is it just a feeling?
15:17What made you think the government wanted not to embarrass Pakistan in this case?
15:23It's based on statements that were made to me by the prosecutors, not direct statements to that effect, but their reaction to my motion for a gag order was,
15:33Hey, that sounds okay. We're not interested in having a lot of publicity about this case either.
15:38Our belief of the case is that Veid was working directly or had some direct connection to the Pakistani government
15:44and was doing what he was doing on behalf of the officials in Pakistan involved in the nuclear bomb business.
15:53Admittedly, there was no evidence like that generated in the case. Am I correct?
15:59That's correct. There wasn't any evidence at all that he was acting as an agent.
16:03First, they suspected that, but they never had any proof for that effect.
16:07Did you ever question what he was doing?
16:09Did I have any questions? Sure. Of him, you mean? Sure.
16:12Well, he never said to me that he was acting as an agent for the government.
16:16He owns a freight forwarding company. He said that he was filling an order, as it turns out, for the University of Islamabad.
16:23Fair enough. And the government actually did not begin to prove its case in terms of connecting him to anything at all untoward in Pakistan.
16:33And so it became a straightforward issue.
16:37Okay. It could be we're all wet too on this.
16:41Federal agents thought enough of the case against Nazar Vaid to spend nine months working undercover.
16:48The investigation began in Massachusetts, where Vaid tried to buy the Krytrons directly from the manufacturer, EG&G.
16:55The firm was suspicious of Vaid and the size of the order. It tipped off the government.
17:00Vaid was followed to Houston, and he was under surveillance when he placed the same order through a local distributor.
17:06Is it possible we're all wrong about this, that all of us are wrong, that Vaid really was just a legitimate businessman trying to cut a corner here and there, and maybe he wasn't as wise about the laws as he should have been or as careful, prudent.
17:22And he took a little bit of a chance, and that Pakistan really just wanted them for medical research.
17:27And that, as he told us, that we're exaggerating everything. He said you Americans always exaggerate everything. Is it possible?
17:38Yes, it's distinctly possible. However, at the point where he was told that he couldn't get them legally, I think a businessman would have backed off at that point.
17:47He was told at one time that a license was required by a manufacturer who was very upfront with him about it, and he went out of his way not to obtain a license that he knew perfectly well was needed.
17:59He was given several opportunities at the time of shipment to declare exactly what was in his package.
18:06Had he done so, he would have again been informed that a license was required. But again, he did not do so.
18:13So he had several opportunities to be straight with us, to tell us what he was sending out, and to obtain the proper licensing.
18:20You don't think marking them as bulbs slash switches does the job? Is that it?
18:25No, it does not.
18:29By law, Vaik could not be arrested until he attempted to ship the Krytrons overseas.
18:35His customs broker cooperated with the government in the investigation.
18:39Tell me what you know about this case, and how you got drawn into it.
18:43Well, we received quite a number of months ago a phone call from the customs officials that he was suspected of smuggling high technology items out of the United States.
19:02We were told whenever he would make contact to let the customs officials know, which we did.
19:09According to the shipping listing, and when I spoke to him, he only declared or stated that these were office items.
19:22They were stapling guns, file folders, you know, things of no type of suspicious nature.
19:29Fifty bulbs slash switches?
19:31Fifty bulbs slash switches.
19:33Did he do anything out of the ordinary?
19:34Vaid raised one strange question.
19:37If U.S. Customs would open up any traffic leaving the country, then I just turned around and told them if there is no suspicion, no, go ahead and seal the box.
19:48Which was done.
19:49And he did seal it?
19:50He did seal it, yes.
19:51The federal prosecutor who prepared the case against Vaid told the court a few days after the arrest that he strongly suspected that Vaid was operating as a Pakistani agent.
20:03And yet, just before trial, the same prosecutor agreed the plea bargain and reduced the charges in the case.
20:10Don't you think this case is more important than it seems to be?
20:15Don't you think...
20:16What do you mean by that?
20:17I have a sense of...
20:18It's an important case.
20:19There are all important cases that we work down here.
