The planners must have been getting desperate as week after week passed without Zia showing any inclination to use his plane. The tank demonstration was not likely to interest him without considerable persuasion, and was probably used as a last resort. The problem was to convince him to go without making him suspicious. Quite possibly somebody convinced General Durrani, the tank division commander, that Zia’s attendance would add to the importance of the event, and was in Durrani’s own interests. His subsequent success in inducing the President to go could have been entirely innocent.

We must assume that the lethal gas device had already been obtained while awaiting an opportunity, and the person destined to plant it given his instructions. He was undoubtedly in the military, probably a technician within the Air Force, possibly, if my theory is correct, from No.6 Squadron PAF. This is the unit that operates the C-130 transports out of Chaklala a few miles south of Islamabad. A decision had to be taken as to when to plant the gas. Once it was confirmed that Zia would fly to Bahawalpur the choice lay between doing it there or at Chaklala, when it was clear exactly which aircraft would be PAK 1.

Most theories suggest the planting of the device was done at Bahawalpur, but I believe it much more likely to have been Chaklala. At Bahawalpur there would be no Air Force personnel except the crew, so none of them would do it—unless they were willing to go down with the plane. How could the plotters be sure an Army man could get on the guarded aircraft? The device had to be put in the cockpit which involved climbing up the steps, through the door, on to the flight deck. This was virtually impossible for a soldier, and certainly did not happen with the mango delivery. The crew working on the cargo door perhaps? But they were to fly back to Islamabad. Neither they nor the security guard would allow a soldier or civilian into the aircraft, let alone go climbing up into the cockpit. I cannot say with absolute certainty it was not done at Bahawalpur, but if it was it was a highly risky operation with the odds against success.

At Chaklala an intelligence agency would have an easier task in infiltrating the permanent Air Force staff. Access to the C-130s was part of the everyday duties of the technical or maintenance personnel. A perfect opportunity occurred when the VIP capsule was rolled up inside PAK 1. It identified the aircraft and, with the bustle of activity in strapping it to the floor and pre-flight checks, nobody would have questioned anybody going into the cockpit, perhaps changing a fire extinguisher or inserting the device in an airvent. If the sabotage was carried out at Chaklala then it would have needed two devices to set it off—a timer and an altitude device. The timer would be set to activate the altitude switch. With the former a four-hour time lapse would be safe, allowing for one hour before the plane took off, just over an hour’s flight, and then as PAK 1 sat on the strip at Bahawalpur the altitude device would be armed. All that was needed would be the climb to the required height, then inside the cockpit the deadly gas would escape. If Chaklala was the scene of the sabotage then it was a double-arming device that was used, otherwise PAK 1 would have crashed shortly after take-off and suspicion would have been focused on the Air Force base personnel.

The plot worked flawlessly, except for one major calamity: both the US Ambassador and the military attachй died. Certainly, whoever carried out this multiple murder had not intended these two senior Americans to be among the victims. There was no way of knowing that Zia would invite them to join him for the journey at the last minute. The conspirators were appalled. They anticipated the most thorough, penetrating and wide-ranging investigation, which would undoubtedly uncover their identities. It never happened. The final phase of this merciless terrorist act was the US cover-up.

The State Department would have much preferred an accident, some sort of technical failure, pilot error, anything rather than sabotage. If it was murder of two high-ranking US officials then the American public would expect, indeed demand, to know the culprits. For such an outrageous act of terrorism the outcry against the perpetrators would be loud and long. The government would probably find it impossible to silence the clamour to exact retribution. Depending on who had done it, exposure could mean the ruin of US policy objectives in the area, and elsewhere in the world.

Supposing the KGB, or their surrogates in KHAD, were responsible, how would revealing the USSR as the organizer of mass murder, of the assassination of a head of state, affect the build-up of goodwill between East and West? How could the US avoid a major outbreak of hostility between themselves and the USSR ? Almost certainly the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan would be reversed. The implications of Moscow being to blame were unnerving.

Similarly, the dilemma was almost as serious if the plotters were within the Pakistan military. If investigation uncovered a clique of anti-Zia generals the American people would be outraged that, after all these years of massive support to the Pakistan Armed Forces and the Mujahideen, they had killed a US ambassador and a brigadier-general. It would be futile to say they hadn’t intended to! US-Pakistan relations would be in ruins. Aid would have to be curtailed, the military might be forced into prolonged presidential rule, the democratic elections scheduled for November would be abandoned, and with them the prospect of the more acceptably moderate Benazir Bhutto becoming prime minister. As I have said earlier, the US was not sorry to see Zia go. The State Department was happy to see the Soviets out of Afghanistan, but decidedly unhappy with the likelihood of, as the US perceived it, Zia backed fundamentalists talk over in Kabul. Nor did it like his determination to have nuclear weapons. By mid-1988 Zia was becoming a liability rather than an asset to the US.

Though unlikely, it was conceivable that some minor political faction or terrorist group. like Al-Zulfikar, had somehow achieved the impossible. The problem was, once serious investigations started there was no knowing what unwelcome worms might emerge from the can as the lid was lifted. Testifying before the House of Representatives Judiciary Sub-Committee on Crime in June, 1989, Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Armitage justified the lack of any serious investigations into the sabotage by claiming note 1 , “hopefully moving Pakistan in a more democratic manner…. The military in Pakistan as well as their presidency just being decapitated, we were very alarmed there might be some backsliding”. In other words they were quite prepared to write off Ambassador Raphel’s and Brigadier Wassom’s murders if that meant not rocking the boat.

None of this soul-searching would have been necessary if no Americans had died—particularly such senior ones. The whole business was complicated by the fact that as recently as 1986 Congress had passed a law that gave the FBI the legal right, indeed the duty, to inquire into terrorist acts overseas that involved attacks on US citizens. It is often referred to as the ‘Long Arm’ law.

The State Department did four things immediately after the crash which, taken together, point unerringly at a cover-up. First, within hours, it sent a team of purely technical airforce advisers to assist the PAF Board of Inquiry. Secondly, it did not insist, through its embassy, on autopsies on the bodies of the victims, particularly the crew, but rather allowed them to be buried knowing that essential evidence as to how the crash was caused was being buried with them. Thirdly, it sent a Deputy National Security Adviser, Robert Oakley, to take over Raphel’s post. He could be relied upon to sit on the lid of the can. Later, in June, 1989, he told a highly sceptical sub-committee that when he attended the National Security Council meeting to decide on the US response to the crash, he simply forgot all about the ‘Long Arm’ law. This, despite the fact that he had personally lobbied hard to get it passed. Fourthly, and most importantly, it vetoed the FBI’s request clearance and on 21 August had been given it verbally, but, within hours, it had been withdrawn—probably on the instructions of Oakley, who was by then in Islamabad.