07-21-2006, 05:45 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->http://tinyurl.com/gsqs3
<b>'Kalam wore Army disguise'</b>
7/20/2006 11:52:57 PM
- By Sanjay Basak
New Delhi, July 20: President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam wore a military uniform to keep his identity a secret while supervising preparations for the nuclear tests at Pokhran during the NDA regime in 1998, former external affairs minister Jaswant Singh reveals in his new book, A Call to Honour. President Kalam was then the scientific adviser to the government of India.
To maintain complete secrecy before the blasts, the scientists, clad in military uniforms, were also given "alternative identities", the book, published by Rupa & Co. and expected to hit book stores on Friday, discloses.
Recalling the "sounds of silence", Mr Singh writes; "Some of the precautions may, in retrospect, cause amusement but were in reality very serious business." He revealed; "Each of the four principal scientists involved had to be on site and off it frequently and for considerable lengths of time. They had to travel to and from the site repeatedly and as cover had alternative identities." Mr Singh added, "This they decided to achieve through the Army and the military uniform. Thereafter, Kalam, Chidambaram, Kakodkar and K. Santhanam donned military uniforms, name, badges and ranks. If I recollect correctly, of a colonel and below."
Mr Singh observes in his book: "To maintain this secrecy had not been easy... To have done this in Pokhran, at least a thousand kilometres away from major facilities, without giving away a whiff, in a country by nature loquacious â merits special mention."
The "secrecy", Mr Singh says, had some "unexpected consequences". He recalled that "two aspects of it greatly disturbed the United States: first that the tests were conducted at all, and second, which riled them more, that all their intelligence agencies and satellite surveillance, indeed an entire array of technical gadgetry had failed to get even an inkling of the tests."
Mr Singh then refers to a meeting between him and the then US ambassador to India, Richard Frank Celeste. Mr Celeste was holidaying in the US when Pokhran II occurred. After his return, Mr Celeste called Mr Singh and said; "Jaswant, I have a young son, he is barely a year-and-a-half, I do not want him to grow up in a world filled with such perils, such horrors..." Unable to reply, Mr Singh "excused" himself and went to another room and shared his "painful dilemma" with his wife. He writes, "With a woman's assured instinct, she gave me a small silver toy from Rajasthan, meant for young children." It had a "built-in a "built-in whistle that when blown emitted a song-like sound and had a cluster of tiny bells, like a bunch of grapes, which jingled merrily when shaken." She told Mr Singh to give it to the ambassador as a gift for his children with a short message: "If I give your son this gift, then how do you imagine I have any intention of harming his future?"
Mr Singh justifies the Vajpayee government's decision to conduct the Pokhran II tests and declare India a "nuclear weapons state". The day the then Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, decided to "bite the bullet" was in 1996, Mr Singh writes. He discloses that in 1996, when P.V. Narasimha Rao demitted office as Prime Minister, he took aside his successor, Mr Vajpayee, and said, "I could not do it though I wanted very much. So it is really up to you now."
In the section "Regime Change in the Nuclear Orbit", Mr Singh writes that "the rise of China and continued strains with Pakistan made the early 1990s a greatly troubling period for India". He argues that the to maintain India's "national security", the tests had become "inevitable". He observes: "In the absence of universal disarmament, India could scarcely accept a regime that arbitrarily divided nuclear haves from have nots." "If the possession of nuclear weapons by the Permanent Five (US, Britain, France, Russia and China), the five legitimate nuclear weapon states in 1998 as per the NPT, enhanced the global architecture of security, why and how would India's bomb alone be dangerous?"
He observes: "The forcing of a conditional and indefinite extension of the NPT on the international community in 1995 was the watershed. India was left with no option but to go in for overt nuclear weaponisation."
He points out that "Chinese and Pakistani proliferation was no secret, but, neither was America's docile acquiescence... India had to protect its destiny and exercise the nuclear option."