20:25We shouldn't make more of it, on the other hand, than there really is there.
20:29It's a felony case in which a person was convicted of willfully exporting non-exportable merchandise, munitions.
20:40But the evidence was not there to support a theory, which I personally espoused early on, that this person was a spy or an agent of the Pakistani government.
20:50That evidence simply was not there.
20:53Would it have been possible for you to insist that our government make a diplomatic note or protest or demarche to the Pakistani government and seek some information on what Vaid was doing?
21:05There was no thought about that, simply because that's beyond my power and authority as an assistant U.S. attorney.
21:12My duty here is to enforce federal criminal law.
21:16And the violation of federal criminal law was established from the time Mr. Vaid had consigned these articles to shipment and put them into foreign commerce.
21:26Once he had done that, without the requisite securing of a license, he violated the statute.
21:33That was our only instance.
21:36As far as everything else, finding out why they were to be purchased or their ultimate source use, that would all be in the nature of background.
21:43And obviously I have no authority to order anybody in the State Department or any other arm of the government to do anything in that regard.
21:54So the answer is no.
22:00May I ask, did you at any point talk to the State Department about the case or anybody in Washington to get a sense of what they thought or where the case could go?
22:09Was there contact with Washington in this case?
22:13Of course there was input, yes.
22:16Did you get a political sense about the case?
22:20Did you get a sense that, given everything, resolving the case speedily, resolving the case from the government's point of view, the Justice Department's point of view satisfactorily, was very important and also with a minimum of external plus?
22:34I did talk to people in Washington, yes.
22:38Both in the State Department and the Department of Justice.
22:42They were of great help in the case.
22:45And they had a very great interest in it.
22:48So, but really that's about all I can say.
22:56You could go ask them as to what their feelings were.
22:59I can only tell you what my feelings are.
23:01And my feeling is that it is a case that we prosecuted because of the fact that it was a violation of law.
23:08We didn't prosecute it for any political motives and we had no political intentions in seeking a quick disposition of the case.
23:16It seems to me there's another greater issue here that somehow, that I don't see reflected in this case that much, which is that he wasn't just breaking a law.
23:27He was shipping back very sensitive equipment that probably if the customs bureau hadn't been, had not intervened, may have been used in making an implosion device for a nuclear or hydrogen bomb.
23:39And that seems to me to be an enormously difficult factor.
23:42And to look at it just as, and maybe this is the journalist to me, to look at it just as a case of he broke the law and this is it, seems to me to fall short, if not of legal principles, which it certainly does not, of something else.
23:56Do you understand what I'm driving at?
23:58I really don't, Mr. Hirsch. I don't understand that at all.
24:02What are you trying to...
24:03I'm trying to say that the potential enormity of what he was doing, Vaid, as an agent for somebody else, it seems to me is such that it's worthy of some extraordinary steps, not in terms of the outcome of the case, perhaps an investigation, perhaps really pushing Pakistan for some information.
24:23What would you have us do? What would you have me do?
24:28Now, you know, what I do here, day in and day out, is draft indictments to present for consideration to grand juries.
24:37To indict people who we suspect have violated federal criminal law. That's all I did for a living.
24:46I don't know what I can do to serve as moral anodyne about what Pakistan is doing or not doing with their nuclear program.
24:59I just can't, that goes way beyond what I can do.
25:02You, you, you start out with these stories with some sort of a, of a, of a theory.
25:16And, uh, when you say, now, if this theory is right, this guy is going to take a walk.
25:20And not that anybody fixes everything. It's just that the way you, the way you present it to a judge and the way the government prosecutes the case and what they don't do is more important than what they do.
25:29They don't investigate the goddamn Pakistani angle.
25:32There's no sign that the government, the FBI, the customs went bananas and to find out who this guy is and what he was working at.
25:38Vaid was three days from being deported.
25:44Mr. Vaid, thank you for seeing us again.
25:46We've interviewed Michael Bohm at the shipping company that you used to ship the Krytrons, who told us that you asked him whether or not, while it was being wrapped, whether or not it would go through customs.
