The FCO’s Joint Nuclear Unit (JNU) assessed the Panorama documentary as correct in broad terms, but speculative and inaccurate in most details. Analysts contended that the most significant allegation was that of the Libyan/‘Islamic’ bomb, but that there was still no substantive evidence that Libya had provided finance or that Pakistan had agreed to proliferate. Anonymous allegations in the documentary were said to be ‘sensational’ but carried ‘little conviction’.

From early 1979 onwards, media coverage of the "Islamic bomb" became ever more prominent. In Mid-June 1980, the BBC's prestigious Panorama investigative strand aired "Project 706: The Islamic Bomb," that seemingly underscored alleged Pakistani-Libyan connections, uranium supplied by Niger, the complicity of British, German, Italian, and Swiss industry, and the threat of pan-Islamic nuclear proliferation. Reporter Philip Tibenham opened by alarmingly informing viewers that: "This convoy grinding across the empty Sahara is carrying what could be the raw material for the world’s first nuclear war …. It’s been mined in the Islamic state of Niger. It’ll be flown on to Islamic Libya; then on to Islamic Pakistan. Tonight, Panorama reports exclusively on payments of millions of pounds by Libya’s Colonel Gaddafi to finance Pakistan’s efforts to build the ‘Islamic bomb’."

This report, created in March 1979 by the Ministerial Group on Nuclear Non-Proliferation, explores the state of Pakistan’s nuclear program. The document also explores topics like Pakistan’s political status among its neighbors in the Arab world, as well as possible ways Pakistan could be induced to terminate its nuclear activities.

In the face of alarmists such as Arthur Hummel in the US and Anthony Parsons in the UK, the influential British analysts on the Ministerial Group on Nuclear Non-proliferation thought it unlikely that Arab countries would knowingly fund Pakistan's nuclear programme, even though it was suggested many Muslim states might welcome a co-religionist achieving the ‘ultimate technological feat’. For nations such as Saudi Arabia, relations with the West were situated as far more significant than connections with Islamabad, despite Pakistan's position as a bulwark between the Muslim world and the USSR. The group suggested enlisting Arab governments in order to put pan-Islamic pressure on Pakistan, arguing that security concerns related to India – and not a desire to equip the Muslim world with a ‘nuclear sword’ – were the nuclear programme's main drivers. Addressing Islamabad’s security issues – a constant in British and American discussions about Pakistan – represented the surest way of achieving positive results. Where the pan-Islamic issue might come into play – analysts suggested – was after any Pakistani nuclear test, where Islamabad might enlist Muslim countries to help resist Western pressure to give up ‘the first nuclear weapon to be developed in a Moslem country.'

Intelligence reports about recent visits to Beijing by Pakistani defense and science officials raised questions whether China was or would be providing nuclear aid to Pakistan. The latter was already developing close relations with China, a matter which was of great concern to U.S. policymakers, but INR analyst Thomas Thornton concluded that Pakistan was highly unlikely to seek a significant degree of Chinese nuclear assistance.

This issue includes an extract from a recent study on Pakistan and two highly technical articles relating to on-going research to identify the signatures of high explosives used for the implosion method of nuclear detonation. It also includes a report that utilized open literature and classified intelligence, including two satellite photographs, the purpose of the article is to illuminate how the South African Government intended to use the site, down to the depth and thickness of the bore holes.

The year after Congress passed the Solarz amendment in August 1985, Rep. Stephen Solarz (D-CA) traveled to Pakistan, a country that would become a major test case for the amendment which cut off U.S. foreign aid to recipients. Solarz confronted General Zia and other top officials with his perception, based on U.S. intelligence, that Pakistan’s Kahuta plant was enriching weapons-grade enriched uranium. The Pakistanis strenuously denied the charge.

This heavily excised report on the “well-educated committed cadre” that managed the Pakistani nuclear program demonstrates how the CIA protects its intelligence on Pakistani nuclear activities. This is the same version of the report that can be found on the Agency’s FOIA Web page; the recent version includes no new information. Details on Khan Research Laboratories and the gas centrifuge program are entirely withheld, but some information is made available on the Pakistani Atomic Energy Commission and the Directorate of Nuclear Fuels and Materials. The latter includes details on the status and purpose of major projects, for example, the Kundian Nuclear Complex, also known as the Chasma Reprocessing Plant, which was not completed until 1990. For the purposes of producing plutonium for weapons, the Pakistanis were interested in a heavy water moderated reactor of the NRX (National Research Experimental) type that Canada built at Chalk River. In 1985, the Pakistanis started that project in earnest, with construction beginning in 1987 of what became known as Khushab Chemical Plant II.

With nuclear proliferation a policy priority for the Jimmy Carter administration, and Pakistan already a special concern, the possibility that China and Pakistan were sharing nuclear weapons-related information began was beginning to worry US government officials. They had no hard evidence--and the soft evidence that concerned them is massively excised in the December 1979 report just as Beijing and Washington were normalizing relations—so the “precise nature and extent of this cooperation is uncertain.”

A cable detailing a possible plan of action regarding Pakistani nuclear and security concerns. The document includes a brief background on the situation and a three phased strategy with responses on the international stage, the establishment of a Presidential emissary and a “game plan” for Capitol Hill.

A briefing book for the July 15th-21st visit of Pakistani Prime Minister Junejo to Washington. The book covers a wide range of topics including a summary of the US-Pakistani relationship, US and Pakistani goals, visitation schedules and topics for discussion including Afghanistan, Pakistan’s nuclear program and narcotics