How Ronald Reagan and his Administration pushed World into the Nuclear Precipice

Barlow is now destitute and living in a trailer

[1]

So said Danielle Brian, executive director, Project on Government Oversight (POGO), in a Congressional hearing last week.

Now who is this Barlow?  His name is Richard Barlow.  Once upon a time he was a rising star and a decorated analyst (CIA’s Exceptional Accomplishment Award in 1988) in CIA.

His greatest mistake?  He went after Pakistan’s Nuclear Program and the progress Pak had made in getting all the components from US and Europe right under the nose of the administrations…. worse WITH the connivance of Ronald Reagan’s Government.  The evidence against Reagan’s administration was so damning that a high level official once said, that if US is ever attacked with a Nuke, you know WHO to blame it on!!

Danielle Brian also continued about Barlow that:[1]

As a CIA intelligence officer and later in the Pentagon, Rich Barlow learned that top US officials were allowing Pakistan to manufacture and possess nuclear weapons.  Barlow also discovered that US officials were hiding these activities from Congress.  Barlow objected and suggested to his supervisors that Congress should be made aware of the situation… he was fired.

These allegations and statements EXACTLY mirror the assertions made by two British journalists, Adrian Levy and Catherin Scott-Clark in their Investigative book “Deception”.

It was in late 1980s that Richard Barlow made a startling discovery – that the State Department was not only keeping the intelligence inputs back from the nation and Congress, it was actually FACILITATING the Nuclear Proliferation to Pakistan.  What the Commerce Department had refused to clear due to proliferation issues, was given clean approval by the State Department to the Pakistani Embassy in Washington.

That was just the tip of the iceberg.  Worse was then discovered!  That someone – someone VERY high up – was actually tipping the Pakistani authorities and their allies IN US about the operations of CIA and US Customs.  The example that Barlow gave was that the CIA knew how Pakistanis used a company in Oklahoma but before they could raid it, everyone had flown out!  So, someone with secret clearance to view the very confidential CIA operational material WAS the source for these TIP OFFS!!

Dick Kerr looked over the evidence.  Abraham Sofaer for State reviewed it too.  Both had little appetite for another inquisition, and yet the men accused of blowing the Pervez (Arshad Pervez) sting were extremely close to the White House: Robert Peck, the deputy assistant secretary of state for Near East Affairs, and another official at the under secretary level.  The accusations were devastating.  The lawyer dryly put his thoughts to a criminal investigator working for the State IG, “I am fully aware of the cable traffic and documents on this issue”.  There was cold proof of sabotage from within the State Department.

The State Department’s lawyers considered their position, and eventually would argue that a Justice Department probe into Peck or his colleague would necessitate the spilling of state secrets and possibly invoke an independent counsel’s investigation.  While they dumped the probe, the president made his annual Pressler amendment certification to Congress in December 1987, saying, “Pakistan does not possess a nuclear explosive device”.

(emphasis added) [Deception, page 167 and 169]

Reagan made a statement to the same effect on March, 25 1988.

Four years later, on 29 December, 1993, Benazir Bhutto landed in Pyongyang and able to smuggle CDs containing uranium enrichment data to North Korea on a state visit in return for data on missile technology.

Today, the evil that Ronald Reagan and his select coterie manifested has come a full circle.  In Pakistan, Nukes creation and testing has been done, its senior-most scientist has been said to have been the master-mind of a global Nuke bazaar, and now Taliban is fighting the Army to gain control of the country’s power.  North Korea, on the other hand, is non-chalant in its attitude as it tests its Nukes and missiles to deliver them as far as California.

And the guy who could save Americans from a VERY possible Nuclear strike and millions in other countries near those proliferating countries – Pakistan and North Korea – is living in a trailer in Montana – deprived EVEN of his Government Pension.[2]

And to come to think of it, Pakistanis still – as a population – blame US and Americans of having “betrayed” them.  Oh well… when the Chief himself is a masochist, then whom can you accuse of Sadism?

Reference Links:

1. ‘US admn allowed Pak to acquire nuke tech’
2. Richard Barlow