25:57Mr. Vaid, I asked that question, but why?
26:00Mr. Vaid, please give an answer.
26:02Because, you know, it was totally to, uh, plan the packaging. It was meant for nothing else. If there was no customs to be done, then I'll seal the package. I never sealed the package.
26:15I just sent it open for customs with a list declaring them as switches or bulbs. That is how I knew it then. I remembered the name Krytron after I was arrested and when it was a lot of fire.
26:26The problem I have with all of this is why take a chance and violate the export laws of this country with electronic gadgetry, whether you knew about it or not, EGG, perhaps you must have known was a big defense contractor in the nuclear industry business.
26:44The money in it to ship the goods is meaningless. Why take such a chance?
26:49Mr. Vaid, I never took a chance. I sent the package open to the customs with declaration and the usual universal approach should have been that the customs checks it and says, look, this item needs a license.
27:04Mr. Vaid, we've also learned that in the opinion of many experts in the United States, there is really nothing in Pakistan in terms of medical facilities or research in high energy physics that would justify 50 Krytrons.
27:20I think we have to say we see you as somebody who had to understand what he was doing. And we wonder what you think about that.
27:27First of all, let me tell you about American experts. Shah of Iran really depended on American experts. And you know the result. Where he landed, nobody in the world let him put his feet on their own land.
27:43And he died a miserable death in spite of all his money and all American support. So American experts are such. And as far as my knowledge is concerned, as everybody knows that we have the capability to build a nuclear weapon.
28:04But we openly say that we don't do it. We don't at least plan to make a bomb and we are not going to do it until I don't know the situation of the world changes. And at present, I'm 100 percent sure, not 99 percent, 100 percent, that we are not planning to have any nuclear device.
28:22I hear what you're saying. I hear what you're saying. There are many people in your government and in your country who share this view.
28:29And yet there's this incredible game played in which Pakistan is forced to go around saying, well, it's OK, nothing really happening. I think it's a game. I wonder what you think.
28:42In other words, they're in a position of having publicly to please perhaps us, the Americans who supply so much our aid. What's your attitude about this public position of denying what most people in the world know exists?
28:57I think countries like ours, we are very frank and straightforward. We don't play games like superpowers do. We do what we, we say what we do.
29:09Is there anything you would say to the American people? Any particular statement you want to make?
29:17In fact, about America, I'm going to write a book, let me tell you frankly.
29:22I feel that America is heading or running very fast towards self-destruction.
29:29And this self-destruction is not, not uniform, it's manifold.
29:35There's social self-destruction. They're heading for a religious destruction.
29:40They're heading for a political destruction.
29:43They're heading for an economic destruction.
29:46They are heading for humanitarian destruction.
29:49And a few more which I'm still thinking, I'm working on.
29:53And I'm going to write a book on that.
29:55I'm really trying to project many things which Americans living in America do not realize.
30:06Only we people who come here as visitors can realize how different they are.
30:11With each interview, Nazar Vaid's account of his actions seemed less credible.
30:16But his need to express his strong feelings about America appeared to override caution.
30:20I'm really happy that I could talk to probably American masses through you.
30:26And at least I'm happy that my position is much clearer.
30:33At the end of our second interview, Vaid agreed to waive the attorney-client privilege,
30:37making it possible for his two immigration attorneys, Peter Williamson and Spencer Gardner, to speak freely.
30:42The lawyers had some startling documents to show me.
30:45There are a series of cables from Vaid to Pakistan, which tell an awful large part of the story.
30:58This one, for example.
31:01Read it, please.
31:02And it's referenced the EG&G products, which are the Krytrons.
31:07They completely regretted the possibility to supply as they were not allowed to sell even to Canada.
31:15I have made some alternative arrangements and have placed the order for KN-22s already.
31:22Delivery 30 days.
31:24Full payment has been made in advance.
31:27The telexes show that Nazar Vaid had been directed to purchase the Krytrons by S.A. Butt.
31:32The same man who ran Pakistan's clandestine operations in Europe in the 1970s.
