Confidential Note from R.D. Lavers (South Asia Department) to Mr. Roberts (Joint Nuclear Unit), 'Pakistan Nuclear: Panorama Programme, 16 June

From early 1979 onwards, media coverage of the "Islamic bomb" became ever more prominent. In Mid-June 1980, the BBC's prestigious Panorama investigative strand aired "Project 706: The Islamic Bomb," that seemingly underscored alleged Pakistani-Libyan connections, uranium supplied by Niger, the complicity of British, German, Italian, and Swiss industry, and the threat of pan-Islamic nuclear proliferation. Reporter Philip Tibenham opened by alarmingly informing viewers that: "This convoy grinding across the empty Sahara is carrying what could be the raw material for the world’s first nuclear war …. It’s been mined in the Islamic state of Niger. It’ll be flown on to Islamic Libya; then on to Islamic Pakistan. Tonight, Panorama reports exclusively on payments of millions of pounds by Libya’s Colonel Gaddafi to finance Pakistan’s efforts to build the ‘Islamic bomb’."

The FCO’s Joint Nuclear Unit (JNU) assessed the Panorama documentary as correct in broad terms, but speculative and inaccurate in most details. Analysts contended that the most significant allegation was that of the Libyan/‘Islamic’ bomb, but that there was still no substantive evidence that Libya had provided finance or that Pakistan had agreed to proliferate. Anonymous allegations in the documentary were said to be ‘sensational’ but carried ‘little conviction’.