The Longest August

by Dilip Hiro

  After its denouement with the United States in December 1995, India changed the pattern of work at the Pokhran site radically to escape the all-seeing eyes of American spy satellites.

  The army’s Fifty-Eighth Engineer Regiment resorted to operating mostly at night and returned its equipment to its original location at the end of the work shift to make it seem that it had been stationary all along. Its personnel wore civilian clothes. Members of the regiment as well as civilians dug shafts under camouflage netting, and the excavated sand was made to look like natural dunes. The cables for sensors were covered with sand and concealed under vegetation. Those who were hired to work at the site traveled to destinations other than Pokhran and were then picked up by the army’s vehicles. At the end of their shift the workers left the site in twos or threes.

  To hoodwink Washington’s National Security Agency (NSA), which was monitoring telephone conversations, the army devised a code. When the Delhi-based Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO), charged with implementing the project, asked an officer manning the operations room in Pokhran, “Has the store arrived?” followed by “Is Sierra serving whisky in the canteen yet?,” his decoded messages were: “Have the scientists started working on the nuclear devices?” and “Have the nuclear devices been lowered in the special chamber in the shaft codenamed Whiskey?”8

  “Today, at 15.45 hours, India conducted three underground nuclear tests in the Pokhran range,” Vajpayee told journalists at a hastily assembled press conference on May 11, 1998. “The tests conducted today were with a fission device, a low yield device and a thermonuclear [aka fusion] device. These were contained explosions like the experiment conducted in May 1974. I warmly congratulate the scientists and engineers who have carried out these successful tests.”9 Then, under the same code name of Operation Shakti (Hindi: Power), the DRDO conducted two more tests of smaller, subkiloton yield on May 13.

  Indian officials claimed that the tests were a matter of national security, a precaution against Pakistan’s nuclear development, and a deterrent to China’s rising military might. As a nonsignatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), India did not violate any international treaty. Predictably, Islamabad immediately condemned the tests.

  The objective of the Indian tests was threefold: to test the newly built fusion (aka hydrogen) bomb with a yield of forty kilotons (kT); to check the effectiveness of a fifteen-year-old fission bomb with a yield of twelve kT; and to determine whether or not the three freshly assembled tactical weapons with a yield of less than one kT would produce a chain reaction when activated. All fission bombs were plutonium based. As evidence of successful tests, the Indian government would release pictures of the five sites, each one a 160-foot-deep shaft, on May 17.

  These tests caught Washington by surprise, with many red faces at the headquarters of the CIA in Langley, Virginia, just across the Potomac River. CIA director George J. Tenet immediately appointed Admiral David Jeremiah, a former vice chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to lead a ten-day investigation into the intelligence community’s failure to detect preparations for the tests at Pokhran.10

  In marked contrast, Indian officials were elated at having fooled the all-knowing CIA. At the popular level the BJP and the RSS were quick to demonstrate their fervent support for Vajpayee’s bold decision by holding public rallies and demonstrations. They were not alone. “It was a matter of national pride that the country’s scientists had once again proved that they were second to none in the area of high technology, adding that they had all along turned every denial into an opportunity to make India a reckonable power in spheres of space and technology,” noted the influential Hindustan Times in its editorial on May 13.11 To make the point, the Vajpayee government declared May 11 National Technology Day.

  Summarizing his wide-scale survey of the reactions in India to the tests, Thomas Blom Hansen, an American academic, noted that “the response from newspapers seemed even more positive, opinion polls indicated overwhelming support to the decision, and the BJP could now appear on the domestic scene in its much-desired role as the most resolute defender of India’s national pride and its national interest.”12

  In the area of party politics, however, opinion was divided. The opposition Congress Party spokesman, Salman Khurshid, attributed Vajpayee’s decision to the political consideration of consolidating the BJP’s influence by rallying strong nationwide pro-nuclear sentiment. Eager to make his point, Khurshid conveniently overlooked the fact that the Congress premier Narasimha Rao was on the verge of presiding over nuclear tests in December 1995. Communist MPs argued that Vajpayee’s unsheathing of the nuclear sword would lead to Pakistan doing the same, which it did. The subsequent nuclear arms race between two of the poorest countries in the world would retard their economic development, they argued.

  In Washington Clinton swiftly invoked the 1994 Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Act. He blocked all aid, banned loans by American banks and export of products with military use such as computers, and curbed military technology exports to India. His decision covered $500 million of pending US loans or loan guarantees to Delhi.