31:39He was also receiving orders from Colonel Dar, the senior executive officer of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission.
31:47Williamson then produced a series of letters making clear that Vaid had been filling orders inside the United States
31:52for Colonel Dar and Mr. Butt for more than a year.
31:56The letters directly linking Vaid to the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission
32:00had been in the government's possession since the day of Vaid's arrest.
32:05This is it.
32:06This puts the lie to Vaid.
32:09I have to say that.
32:10Vaid, unless you can explain otherwise,
32:13indicated to us just in the jailhouse just a few hours ago.
32:17We saw him literally an hour and a half ago.
32:19He again and again reiterated that he did not have any idea
32:23that anybody in the senior echelon of the Pakistan government had any interest in his affairs.
32:29That he was simply fulfilling an order for the University of Islamabad
32:33and he specifically denied there was any other purpose
32:36or that he had any thought there was any other purpose
32:38or that he had any thought his government was involved.
32:40That's what I was telling you.
32:42I think the guy knew what he was doing.
32:45And I don't know why the government didn't make any more of this.
32:49Now you, that's what I'm hoping you're going to be able to tell me
32:53why the government didn't make more of this.
32:55The government started off this case going into court,
32:58reading something from the State Department saying,
33:00this man is a big spy and we got to do all kinds of horrible things to him.
33:04And at the end of the case, for some reason,
33:08they quietly folded their books and went away.
33:11There is no reason that Mr. Vaid, there is no reason that he shouldn't have done a lot of time in the penitentiary.
33:21We fully expected that and I can still see no reason why it hasn't been done.
33:27And you are his defense attorney, let's say.
33:30Well, listen, you know, that just means I want the government to follow the law.
33:33But you've seen the case that they got here.
33:36You've seen what's been going on here.
33:38You've seen what's involved.
33:39You tell me why he's not doing a long time in the joint.
33:43Did you ever talk to Vaid?
33:45You get these cables at the last minute, right before you're supposed to go to trial.
33:48Did you ever, and you know, they obviously, I think, put the lie to Vaid.
33:52Did you ever confront him with these?
33:54Sure.
33:55What did he say?
33:56Well, he was in the position, because we were just a few hours before trial,
34:04where his response was, well, can we still work a deal with the government?
34:14No, more than that.
34:15More than that.
34:16He's lied to us directly, Vaid.
34:19No, we've got the smoking.
34:20You're absolutely right.
34:21It's the smoking gun, these cables.
34:23The next question.
34:24But since, what, the late 70s, has been sort of the senior guy directing the whole purchase.
34:29See, here's what's interesting.
34:30Here's what's knocking us out about this story.
34:32Initially, Butt is in Paris, right?
34:34Running around, directing the purchase of centrifuges and other stuff to develop enriched products for weapon making.
34:43And now, it seems clear, he's into weapons design.
34:48You know, when you're buying Krytrons, you're into triggers.
34:51And this is an escalation, and we're now talking about stockpile.
34:55We have to be.
34:56The next question, obviously, we have in this whole case is, you know, these documents we have, have been in the government's possession since June, at least.
35:05And they have not used them in the case against this guy.
35:08Isn't that amazing?
35:09Yeah.
35:10There's one telex that says, through Colonel Dar or Mr. Butt.
35:26Exactly.
35:27Exactly.
35:28But we did not know who those people were.
35:30My customs agent did not know who those people were.
35:33And as I just told you, I've just talked to her, she found out from me, and I found out from you.
35:39Do you think she should have known?
35:41Well, I would say she should have, if customs knew.
35:44They might have had it, but didn't know what it was.
35:46Well, that's right.
35:47We had the telexes.
35:49If we had known who Butt and Dar were, we would have been in a position to prove that.
35:54But we, like I say, we didn't.
35:56It also bears out the hunch that I had from the beginning that this man was operating at the behest of the Pakistani government.
36:05That is personally gratifying to me.
36:09But Sam, the judge went so far in his statement in court to say, this is just a nice sort of businessman who got off the wrong foot.
36:18And it's clear that he wouldn't have said that had he known more about the man and more about this connection.
