Nukes...They're Back

By Johanna McGeary

Nuclear crises don't usually come as complete surprises. Nations hungry to acquire the power of mass death will steal and cheat and lie to achieve their ambition, but millions are spent on high-tech spying to divine the telltale signs well before any nuclear adventurism occurs. Not this time. Before firing off five nuclear explosions last week, India deliberately concealed its specific test plans and misled the rest of the world. But no one was paying attention anyway, even when the signs of India's intentions were there to be read. The shock runs up our spine because it happened when the age of nuclear terror seemed over. Now the specter is back. Which country will show off its atomic prowess next? Pakistan is certainly tempted. Is another frightening, nation-wrecking arms race brewing? Will we ever devise effective ways to control the nuclear beast?

The story of how India revived the nuclear nightmare begins in December 1995. The government of Prime Minister Narasimha Rao is secretly readying an underground nuclear test when U.S. spy satellites orbiting over the Thar Desert in Rajasthan near the Pakistani border snap pictures of thick electric cables being installed in a hole at the Pokhran test site. The Clinton Administration leaks word of the preparations to the press, then dispatches a diplomatic team to confront the Indian government with the satellite photos. Rao is forced to abort the test.

But India's atomic scientists also go to school on the evidence Washington has presented. Over the next three years, they begin masking their activities at Pokhran, keeping up a steady flow of operations, moving trucks in and out, lulling the U.S. into thinking the bomb team is just puttering around.

In May 1996 the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party comes to power, and the first thing Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee plans to do is carry out that canceled nuclear test. The B.J.P. has made nuclear assertion a cardinal plank of its India-first platform, and Vajpayee gives the go-ahead, but scientists tell him it will take a month. Before they can carry through, his government falls, after just 13 days in office.

Two years later Vajpayee, 71, returns as Prime Minister. This time he rules in a coalition made up of fractious and contrary parties, 17 in all, that disagree on almost every issue except one: it is time to declare India a full nuclear power, not just an ambiguous "threshold" state. After demonstrating its manifest capability to build A-bombs in 1974, India has voluntarily practiced a form of nuclear "Don't ask, don't tell" for more than two decades. Vajpayee is determined to accomplish what nine previous governments have not dared since India detonated its first nuclear device under the leadership of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. "You needed a bold Prime Minister to take the decision," says Vajpayee aide Pramod Mahajan.

Vajpayee takes it, just a week after assuming leadership on March 19, bringing into his confidence only two Cabinet members. A quick internal study concludes that India would suffer manageable pain as a result of international economic penalties. Vajpayee picks an auspicious date for the test: May 11, the same Buddhist holiday when the 1974 nuclear test went off.

The new Prime Minister makes no secret of his broad intentions. On taking office, he openly declares that India will adopt the B.J.P. election manifesto's promise to "exercise the option to induct nuclear weapons" into its national defense. Indian newspapers are full of stories predicting the B.J.P. government will take the next steps.

The Clinton Administration and the U.S. Congress take the threat seriously, but are preoccupied with other issues. The trade-minded Clintonites are more interested in cracking open India's vast, protected markets. "We were telling the Indians we'd prefer not to talk about awkward subjects like nuclear proliferation and concentrate on trade instead," says Gary Millhollin at the Wisconsin University Project on Nuclear Arms Control.

India also takes note as Washington soft-pedals its criticism when China, another appetizing market for the U.S., continues to sell ballistic-missile equipment to Pakistan, merely slapping Beijing on the wrist. An arms race has been raging in South Asia, and "the U.S. has not made much effort to control it," says Henry Sokolski, the Pentagon's top proliferation expert during the Bush Administration. Clinton's nonproliferation team wisely focuses on reducing the Russian stockpile and keeping loose nukes away from rogue states like Iran, Iraq, North Korea and Libya. The threat of a nuclear breakout in India or Pakistan is considered a back-burner issue.