Taking a jab at the US' pro-Pakistan policy, Mr Singh writes: "The United States had consistently turned its eyes away, decade after decade, from even seeing such activities in Pakistan and was even then an ally of Pakistan, that (and is) the reality."
The book also records the moments before the first blasts on May 11, 1998. "Exactly at 3.45 pm the phone at Mr Vajpayee's Race Course Road residence rang." Mr Brajesh Mishra, the then principal secretary to the Prime Minister, answered the call and announced "the test has been successfully conducted". He writes, "Was there any breaking open of champagne bottles or any similar cheering or rejoicing? No, there was not." Mr Singh remembered walking up to the Prime Minister, shaking him by the hand and saying, "Congratulations. You have acted with great courage, Atalji."
Mr Singh then recalled the world reactions that "exploded in our face". Stating that Pakistan's reaction was "harsher" than of other nations, Mr Singh gives details of Pakistan's move to respond with nuclear tests. However, after the blasts on May 28, "the then Pakistan Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, telephoned US President Bill Clinton and apologised for the tests in a rather unbecoming conversation between two heads of governments," Mr Singh reveals.
He recalled another "bizarre scare" raised by Pakistan. Mr Satish Chandra, the then high commissioner in Islamabad, was called at midnight of May 27-28 by the Pakistan foreign office. The Pakistan charge was that India was "going to attack Kahuta and other targets in Pakistan in a midnight/dawn aerial raid, in collusion with Israel, also that aircraft had already been placed on runway readiness for being launched." Mr Singh quips: "This was so tragically comic, so pathetically untrue."
Mr Singh then refers to reports that quoted him replying to then US secretary of state Madeleine Albright's remark that "India and Pakistan should climb out of the hole they have dug themselves into". Mr Singh's reply to the remark was, "I must point out that civilisationally, we in India do not dig holes to bury ourselves in, no, not even metaphorically speaking. Therefore this observation exemplifies yet another fundamental lack of comprehension about the Indian stand and about addressing Indian sensitivities."<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<b>'Kalam wore Army disguise'</b>
7/20/2006 11:52:57 PM
- By Sanjay Basak
New Delhi, July 20: President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam wore a military uniform to keep his identity a secret while supervising preparations for the nuclear tests at Pokhran during the NDA regime in 1998, former external affairs minister Jaswant Singh reveals in his new book, A Call to Honour. President Kalam was then the scientific adviser to the government of India.
To maintain complete secrecy before the blasts, the scientists, clad in military uniforms, were also given "alternative identities", the book, published by Rupa & Co. and expected to hit book stores on Friday, discloses.
Recalling the "sounds of silence", Mr Singh writes; "Some of the precautions may, in retrospect, cause amusement but were in reality very serious business." He revealed; "Each of the four principal scientists involved had to be on site and off it frequently and for considerable lengths of time. They had to travel to and from the site repeatedly and as cover had alternative identities." Mr Singh added, "This they decided to achieve through the Army and the military uniform. Thereafter, Kalam, Chidambaram, Kakodkar and K. Santhanam donned military uniforms, name, badges and ranks. If I recollect correctly, of a colonel and below."
Mr Singh observes in his book: "To maintain this secrecy had not been easy... To have done this in Pokhran, at least a thousand kilometres away from major facilities, without giving away a whiff, in a country by nature loquacious â merits special mention."
The "secrecy", Mr Singh says, had some "unexpected consequences". He recalled that "two aspects of it greatly disturbed the United States: first that the tests were conducted at all, and second, which riled them more, that all their intelligence agencies and satellite surveillance, indeed an entire array of technical gadgetry had failed to get even an inkling of the tests."