36:25Well, I wish I had known the information for the purpose of sentencing.
36:30But by the same token, sentencing has no relevance to the legal maintainability of the prosecution.
36:39I wanted the sentence to be higher, and if I had been armed with this information at the time of sentencing,
36:43I feel confident that Judge DeAnda's decision to give the probated sentence that he did would have been different.
36:52But we did not have that information.
36:54He asked me from the bench, do you have any evidence that this man is an agent of the Pakistani government?
36:59I said, no, I don't.
37:00So if I had had this, I might have had a good argument that he was operating at the behest of the government, as I suspected from the beginning.
37:08But I didn't have this, so...
37:10But you did.
37:11That's, you know, my point.
37:12I didn't have it.
37:13But it was there in the file.
37:14I was the one speaking for the government in court, and I didn't have it.
37:17Right.
37:18Do you think Washington knew?
37:19Do you think the senior officials in the State Department or in the Justice Department knew?
37:22No clue, no indication?
37:25No clue, no indication.
37:26Sam took some pleasure in our little confrontation over the fact that during a preliminary hearing in this case,
37:35he did describe Vaid as an agent of the Pakistani government.
37:38I don't think there's that much pleasure to be had, either for Sam or the federal government in this case.
37:43The fact is, the documents we have in our possession indicate that officials of the Customs Bureau knew that Mr. Viad was in direct contact with the senior officials of the Pakistani Atomic Energy Agent Commission, men who were directly involved in making the bomb.
37:57They knew it from day one of the case.
37:58They knew it from day one of the case.
37:59These documents were received, along with Telex is showing trafficking, specific dealings on this, on the Krytrons.
38:05They knew this within a few days of the bust, and they made no effort to analyze or interpret the data.
38:12And it's a terrific failure.
38:14They had documents directly linking Vaid to the bomb, and they didn't even know what they were.
38:24This is not a Telex I sent.
38:26It could be a fabrication, first of all.
38:30Number one, I will not accept this as an authenticated evidence to anything what you're claiming.
38:36Number two, I never knew the buyer which is being proved by this text.
38:42I sent this text.
38:43I don't refuse that.
38:45You sent this text?
38:46Yeah, text, but not the names at the top.
38:50I was shown this Telex in the past, and I even contradicted right at that stage.
38:54You were shown this Telex by whom?
38:56By my lawyers.
38:58But not by anybody in the government?
39:00No.
39:01Did any government official broach these letters to you?
39:04No.
39:05Mr. Butt has been identified by American officials as the single key man in the Pakistani government
39:12that has been responsible for arranging the covert and overt shipment of various parts needed to make the bomb and the weapons assembly.
39:21That's why they have put his name on these Telexes.
39:25Mr. Vaid, who would fabricate these?
39:28Why?
39:29I don't know.
39:30I really don't know.
39:33I mean, do you really think that the American government would fabricate a series of what seemed to be...
39:40I'm not blaming American government.
39:42I'm blaming nobody for that.
39:43But as far as I'm concerned, I have nothing to do with these Telexes.
39:46Mr. Vaid, these are your Telexes.
39:48They are not mine.
39:50Mr. Vaid, I posit to you this, sir.
39:53It is my belief that you were purchasing Krytrons in violation of American law at the direct behest of Mr. Butt and Colonel Dar,
40:02the men who are at the top of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission,
40:07men who have been directly linked to Pakistan's clandestine efforts to make the bomb.
40:11I don't think you've been telling the truth about your connection.
40:14And I think these documents show that you have not.
40:17It's your accusation.
40:18I had many accusations in the past, and I accept this too with a smile.
40:24Well, thank you again, Mr. Vaid, and have a good trip back.
40:31There are many at fault for the government's inability to learn the truth about Nazar Vaid.
40:36Some in Houston, but far more in Washington.
40:39The investigators in Houston had discovered documents whose significance they did not grasp,
40:44primarily because the names of S.A. Butt and Colonel Dar, amazingly,
40:48did not show up in the Treasury Department files and computers,
40:52relied upon by the customs agents who broke the case.