Washington is concerned by Vajpayee's public pro-nuke pronouncements but accepts at face value private assurances that his government will not heat up the arms race, at least not before it has completed a lengthy comprehensive review of defense strategy. Pakistan is worried, though, by the aggressively nationalistic tone in New Delhi. On April 6, Islamabad test-fires its first intermediate-range missile, the Ghauri, named for a 12th century Muslim conqueror who defeated the last Hindu King of Delhi, Prithviraj Chauhan. Prithvi also happens to be the name of one of India's ballistic missiles capable of toting heavy payloads. With a range of 930 miles, the Ghauri can reach targets deep inside India, potentially bearing a nuclear warhead.

A week later, when U.N. Ambassador Bill Richardson arrives in India to lay the groundwork for President Clinton's visit later this year, he delivers the usual boilerplate warnings that India should exercise "restraint" in its nuclear program and take "no provocative actions." India's Defense Minister George Fernandes assures Richardson that New Delhi will do nothing rash, since it is still engaged in that policy review. "We were sucked in," says a U.S. diplomat. "We came away from the meetings saying, 'Hey, they're not going to take any precipitous actions.'" A stern letter is sent to Clinton by Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in early April, warning that "we have every reason to believe the Indian policy pronouncement connotes a giant step toward fully operationalizing nuclear policy." The State Department dismisses the letter as crying wolf and files it in the false-alarm drawer. By then, India's preparations are well under way. Scientists and engineers have been moving in small groups from their laboratories to the desert testing site in Rajasthan. They travel by rail, switching trains in mid-journey and using false names to throw any human spies off their trails. They tell their wives they are attending routine meetings in New Delhi and cannot be telephoned.

Once at Pokhran, 100 men work in slow motion; any burst of activity at the site would be noticed by the satellites. The more than 700-ft.-deep shafts into which five nuclear devices will be dropped have already been drilled back in the early 1990s, but there are cables to hitch and instruments to set up. Luckily, seasonal sandstorms broom away telltale tracks of vehicles. Every day India's space scientists calculate how long a "blind spot" will open up for workers when the trajectories of two advanced Lacrosse and two KH-12 satellites take their electronic eyes away from Pokhran.

On May 1, Indian Foreign Secretary Krishnan Raghunath meets with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott in Washington. Raghunath has not been told of the testing plans but is instructed to tell Talbott that New Delhi is still busily conducting its long security review. In hindsight, says National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, "they were not forthright." At the CIA operations center, no order is sent out to spend the millions of dollars and precious fuel that would be required to move the four satellites out of their regular--now compromised--orbits.

Late on May 9, after the sky spies make their passes, technicians rush in vans delivering the five nuclear test devices, cutting corners to get the blasts ready. It normally takes a week to position calibration equipment to measure the yield and effects of the explosions, but the Indians do not have time for all that. "The goal was simply to see if they could pop these things off quickly," a U.S. intelligence official told TIME. "It was more important to them to do it than to get all the appropriate data."

Around noon on Monday, Indian soldiers descend on villages just a few miles from the desert test range and order the pacifist Bishnoi herdsmen, who refuse to kill animals or cut down trees, to evacuate. At precisely 3:45 p.m., three devices explode in five seconds: a normal fission bomb, a low-yield bomb for tactical battlefield use and something like a hydrogen bomb, which U.S. officials later insist could have been only a less powerful "boosted" weapon using tritium fuses to amplify the fission chain reaction. Altogether they unleash around 80 kilotons of atomic power, six times as powerful as the Fat Boy dropped on Hiroshima. The ground shakes sharply beneath the village of Khetolai, cracking houses and crashing plates to the floor. Eyewitnesses see a 325-ft.-high dust cloud "blossom like a lotus flower" high in the sky.

CIA Director George Tenet is sitting in his seventh-floor office at Langley, Va., sipping coffee at 8:45 a.m., when an aide rushes in: India has just set off a nuclear test explosion. This is terrible news because New Delhi has just blown a giant hole in the campaign to control the spread of atomic weapons, and because the CIA is only learning about it from the press. Tenet's $27 billion-a-year intelligence apparatus, the largest and most sophisticated on the globe, has been humiliatingly blindsided. Nuclear proliferation is supposed to be its top priority, yet neither its human nor mechanical spies have detected the biggest act of proliferation in 24 years. "It's awful," says a White House aide. "The agency is going to have some explaining to do."