  India, 5; Pakistan, 6

  Clinton then turned his attention to dissuading Pakistani premier Muhammad Nawaz Sharif from following Vajpayee’s example. Given the dire straits of his country’s economy, Sharif was vulnerable to economic sanctions by Washington, which would have extended to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. Karachi’s stock exchange reacted nervously to the Indian tests, losing a record one-third of its value. Sharif was compelled to dither while Clinton kept up pressure in telephone calls, even from the British city of Birmingham, where he had gone to attend the G8 Summit from May 15 to 17.

  But once the Islamist parties in Pakistan mobilized tens of thousands of their supporters on the streets on May 15, Sharif found it hard to sit on the fence. As if the raucous demand of the Islamist camp were not enough, Benazir Bhutto weighed in. On May 18 she vowed to “take to the streets” at the head of mass demonstrations in a bid to force Sharif from office if he did not authorize nuclear tests.13

  Little did Bhutto know that following the decision a day earlier by the Defense Committee of the Cabinet to conduct nuclear tests, Sharif had conveyed his order to Ishfaq Ahmed, sixty-eight-year-old chair of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC), in crisp Urdu: “Dhamaka kar do” (“Conduct the explosions”).14 The bespectacled, jug-eared Ahmed, endowed with high cheekbones and long, snow-white hair, assured Sharif that all would be ready for testing in ten days.

  The detonations were mainly to occur in a 0.62-mile-long, 9-foot-diameter, steel-covered tunnel bored into the granite Koh Kambaran Mountain in the Ras Koh range in Chagai district of Baluchistan, thirty miles from the Iranian border. Constructed in the form of a fishhook by the PAEC in 1980, it was a PAEC asset. Its fishhook form ensured that following an explosion, the mountain would move outward and the tunnel would collapse and seal the entrance. It was capable of withstanding an explosion of twenty kilotons, the same magnitude as the one dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, in August 1945.

  Taking this into account and the fact that the PAEC had conducted more cold tests on nuclear weapons than the Kahuta-based Khan Research Laboratories (KRL), the government had opted for the PAEC.15 At an earlier, expanded meeting called by the government, the nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan had argued that given the KRL’s record as the first to enrich uranium and design its own atom bomb and conduct cold tests on its own, it should be given the opportunity to carry out Pakistan’s first nuclear tests. But his plea fell on deaf ears. He complained to Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Jehangir Karamat. The COAS called Sharif. As a result, Sharif decided that KRL personnel should be involved in preparing the test sites as well as be present at the time of testing.

  On May 19 two teams of 140 PAEC scientists, engineers, and technicians were flown from Islamabad and other locations to Turbat airport in Baluchistan on
their way to the test site in the Koh Kambaran Mountains.

  It took five days to assemble the five nuclear devices containing weapons-grade, highly enriched uranium. The PAEC’s Samar Mubarakmand supervised the assembly personally, checking and rechecking each device, while trudging through the stuffy tunnel five times. Then diagnostic cables were laid through the tunnel to the telemetry station, which communicated with the command post six miles away. Next, a complete simulated test was carried out by radio link.

  It was now May 25.

  Unlike the latter-day Pokhran military firing range in India, the test site in Pakistan was an open book for the US spy satellites, which were focused on their target day and night. On May 25 an American intelligence official said, “At this point, they could conduct a nuclear test at any time.” The CIA kept Clinton informed on an hourly basis.

  By the time the tunnel was sealed with six thousand bags of cement, it was the afternoon of May 26. Once the cement had dried within twenty-four hours, the engineers declared that the site was ready. This was conveyed to Sharif via the military’s general headquarters (GHQ). All told, various official agencies of Pakistan had performed a gargantuan task with admirable speed, coordination, and calm confidence.

  In Washington officials predicted the testing occurring “within hours.” On the night of May 27 (Islamabad time), Clinton made the last of his four calls to Sharif. According to his spokesman Mike McCurry, it was a “very intense” twenty-five-minute conversation in which Clinton implored Sharif not to conduct a test.16 It proved futile.

  Recalling the intense pressure he was subjected to during that crisis twelve years later, Sharif revealed that Clinton offered as much as $5 billion of aid to Pakistan in return for abstinence from testing nuclear weapons. But, added Sharif, it was more important for him to implement the national will, which demanded those tests.17 Another version of that crucial telephone conversation is that Sharif sought explicit US security guarantees, which Clinton was unable or unwilling to offer.18 Most likely, both points were discussed.