40:55But there were also those officials in Washington,
40:58more knowledgeable about Pakistan and nonproliferation,
41:01who should have known the significance of this case.
41:03None would talk.
41:04Just remind him, please, that we're very anxious to get the State Department's side of this story.
41:08Okay, great. Thank you very much. Bye-bye.
41:13There are agencies of the federal government specifically charged with monitoring cases like this.
41:18The Justice Department's Division of Internal Security,
41:21the Pentagon's Office of International Security Policy,
41:24and the State Department's Office of Nonproliferation and Export Policy.
41:28I'm trying to arrange an interview with Secretary Murphy.
41:31We need somebody to stand up and articulate what the administration's policy is.
41:39After many weeks, many telephone calls, and many visits,
41:43the State Department reluctantly agreed to an off-the-record briefing.
41:47I've just returned from a series of meetings in the State Department on the Vaid case.
41:59And, as usual, once back in Washington, I'm not allowed to tell you with whom I was talking
42:04or at what level the officials were that were speaking to me.
42:08And the contrast between Washington and Houston couldn't have been more startling.
42:13Here I'm getting gobbledagook, and in Houston we could put people on camera,
42:16ask questions, raise issues directly.
42:18And I'm not allowed to tell you very much about my meetings except to say,
42:21after a lot of consideration and thought, I presume,
42:25the government was finally able to come up with a three-paragraph response
42:29to a series of questions I've asked about this case.
42:32And, in essence, what these people and the officials with whom I'm talking
42:35dealt directly with nonproliferation and also with Pakistan.
42:38What they said was this.
42:40One, the Department of State kept in close touch with the Vaid case.
42:45Two, it urged that the laws be fully prosecuted in the case.
42:50And, three, it was asked by the Department of Justice to provide an expert witness
42:54on Pakistan bomb-making for the prosecution of this case.
42:57It chose not to do so for two reasons.
42:59One, because the law under which Vaid was prosecuted did not deal with the intent of his act,
43:05as we know, as we all well know, that it didn't matter where the end use of the crytrons was or what it was to be.
43:11And, two, as the statement says, such testimony would necessarily entail revelation of highly classified information.
43:18So, what the government is saying, the Department of State is saying to me, in essence, and to you, is trust us.
43:25We have some very highly classified information about Vaid, they said.
43:28Don't worry. We know who he was.
43:30And, never mind that we weren't able to tell the Justice Department about it,
43:33or we clearly weren't able to tell the judge in making the sentencing on the case about it.
43:38He certainly had no idea.
43:39But, we're following it closely.
43:42And, just don't sweat it, is what they said.
43:46And, when I raise the obvious questions as a journalist, what about the public policy question?
43:51What about the issue of how much the public should be told in the Congress about what the Pakistani government was doing?
43:56What about the fact that an official or representative of the Pakistani government presumably was in this country purchasing nuclear bomb parts?
44:05And, caught, shouldn't the public know?
44:08And, the answer was, they do know.
44:09An official looked me in the eye and said,
44:11don't you think that anybody reading the press accounts of this case, the Vaid case, would understand that Vaid was only here at the behest of the Pakistani government?
44:19Wouldn't that be the only thing they could conclude?
44:22The Reagan administration's decision not to grant on-the-record interviews is clearly linked to its policy towards the military government of Pakistan's president, General Zia Ulhaq.
44:33Officially, the U.S. government accepts President Zia's denials of nuclear ambitions.
44:39Democratic Senator Alan Cranston of California has been the leading congressional critic of U.S. policy towards Pakistan.
44:47I can't figure out what the administration has in mind in regard to Pakistan and the bomb.
44:54I guess they just feel that if they sweet-talk Pakistan and keep on giving assistance to Pakistan, that Pakistan will be nice and well-behaved
45:04and not develop a nuclear capacity or never threaten to use it or use it.
45:09But that could be a dream world.
45:12And the continued progress by Pakistan toward nuclear weapons raises grave concerns in India and in other countries and could lead to a firestorm that could sweep the world.