Mr Singh then refers to a meeting between him and the then US ambassador to India, Richard Frank Celeste. Mr Celeste was holidaying in the US when Pokhran II occurred. After his return, Mr Celeste called Mr Singh and said; "Jaswant, I have a young son, he is barely a year-and-a-half, I do not want him to grow up in a world filled with such perils, such horrors..." Unable to reply, Mr Singh "excused" himself and went to another room and shared his "painful dilemma" with his wife. He writes, "With a woman's assured instinct, she gave me a small silver toy from Rajasthan, meant for young children." It had a "built-in a "built-in whistle that when blown emitted a song-like sound and had a cluster of tiny bells, like a bunch of grapes, which jingled merrily when shaken." She told Mr Singh to give it to the ambassador as a gift for his children with a short message: "If I give your son this gift, then how do you imagine I have any intention of harming his future?"
Mr Singh justifies the Vajpayee government's decision to conduct the Pokhran II tests and declare India a "nuclear weapons state". The day the then Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, decided to "bite the bullet" was in 1996, Mr Singh writes. He discloses that in 1996, when P.V. Narasimha Rao demitted office as Prime Minister, he took aside his successor, Mr Vajpayee, and said, "I could not do it though I wanted very much. So it is really up to you now."
In the section "Regime Change in the Nuclear Orbit", Mr Singh writes that "the rise of China and continued strains with Pakistan made the early 1990s a greatly troubling period for India". He argues that the to maintain India's "national security", the tests had become "inevitable". He observes: "In the absence of universal disarmament, India could scarcely accept a regime that arbitrarily divided nuclear haves from have nots." "If the possession of nuclear weapons by the Permanent Five (US, Britain, France, Russia and China), the five legitimate nuclear weapon states in 1998 as per the NPT, enhanced the global architecture of security, why and how would India's bomb alone be dangerous?"
He observes: "The forcing of a conditional and indefinite extension of the NPT on the international community in 1995 was the watershed. India was left with no option but to go in for overt nuclear weaponisation."
He points out that "Chinese and Pakistani proliferation was no secret, but, neither was America's docile acquiescence... India had to protect its destiny and exercise the nuclear option."
Taking a jab at the US' pro-Pakistan policy, Mr Singh writes: "The United States had consistently turned its eyes away, decade after decade, from even seeing such activities in Pakistan and was even then an ally of Pakistan, that (and is) the reality."
The book also records the moments before the first blasts on May 11, 1998. "Exactly at 3.45 pm the phone at Mr Vajpayee's Race Course Road residence rang." Mr Brajesh Mishra, the then principal secretary to the Prime Minister, answered the call and announced "the test has been successfully conducted". He writes, "Was there any breaking open of champagne bottles or any similar cheering or rejoicing? No, there was not." Mr Singh remembered walking up to the Prime Minister, shaking him by the hand and saying, "Congratulations. You have acted with great courage, Atalji."
Mr Singh then recalled the world reactions that "exploded in our face". Stating that Pakistan's reaction was "harsher" than of other nations, Mr Singh gives details of Pakistan's move to respond with nuclear tests. However, after the blasts on May 28, "the then Pakistan Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, telephoned US President Bill Clinton and apologised for the tests in a rather unbecoming conversation between two heads of governments," Mr Singh reveals.
He recalled another "bizarre scare" raised by Pakistan. Mr Satish Chandra, the then high commissioner in Islamabad, was called at midnight of May 27-28 by the Pakistan foreign office. The Pakistan charge was that India was "going to attack Kahuta and other targets in Pakistan in a midnight/dawn aerial raid, in collusion with Israel, also that aircraft had already been placed on runway readiness for being launched." Mr Singh quips: "This was so tragically comic, so pathetically untrue."
Mr Singh then refers to reports that quoted him replying to then US secretary of state Madeleine Albright's remark that "India and Pakistan should climb out of the hole they have dug themselves into". Mr Singh's reply to the remark was, "I must point out that civilisationally, we in India do not dig holes to bury ourselves in, no, not even metaphorically speaking. Therefore this observation exemplifies yet another fundamental lack of comprehension about the Indian stand and about addressing Indian sensitivities."<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->