467. Letter From the President’s Special Representative for Non-Proliferation Matters (Smith) to President Carter1
According to a newspaper report quoting Zia,2 the subject of Pakistan’s nuclear explosives program did not arise in your recent talk.3 Since the Pakistan program is the clearest present threat of proliferation, I hope that we will not give up trying to abort it.
We spend so much of our energies working over our Allies in the non-proliferation field to get them “to clean up their act”! I trust we don’t lose sight of the main threats.
I would urge you in all appropriate conversations with heads of government to stress your deep concern about the Pakistani drive for a nuclear explosive capability.
Respectfully,
- Source: National Archives, RG 59, Office of the Secretariat Staff, Ambassador at Large and Special Representative of the President for Nonproliferation Matters (S/AS), Entry UD–07, Lot 81D155, Box 16, Pakistan, (May–Dec 1980). Confidential.↩
- Reference is possibly to a Washington Post article that reported: “According to Zia, the subject of his country’s nuclear efforts was never raised in the White House meeting. This suggested a dramatic downgrading of the nonproliferation issue in Carter’s concerns and interests about Pakistan.” (Don Oberdorfer, “U.S. Urged to Keep Out of Iran-Iraq War,” Washington Post, October 4, 1980, p. A15)↩
- See Documents 465 and 466.↩
- Smith signed “Gerry Smith” above his typed signature.↩