45:26Now members of Congress are concerned about the fact that Pakistan is on the frontier of Russian expansionism and Afghanistan and that we need to maintain a friendly relationship, according to these people, with Pakistan in order to help get aid into the rebels in Afghanistan.
45:45I believe that our relationship is so important to Pakistan that we have some leverage we could use to prevent them from developing a nuclear weapon.
45:54You honestly believe that if we decided to, we could dissuade Zia from going ahead with making bombs?
46:00I believe we could dissuade Zia from going ahead if we used all the leverage we have.
46:05He needs us more than we need him.
46:08Thomas Graham became an expert on Pakistan's nuclear policies while serving as a foreign affairs officer in the arms control agency.
46:17Tom, do you think that the senior officials in Pakistan find the American position on nonproliferation to be credible?
46:24No, I think their actions show that they believe that if they keep pushing, the United States will keep backing off.
46:31It's happened for several administrations. It would be very logical from their point of view to think that it would continue to happen, short of Pakistan actually using a nuclear weapon.
46:45So President Zia has nothing to lose by pushing forward, is that the point?
46:50If I were Zia, I would work as hard as I could to complete my nuclear program, because I would guess that the United States would in the end do nothing about it.
47:03Why aren't there more people articulating what you're willing to articulate, which is that this question of proliferation had better be moved from wherever it is down near the bottom up to the top of priorities?
47:16Do you have any ideas as you think about it?
47:19The main problem in this administration is that there are very few senior officials who actually follow this subject.
47:26There's no one on the NSC staff, no one on the policy planning staff, and very little interest in this at the level of the president, secretary of defense, or secretary of state.
47:38So the people who are working on it are working quite hard, but they're not in a position to make the final decisions that need to be made.
47:47Paul Warnke served as director of the arms control agency under President Carter.
47:54The relatively casual attitude that was taken by the United States toward this episode can only lead people to feel that we don't really care that much as to whether or not proliferation takes place.
48:08And I think that there's a certain disrespect now for the non-proliferation regime.
48:13We know that there are a number of countries like Pakistan that are very close to developing a nuclear weapons capability.
48:19And I think that they're encouraged by the fact that this was not a matter that received wide publicity and great protestations of outrage.
48:29What you're talking about is a moral issue here.
48:32Oh, yeah.
48:33We have documents that prove that Nazar Vaid, this innocent businessman from Pakistan, is not innocent.
48:38He was working directly for the bomb people.
48:40Yeah.
48:41Nobody seems to be angry at the thought that Zia would send his people here to operate against us.
48:47Well, I think that is the missing ingredient.
48:50I'm not so concerned about this particular Pakistani businessman.
48:53You know, it doesn't serve my cause to have him rot in an American jail for ten years.
48:59What I'm concerned about is that he was acting on behalf of the government of Pakistan.
49:04Now, that to me is the outrageous part of this episode.
49:08That we did not make a public protestation that would make it clear to General Zia and everybody else in the world that we view this with the utmost seriousness.
49:18You do understand that there are those in the White House and in the Senate, some conservatives,
49:23who argue that what Pakistan is doing for us in fighting the war in Afghanistan is more than enough reason for us to look the other way in terms of Pakistan's nuclear bomb development.
49:33Well, let me comment on that one.
49:36Granted, there are some benefits to the United States in having a close relationship with Pakistan.
49:43Are there benefits for the United States to have a close relationship with a nuclear-armed Pakistan?
49:50Is that going to make them a better ally?
49:52Is that going to advance our position in the world?
49:55It would seem to me that it would put us in a position in which we would have less ability to utilize Pakistan to our common interest.
50:04In addition to which, if I know anything about Russian reactions, they would regard a nuclear-armed Pakistan as being a much more attractive target than it is today.
50:14And they'd be much more apt to engage in activities intended to destabilize the existing government.
50:21And turn it into a government that is more sympathetic to the Soviet Union.
50:24Now, is that a healthy development for us?
50:27Nazar Vaid started here, at the EG&G plant in Massachusetts that manufactures chrytrons.
