Former Pakistani president Zia-ul Haq had extracted a promise from then US president Ronald Reagan "to look the other way" when it came to Islamabad's nuclear programme which was then on the verge of producing a weapon, a book recently published claims.
In return, Islamabad would throw its full weight behind the CIA in the war against the Soviet occupiers of Afghanistan, the book, Charlie Wilson's War, claims.
Extracts from the book, published in the US, were carried by Daily Times on Monday. The book is not available in Pakistan.
The newspaper has previously run extracts from the book contending that Zia had served as the conduit for supplying Soviet arms captured during the Lebanese civil war to the mujahideen fighting the Red Army in Afghanistan.
Charlie Wilson, the author of the book, is a former Congressman who is said to have played a major role in the CIA operations in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation of the country.
It says Zia "had no illusions about Reagan standing up for Pakistan if the US Congress found out what was going on even though Stephen Solarz, chairman of the sub-committee in the House dealing with South Asia, who was no friend of Pakistan, was getting ready to order hearings to cut aid to Pakistan".
The CIA, which had managed to penetrate Pakistan's nuclear programme in 1985 and was reporting on it regularly, indicated at the Solarz hearings that if funding to Pakistan was cut, "Zia might present a bill to the US for helping the CIA in Afghanistan running into several billion dollars a year."
Wilson maintains in the book that it was clear to the US administration that "without Zia running Pakistan by martial law, there could be no Afghan war".
Solarz, who was working ceaselessly to cut off all aid to Pakistan, was confronted at a Pakistan embassy dinner by Zbigniew Brzezinski, the former US national security adviser, who asked him if he realised what this could result in.
"The Afghan resistance would collapse. The Soviets would triumph. The Zia government would disappear and be replaced by an anti-American one in Pakistan armed with a nuclear weapon," the book contends.
To fight the opposition to Pakistan in Congress, Wilson says he took a powerful delegation to Pakistan during the Thanksgiving holiday when Americans normally don't leave home.
In a speech at the official banquet, he turned to Zia and said: "Mr President, as far I'm concerned you can make all the bombs you want because you are our friends and they, the Indians, are our enemies."
Wilson claims his "adroit lobbying bore fruit and Pakistan won the day" when Congress decided to continue US aid to Pakistan.
"The Zia victory in Congress was an important factor in the Soviet decision to pull out of Afghanistan," the book contends.
It says Zia stalled the Geneva talks on the Soviet pullout for a month to give the CIA enough time to stockpile weapons in Pakistan to deal with the remnants of Soviet-backed elements in Afghanistan after the withdrawal.
"These weapons were stored at the Ojhri Camp, which blew up and with it went $100 million worth war equipment, made up of 30,000 rockets, millions of rounds of ammunition, vast number of mines, Stingers, SA-7s, Blowpipes, Milan anti-tank missiles, multiple-barrel rocket launchers and mortars.
"A hundred Pakistanis died and 1,000 were injured," it says.
Zia then called his ambassador in Washington, Jamshed K A Marker, and asked him to tell the CIA and Wilson to replace the weapons.
"Within 24 hours, huge US cargo
planes were unloading Stingers and other weapons into Pakistan direct from
the frontline stores of NATO," the book says.