I was surprised at how much I struggled at finishing this book by Douglas Franz and Catherine Collins. The long subtitle for the book is “The True Story of the Man Who Sold the World’s Most Dangerous Secrets…And How We Could Have Stopped Him.” The dust cover description could substitute for reading the full book. Pakistani’s Abdul Qadeer Khan is described as the “…father of the Islamic bomb, a research scientist who stole European nuclear plans, masterminded Pakistan’s successful atomic program, and then established a network of smuggling technology and blueprints to other countries seeking nuclear capabilities. Intelligence authorities (including especially the U.S.) watched Khan for decades and could have stopped him before Pakistan became a nuclear power, but amazingly, our political leaders consciously chose to watch, wait, and concentrate on what they believed to be more immediate strategic priorities.” I’m struggling to explain why I did not find the book compelling reading. The subject matter was something that I should have found interesting and the book seems very well researched. Perhaps I was just put off by the ineffectiveness of the world’s anti-nuclear proliferation efforts to stop a corrupt man who developed a massive network of associates driven by the quest for lucrative profits.

“Khan started down the nuclear path as a patriot, stealing secret European nuclear designs out of determination to protect his country from its archrival, India. After playing a central role in developing Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, he shifted course and employed his global network to sell those same nuclear secrets to some of the most repressive regimes in the world, transforming himself into a nuclear jihadist devoted to payback for real and imagined grievances suffered by Muslims around the world. In the process, Khan grew arrogant, corrupt, powerful, operating with impunity as he amassed a fortune from his black-market deals.” Khan’s network is described as providing technology for enriching uranium and design information for building a nuclear weapon from the enriched material to Libya, Iran, Iraq, and North Korea. There were other possible customers including Saudi Arabia. I didn’t find explanation for how he acquired the weapon design information except that it was referred to at least twice as being from a warhead design used in a 1996 Chinese missile test. The CIA learned of Khan in 1975 when it learned he “…had stolen top-secret plans for the latest uranium enrichment technology and taken them home to Pakistan.” The CIA seemed to be more interested in the countries willing to buy from Khan rather than wanting to take action to stop the spread of nuclear technology he was willing to sell. Continue reading →