50:48EG&G has been deeply involved in America's nuclear bomb development since the end of World War II.
50:58Bernard O'Keefe, interviewed at corporate headquarters, is chairman of EG&G.
51:03O'Keefe was part of the World War II military team that assembled the first atomic bombs.
51:08He has no apologies for his company's role in developing nuclear weapons.
51:12But in a recently published memoir, he singled out the spread of nuclear weapons as the gravest threat to our national security.
51:19Well, I'm concerned about this because, you see, you don't have to build 10,000 nuclear weapons.
51:27Half a dozen of them, if in the wrong hands, can be an enormous blackmail threat to wipe out six cities.
51:35And it's not difficult for a nation such as Pakistan or, let's take Iran.
51:42There have been 10,000, 20,000 Iranians, thousands of Pakistanis educated in the United States.
51:52To build a nuclear weapon, you maybe need about a dozen disciplines, nuclear physicists, explosive chemists, mechanical engineers, electrical engineers.
52:02Those people are available in those countries.
52:07And if, as a matter of national policy, they set out to build a weapon, they probably can do it.
52:16Now, what we should do is not make it easy for them.
52:19But as you yourself wrote in your memoirs, Mr. O'Keefe, the real fear we have, the real concern,
52:25is that third world countries and terrorist groups have access now to bombs.
52:30And it's that concern that's even more dangerous than the threat of us in the Soviet Union,
52:36the cliché about us being two scorpions in a bottle.
52:39The Soviet Union and we have enough nuclear weapons to wipe each other out.
52:43We know that. We are concerned about an accidental war.
52:48We recognize, both sides recognize that if one of us starts a war, we're both obliterated.
52:55And when people say you can't trust the Russians, you're trusting them every day that in their cold, self-serving souls,
53:03they have the good sense to recognize that if they shoot something over here, they'll be obliterated.
53:10And we trust them to make this judgment because if they weren't thinking that way
53:18and someone over there made a decision today, an hour from now we'd all be dead.
53:22This is why I named my book Nuclear Hostages.
53:25We're no longer independent. We're tied to each other. We're hostage to each other.
53:29And we should be working together to ensure that the Pakistanis or the Khomeinis or the Qaddafis
53:36don't get the access to that technology.
53:39So that the threat from those nations is greater than the, not so much the threat,
53:46but the probability of an accident or a few people starting a war,
53:52the Sarajevo, for example, is greater from those nations than it is from the Soviet Union.
53:58It has to be said that in some sense the Vaid case was a success for the federal government.
54:10Vaid was found guilty of a crime, he was deported, and Pakistan did not get its critrons.
54:17But it also has to be said of the case of Nazir Ahmed Vaid, that what happened in Houston, Texas,
54:24and in Washington, D.C. did nothing to discourage Pakistan from trying again.
54:29An update.
54:46According to sources in Pakistan, Nazir Ahmed Vaid's return to his country was uneventful,
55:06and he is now back in the import-export business.
55:09Here in the United States, legislation is still pending in Congress that would require President Reagan
55:16to warrant in writing that Pakistan does not have a nuclear bomb.
55:21And in addition, that in exchange for the billions in aid we provide Pakistan,
55:26they will forego any nuclear weapons development.
55:30The White House has actively lobbied against this legislation.
55:35Next time on Frontline, an extraordinary look inside the mind of a murderer.
55:41The scene, Los Angeles, 1977.
55:46A frightening series of murders by the hillside strangler.
55:50One suspect, an all-American boy.
55:53The kid I knew, couldn't have ever heard anybody were killed anybody.
55:58This one I killed, this was the first one I killed.
56:01I was quite convinced that he was a full-fledged multiple personality.
56:06A compelling analysis of the psychology of a killer.
56:09The program is called The Mind of a Murderer.
56:13It is next time on Frontline.
56:15I'm Judy Woodruff. Good night.
56:18The Mind of a Murderer.
56:24And that is at the titre salvatrice,eping the press harvest,
57:40The funding was provided by this station and other public television stations nationwide.
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