Deception: Pakistan, the United States, and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons - Hardcover

Levy, Adrian; Scott-Clark, Catherine

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0802715540 ISBN 13: 9780802715548

Publisher: Walker Books, 2007

Synopsis

The shocking, three-decade story of A. Q. Khan and Pakistan's nuclear program, and the complicity of the United States in the spread of nuclear weaponry.

On December 15, 1975, A. Q. Khan―a young Pakistani scientist working in Holland―stole top-secret blueprints for a revolutionary new process to arm a nuclear bomb. His original intention, and that of his government, was purely patriotic―to provide Pakistan a counter to India's recently unveiled nuclear device. However, as Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark chillingly relate in their masterful investigation of Khan's career over the past thirty years, over time that limited ambition mushroomed into the world's largest clandestine network engaged in selling nuclear secrets―a mercenary and illicit program managed by the Pakistani military and made possible, in large part, by aid money from the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Libya, and by indiscriminate assistance from China.

Most unnerving, the authors reveal that the sales of nuclear weapons technology to Iran, North Korea, and Libya, so much in the news today, were made with the clear knowledge of the American government, for whom Pakistan has been a crucial buffer state and ally―first against the Soviet Union, now in the "war against terror." Every successive American presidency, from Jimmy Carter to George W. Bush, has turned a blind eye to Pakistan's nuclear activity―rewriting and destroying evidence provided by its intelligence agencies, lying to Congress and the American people about Pakistan's intentions and capability, and facilitating, through shortsightedness and intent, the spread of the very weapons we vilify the "axis of evil" powers for having and fear terrorists will obtain. Deception puts our current standoffs with Iran and North Korea in a startling new perspective, and makes clear two things: that Pakistan, far from being an ally, is a rogue nation at the epicenter of world destabilization; and that the complicity of the United States has ushered in a new nuclear winter.

Based on hundreds of interviews in the United States, Pakistan, India, Israel, Europe, and Southeast Asia, Deception is a masterwork of reportage and dramatic storytelling by two of the world's most resourceful investigative journalists. Urgently important, it should stimulate debate and command a reexamination of our national priorities.

About this title

About the Author

Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark are internationally renowned and award-winning investigative journalists who worked as staff writers and foreign correspondents for the Sunday Times of London for seven years before joining the Guardian as senior correspondents. They are the authors of two highly acclaimed books, The Amber Room: The Fate of the World's Greatest Lost Treasure, and The Stone of Heaven: Unearthing the Secret History of Imperial Green Jade. They have reported from South Asia for more than a decade, and now live in London and in France.

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Earlier this year, William Langewiesche's The Atomic Bazaar alerted readers to the blind eye the United States and other nations have turned toward Pakistan's efforts to build a nuclear bomb and to sell that technology to other nations, including the entire Axis of Evil. Levy and Scott-Clark (The Amber Room) work on a larger canvas, shaping their in-depth reporting into a compelling and more detailed narrative. They have not truly improved upon Langewiesche's portrait of A.Q. Khan, the metallurgist who became Pakistan's biggest and most valuable personality after smuggling atomic secrets out of the Netherlands. But they do substantially support the idea that the nuclear program influenced Pakistan's internal power struggles, and that American government officials led disinformation campaigns for 30 years in order to hang onto the nation as a dubious ally against first the Soviets and then al-Qaeda. The authors also hint at the possible involvement of Paul Wolfowitz and Scooter Libby in an attempt to discredit an intelligence analyst who spoke frankly of the Pakistani threat during the first Bush administration. Building on a decade's worth of interviews, the husband-and-wife investigative term serve a stunning indictment of the nuclear crime of all our lifetimes, in which, the authors claim, the U.S. has been an active accessory. (Oct.)
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Edition details

• Publisher: Walker Books
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0802715540
• ISBN 13: 9780802715548
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 608