When State Department officials in the South Asia bureau hear the news on CNN a few minutes later, a staff member wails, "Oh, my God. That's not possible. We've been watching that site." Not very well, apparently. Less than 48 hours later, Washington is surprised again when India sets off two more test blasts--of much smaller, sub-kiloton yield--defiantly going ahead after the Administration has warned India to expect sanctions. The five tests reveal that India is designing a nuclear arsenal ranging from bomblets for blasting open a mountain pass to killer warheads able to obliterate cities. "The Indian leadership has gone berserk," says Pakistani Foreign Minister Gohar Ayub Khan, as his country refuses to rule out detonating its own test nukes. No one is more dumbfounded by it all than Clinton when Berger enters the Oval Office to tell him about the blasts. His jaw drops. "Why?" is all he can manage to say.

With that five-second flash, India dealt a serious blow to the controlled nuclear universe. Washington's reaction was swift and furious. First, Tenet ordered a post-mortem on the CIA's failures, due in 10 days. Then the President imposed economic sanctions on India, as required by the never used 1994 Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Act, cutting off military and economic aid, totaling about $140 million annually, and barring military exports and U.S. bank loans. These restrictions will not gravely damage India's economy, but the U.S. is also bound to oppose loans from the IMF and the World Bank, which could affect $14.5 billion worth of projects. Vajpayee shrugged it all off as the price of success. "India will not be cowed by threats and punitive steps," he said.

U.S. hopes of rallying more punishing global sanctions looked dim. India's biggest donor, Japan, froze new grants, then suspended all loans for future projects, costing India roughly $1 billion. But none of the other nuclear powers--Britain, France, Russia or China--was willing to cut off aid or trade.

The more urgent task was to stop Pakistan from imitating India's move. As a delegation led by Deputy Secretary Talbott winged toward Islamabad, Pakistan gave every sign that it was about to set off nuclear tests of its own. "We are like a cook waiting for the orders," said Abdul Qadeer Khan, the country's top nuclear scientist. U.S. satellites spying on the Baluchistan desert recorded preparations. In a phone chat, Prime Minister Sharif would not promise Clinton to desist, despite the prospect of being slapped with the same economic sanctions if he didn't.

The main argument Talbott used on Sharif was that he should "gain the moral high ground" by showing restraint. Pakistan's historical reliance on military rule has stood poorly in the international arena against India's freewheeling democracy, and this gives Islamabad a rare chance to show itself as the more mature, responsible power. But Pakistan's position is decidedly difficult. Islamabad considers India's tests a provocative act. It is already straining to compete in conventional military power. The populace and opposition politicians are clamoring to even the score. For Pakistan to refrain would be a humiliating retreat from its long practice of meeting every Indian challenge.

As the diplomats scrambled to contain the fallout, many echoed Clinton's questions: Why did India do it, and why now? Basking in atomic glory, B.J.P. officials insisted it was a matter of vital national security, a precaution against Pakistan's nuclear preparations, a deterrent to ward off China's hegemony. Just two weeks ago, Defense Minister Fernandes had suddenly called China "threat No. 1," claiming it was encircling India with missile and naval deployments of suspicious intent. But until then relations between the neighboring giants had been mending. Even though India has fought three wars with Pakistan, nothing has changed recently in the subcontinent's military balance to warrant so radical a reaction.

Despite his disclaimers that the tests "were not a political gimmick," the rose petals fluttering down on Vajpayee as Indians celebrated their nuclear machismo explained a great deal about his motives. It makes Indians feel good to be a nuclear power. "We have to prove that we are not eunuchs," said Bombay's leading Hindu nationalist, Bal Thackeray. A poll of 1,000 Indians in several cities showed that 91% approved of the tests and 82% favored the deployment of nuclear weapons. To perennially insecure India, it seems as if forcing its way into the nuclear club confirms its great-nation status and makes the rest of the world, especially the U.S., pay it the attention it deserves. "Indian politicians feel they're not being listened to in the world because we don't have the Bomb," says Surjit Mansingh, a disarmament professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. "They follow Mao's advice that a loud fart is better than a long lecture." Even though he was "bitterly disappointed," the ever empathetic Clinton suggested that India may have been motivated by a lack of self-esteem because it believes it is "underappreciated" as a world power. "Well," he continued, "I think they've been underappreciated."

