Pakistan’s nuclear father, master spy

Abdul Qadeer Khan and Avul Pakir Jainulabuddin Abdul Kallam have a lot in common.  It's too bad they hate each other.

The fathers of the Pakistani and Indian atomic bomb respectively, Khan and Abdul Kalam are both now old men, both Muslims, both born in what is now India and both claim to be the products of their nation's scientific cultures... although each spent productive time overseas.  And each had a major say not only in the development of nuclear programs but long-range missile development as well.

There are differences between these national heroes of the nuclear age.  Khan is a man of bombast--figuratively as well as literally, while Abdul Kalam is an ascete, known for his poetry.

Of the two, Khan is the better known, the more colorful, the more Strangelovian.  Seen in the west as a scientific rogue, a spy even, he is outspoken, critical of western values and a man on a mission, and that mission is simply infusing Pakistan with superpower pride.

While always pushing that agenda, Khan claims he is not as he seems, telling a press conference in 2002 that he's "one of the most gentle people in Pakistan... I feed birds and ants."   And while rumors circulate that he owns the "Hotshots" nightclub in Islamabad, Khan demurs, saying he makes only $400 a month.

His words have been recorded and reported on for 20 years and he has never wavered.  His 2002 comments were typical: on one hand he brandished the sword: "The armed forces are not under pressure any more; they believe they are at equal footing with the enemy."  Then, in almost the same breath, he equated the success of Pakistan's billion-dollar bomb with its more pressing concerns: "Now we can concentrate on our education, and economic and social problems."

Unapologetic patriot
Khan is a metallurgist by training, but it had taken a great deal more than a doctorate in metallurgy to provide Pakistan with the atomic bomb.  It had taken a sound knowledge of atomic physics, engineering, and management.  It had taken a long stint in the Netherlands where he had filched the secret formula for processing uranium until it was bomb-grade from right under the noses of his trusting Dutch hosts.  It had taken a degree of patriotism that only one adjective could adequately describe: fanatical.  It had taken monumental self-absorption and egotism.  And it had taken money--real money.

If he resembled anyone in the US atomic bomb program, it was Edward Teller, the unapologetic patriot instead of Robert Oppenheimer, the quixotic scientist.

Born in Bhopal, India, Khan eventually found his way to Pakistan like millions of other Muslims.  Precocious, he was able to breeze through science courses first in Pakistan, then in Europe, ultimately earning a doctorate from the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium in 1972.

That year, he went to work for the Physical Dynamics Research Laboratory, or FDO, in Amsterdam.   FDO was a subsidiary of a Dutch firm, Verenigde Mchine-Fabrieken, which in turn worked closely with one of Western Europe's most important nuclear facilities: URENCO.  Because they were unwilling to rely on the United States nuclear fuel for their power reactors, Great Britain, German and the Netherlands had created URENCO in 1970 to guarantee their own supply of enriched uranium, the same fuel used in the Hiroshima bomb.

An enrichment plant was located in Almelo, Holland, and used highly classified ultracentrifuge technology to separate scarce highly fissionable U-235 from abundant U-238 by spinning the two isotopes at up to 100,000 revolutions a minute.  FDO was URENCO subcontractor and consultant.  Its personnel, including Khan, were technically subject to tight security controls.

Video   Shopping for bombs June 20: To his compatriots in Pakistan, Prof. Abdul Qadeer Khan is known as the "Father of the Islamic Bomb". Gordon Corera, author of "Shopping for Bombs", retraces the nuclear scientist's role in a network that sold know-how to rogue nations. NBC News Web Extra

Khan, a thoroughly likeable fellow who made friends wherever he went, was enthusiastically recommended to URENCO for a clearance by FDO, which noted that he had lived in the West for eleven years and was married to a Dutch national.  The Dutch Security Service, BVD, then ran a background check on Khan.  The investigation neglected to find out that Mrs. Khan was not Dutch at all, but rather a Dutch-speaking South African who carried a British passport.  Khan quickly fit in, plying secretaries with candy and cookies, gamely went out for volleyball with his neighbors and took his wife and two daughters to the seaside or into the Ardennes on weekends.

Within a week or so of being hired, Khan was sent over to Almelo.  It was the first of many trips he would make to the uranium factory.   Khan was also responsible for translating technical documents, which he often took home with FDO's blessing.  As the months passed, A. Q. Khan became thoroughly familiar not only with all the design plans at Almelo but with those belonging to the companies that supplied parts for the ultracentrifuges.

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