Benazir Bhutto to take the service's entrance exams later in the year. In July 1977, Zulfikar Bhutto—who had just been re-elected in a general election—was overthrown in a military coup led by General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, the Chief of Army Staff. Both Zulfikar and Benazir believed that Zia's coup had been assisted by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA); Zulfikar claimed that in a 1976 meeting, U.S. diplomat Henry Kissinger had told him that the U.S. would make "a horrible example" of him if he did not terminate Pakistan's efforts to built a nuclear bomb. Now in control of the country, Zia declared
Benazir Bhutto by a senior female civil servant. She also oversaw the establishment of a women's bank and all-female police stations. The fundamentalist Islamic laws introduced to restrict women's rights under Zia nevertheless remained in place, and no new legislation was put in place to empower women. Bhutto was an economist by profession; therefore during her terms as prime minister, she herself took charge of the Ministry of Finance. Bhutto sought to improve the country's economy which was declining as time was passing. Benazir disagreed with her father's nationalization and socialist economics. Soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Benazir attempted