IN 1977, Pakistani diplomatic officials contacted John A. Phillips, a Princeton University student, and asked him for a copy of the atomic bomb blueprints he had made as part of his junior project. Phillips told the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Sen. William Proxmire (D-Wisc.) about the incident. When pressed about the incident, a Pakistani aide said there was nothing "sinister or underhand" about the request. However, Proxmire noted that the incident highlighted the desperation of some nations for nuclear weapons and the importance of adopting an effective non-proliferation policy.

In the 1980s, the greatest threat of nuclear war lies with the newly industrializing, politically unstable Third World nations, who are actively seeking to join the so-called Nuclear Club and who are rapidly developing the capability to do so. For beleaguered countries such as South Africa and Israel, the Bomb represents the ultimate security in a hostile world.

The leaders of many of these countries, who aspire to make their nations global powers, believe they must have nuclear weapons to do so. And regional rivalry spurs others to seek atomic bombs, as in the case of India (a nuclear have) and Pakistan (a nuclear almost-have).

A nuclear bomb would obviously enhance the power of any terrorist group. With the emergence in Iran of terrorism as a foreign policy instrument of the "responsible" nation-state, the danger of nuclear terrorism has become more real.

The United States will not be able to eradicate the reasons these nations want the Bomb. At best, the U.S. can relieve these national insecurities by guaranteeing their defense, as in the case of South Korea. But the U.S. cannot provide this protection to all. Moreover, attempts to restrict the spread of bomb building know-how have failed: If a junior at Princeton can design a bomb, and a journalist can find the plans to one in a public library, any nation can. As a result, American policy should focus on limiting the spread of the plutonium that is the prerequisite of any nuclear weapon as the only way to curb proliferation.

The key to restricting the spread of weapons-grade plutonium is to limit the spread of nuclear breeder reactors, which produce plutonium, and reprocessing plants, which extract plutonium from the spent fuel rods of conventional reactors. President Carter has tried to pursue this policy--in exactly the wrong manner. Many harder hit by OPEC's price hikes than any industrialized country, less developed nations, see nuclear power as the only hope for attaining energy self-sufficiency. These had depended upon the United States to develop the breeder reactor and nuclear fuel reprocessing technologies for them to guarantee a future supply of nuclear fuel. However, with the best of intentions, Carter slowed American research on the breeders and the reprocessors.

These Third World nations have discovered that the United States is about as reliable a source of energy as the Arab oil exporting states. Having already invested considerable money and prestige in nuclear power plants and seeing no alternative energy source, the leaders of these countries sought to build their own breeders and reprocessing plants.

CARTER'S ATTEMPT to clamp down on the export of nuclear technology to Third World nations has met with little success. A number of the United States' allies, notably France and West Germany, have been all too willing to step into the void and to supply expertise and equipment to nations such as Iraq and Brazil. Moreover, last fall a conference of 66 nations and five international organizations, which Carter convened to strengthen his non-proliferation campaign, concluded world-wide development of the fast breeder reactor should go ahead despite the dangers of nuclear weapons proliferation.

By failing to develop the breeders, the U.S. has forfeited the trust of the Third World in America's reliability as a fuel supplier. Now the U.S. will have to change tactics. As a first step, the U.S. should seek to create an international agency, perhaps under the auspices of the United Nations, to develop solar and other energy technologies appropriate for the special conditions of resource poor, less developed countries. In many of these nations, sunlight is the most abundant natural resource. While a bank of photo-electric power cells might be inappropriate for capital-poor developing countries, solar water heaters and buildings designed to take advantage of the sun could make a substantial contribution towards meeting these countries' energy needs. A multilateral agency could finance the development of these technologies and provide low-cost, long term loans to disseminate them. Perhaps the Organization of Oil-Exporting Countries, which has been searching for a way to aid the developing countries could join in such an effort.

The U.S. should adopt an energy program to slash its own oil consumption and so to alleviate upward pressure on petroleum prices in world-markets, which in turn compels developing countries to chose nuclear power. Ideally such an American program should include the decontrol of oil and gas prices (accompanied by tax relief for the hardest-hit consumers), the development of mass transit, and the adoption of solar power and conservation measures, which a group at the Business School recently said could cut the nation's energy consumption by 30 to 40 per cent.

AMERICAN NUCLEAR non-proliferation policy will have to avoid the self-righteousness that so often pervades U.S. relations in other areas with the Third World. American policymakers cannot justify their campaign against nuclear power in the Third World while building more reactors at home. And the United States cannot tell the leaders of newly industrializing nations they cannot have nuclear weapons while President Carter reaffirms their importance in world politics by increasing America's own nuclear arsenal.

The leaders of these Third World countries can now only interpret American nuclear non-proliferation policy as another attempt to preserve the existing imbalance in world power and to deny them the benefits that the industrialized nations have long profited from. Success in the attempt to stem the proliferation of nuclear weapons throughout a politically unstable Third World depends upon U.S. recognition that these countries are no longer second-class world citizens. As such, the United States must sacrifice a bit before it can expect developing nations to do the same.