Clinton was more acute when he added that to try to "manifest your greatness" by detonating atomic bombs "when everybody else is trying to leave the nuclear age behind is just wrong." India seems to have missed the message of the turning century: it is economic power, not military might, that buys global influence these days. India's nuclear bid for importance is more likely to earn it international isolation than the permanent seat in the U.N. Security Council New Delhi covets.

What is seriously troubling about the week's events is the prospect of an unstoppable chain reaction of proliferation. Plenty of other nations have just as much pride, insecurity and ambition to be global players, along with entrenched faith in the curative power of nuclear possession. If the five acknowledged nuclear powers couldn't keep democratic India from blasting into the club, how can they keep anyone else out?

Today the world counts on arms-control regimes, an interlocking set of treaties that come with inspections and punishments, to keep down the nuclear head count, notably the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty signed by 149 nations and the 1970 nonproliferation treaty signed by 185 countries. These treaties do work: Argentina and Brazil both signed and no longer talk of building a bomb; South Korea and Taiwan have halted their nuclear programs; South Africa has voluntarily dismantled its small nuclear arsenal; Iraq has been manhandled into giving up its nuclear preparations. But that still leaves out plenty of ambitious nations, with little way to curb them. Iran remains intent on developing nuclear technology with what it can acquire by cash or stealth. Israel may feel compelled to beef up its basement arsenal of about 100 warheads, provoking Egypt to reconsider going nuclear. North Korea, which grudgingly accepted a cap on its two-bomb arsenal, rumbled last week that it might freeze its nuclear-limitation agreement.

India insists it will not join either treaty so long as they allow the nuclear haves to retain their warheads, missiles and development capabilities while banning the have-nots from acquiring anything. The treaties, says Vajpayee, are discriminatory and hypocritical. "Our hope," he said, "is that those nations that want to continue their nuclear monopoly will accept that the same rules should apply to all." Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security Affairs John Holum acknowledges that the treaties do have the unfortunate weakness of declaring, "Do as I say, not as I did." In fact, the U.S. has not even ratified the test-ban treaty, and Republican members of Congress vowed last week to block the treaty permanently, arguing that India's tests prove the ban is an unverifiable "sham."

A few optimists hope India will follow the example of China and France, two countries that conducted underground tests, then signed the test-ban treaty. Vajpayee has stopped short of promising that India's tests are over, but he has hinted that he may now adhere to "some" of the treaty's provisions. Burned by India's artful dissimulations, says James Steinberg, Berger's deputy, "I don't think we'd necessarily take whatever they say as gospel."

Everyone else gloomily girds for a new arms race. "Other countries will see this as an open invitation to try to acquire the technology," warns Defense Secretary William Cohen. Clinton is especially hurt at the nuclear breakout: a cherished presidential legacy, significantly turning back the nuclear clock, will not be handed on. He'd devoted considerable energy to corralling Russia's strategic weaponry, denuclearizing the former Soviet republics of Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakstan, and containing North Korea's atomic program.

Not only Clinton but the entire planet is facing a hard truth. There is little that can stop nations willing to swallow international condemnation in order to obtain the weapons of mass death they deem vital to their national security or just their national prestige. Unfortunately history remembers the bombs that go off, not the ones that don't.

--Reported by Hannah Bloch/Islamabad, Jay Branegan with Clinton, Tim McGirk and Maseeh Rahman/New Delhi and Douglas Waller/Washington

With reporting by Hannah Bloch/Islamabad, Jay Branegan with Clinton, Tim McGirk and Maseeh Rahman/New Delhi and Douglas Waller/Washington