On 8 December 1953, Pakistan media welcomed the US Atoms for Peace initiatives, followed by the establishment of Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) in 1956. In 1953, Foreign minister Muhammad Zafarullah Khan publicly stated that "Pakistan does not have a policy towards the atom bombs". Following the announcement, on 11 August 1955, the United States and Pakistan reached an understanding concerning the peaceful and industrial use of nuclear energy which also included a pool-type reactor worth $350,000. Before 1971, Pakistan's nuclear development was peaceful but an effective deterrent against India, as Benazir Bhutto maintained in 1995. Pakistan's nuclear energy programme was established and started in 1956 following the establishment of PAEC. Pakistan became a participant in US President Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace program. PAEC's first chairman was Dr. Nazir Ahmad. Although proposals to develop nuclear weapons were made in the 1960s by several officials and senior scientists, Pakistan followed a strict non-nuclear weapon policy from 1956 until 1971, as PAEC under its chairman Ishrat Hussain Usmani made no efforts to acquire nuclear fuel cycle for the purposes of an active nuclear weapons programme.