Richard Barlow, a CIA and Defense Department nuclear-proliferation analyst, warned that Pakistan was using clandestine procurement networks in the United States to acquire technology for its nuclear program. In a July 1987 classified congressional briefing, Barlow told Representative Stephen Solarz’s subcommittee that the CIA knew of “scores” of Pakistani attempts to violate U.S. export law, following the FBI arrest of Arshad Z. Pervez while he attempted to buy 25 tons of specially strengthened steel. Barlow later concluded that Pakistan’s F-16 aircraft could deliver nuclear weapons and that a proposed 1989 sale violated the Pressler and Solarz Amendments.
Barlow alleged that officials altered or substituted his reports and that Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Arthur Hughes gave Congress testimony contradicting the intelligence. After he urged superiors to correct the record, he was fired. The State Department inspector general concluded that the dismissal was retaliation, while CIA and Defense Department inspectors general defended the Pentagon’s authority to terminate him. A 1997 Government Accountability Office investigation largely vindicated Barlow and his security clearance was restored, but the conduct of senior officials including Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Scooter Libby, and Stephen Hadley was never investigated. Barlow subsequently struggled to obtain federal work and lost his government pension.