  As if this were not enough, India and Israel cropped up in Pakistan’s unfolding drama. On May 27, the Indian Army’s Signals Intelligence Directorate intercepted a coded telegram alerting the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi that Pakistan had “credible information” that India was all set to mount a predawn attack on its nuclear installations.19

  And as Pakistan prepared to test its nuclear devices, its military spotted US-made F16s in the surrounding airspace. It was aware that Israel used two-seater F16s, equipped with advanced reconnaissance equipment, which at forty-five thousand feet could take pictures of objects many miles away. It feared that this was part of an Indian-Israeli plan to launch a preemptive strike at its test site in Baluchistan. It alerted both the United States and the United Nations. They in turn contacted the Israeli government immediately, which assured then that it had no such plan.20 Pakistan was not reassured. Its president, Muhammad Rafiq Tarar, would suspend the constitution and declare a state of emergency as a result of threats of unspecified “external aggression” soon after Sharif’s TV speech.

  “Today, we have settled a score and have carried out five successful nuclear tests,” announced Sharif at 15:00 GMT on May 28 on Pakistani TV. His declaration received the jubilant applause usually reserved for a batsman who has smashed the ball over the boundary by cheering crowds at cricket matches.

  Elaborating his dramatic statement later at a press conference, Sharif said, “Pakistan today successfully conducted five nuclear tests. The results were as expected. There was no release of radioactivity. I congratulate all Pakistani scientists, engineers and technicians for their dedicated team work and expertise in mastering complex and advanced technologies. The entire nation takes justifiable pride in the accomplishments of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, Dr. A. Q. Khan Research Laboratories and all affiliated organizations.” Blaming “the present Indian leadership’s reckless actions,” he added that “our decision to exercise the nuclear option has been taken in the interest of national self-defense . . . to deter aggression, whether nuclear or conventional.”21

  There was instant jubilation in the streets. Karachi, for instance, was paralyzed by traffic jams as tens of thousands headed for the city center to join the festivities. In Lahore crowds burned effigies of Vajpayee while chanting slogans in praise of Sharif, Karamat, and Qadeer Khan.22

  Those attending Friday prayers heard sermons thanking Allah for making Pakistan the first Muslim nation to acquire nuclear weapons. The Islamist parties were euphoric about the successful testing of the Islamic atom bomb—a term coined by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, their bête noire—for two reasons. It gave Pakistan parity with India in defense that it lacked when facing its bigger and more powerful neighbor in conventional terms. Second, mastering the production and testing of such a weapon was a triumph of the marriage between Islam and modern technology. What they overlooked was the fact that Pakistan had assembled a uranium-based atom bomb by pilfering parts and materials from Western sources and obtaining the design from the atheist government of the communist People’s Republic of China.

  Gohar Ayub Khan, a hawkish foreign minister close to the generals, was decidedly bullish, brimming with newborn confidence. “We have nuclear weapons, we are a nuclear power,” he declared. “We have an advanced missile program,” he added, warning that Pakistan had acquired the capacity to retaliate “with vengeance and devastating effect” against Indian attacks.23

  After half a century of uncertainty about the continued existence of Pakistan because of the hostility of the militarily mightier India, its leaders now possessed an effective deterrent against any attempt by Delhi to break up their republic or absorb it.

  Moreover, intent on beating India in the numbers game, Sharif ordered a further test, code-named Chagai II, on May 30 at Kharan, a flat desert valley ninety-five miles southwest of the Ras Koh Range. The site was an L-shaped shaft three hundred feet deep and then seven hundred feet long horizontally, and the device was plutonium-based. The officially announced yield of eighteen to twenty kT was disputed by independent assessors, with the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists coming up with the figure of two kT. Equally exaggerated were the statistics about the cumulative total of the five devices detonated earlier under the code-name of Chagai I. Pakistan’s claimed figure of forty to forty-five kT stood in sharp contrast to the estimate of eight to fifteen kT by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.24

  Scientists make a distinction between a nuclear weapon test and an explosion. According to them, India had conducted three nuclear tests, including the one in 1974. In May 1998 at Pokhran there were two tests: one involving two simultaneous blasts and the other three synchronized explosions.25 By the same token, Pakistan’s five simultaneous explosions at Chagai Hills counted as the first test, with the next single blast at Kharan as the second. So the final test score was: India, 3; Pakistan, 2.

  While ordinary Pakistanis were in a celebratory mood on May 29, the affluent among them fell into deep depression. The Sharif administration issued an emergency order, freezing $11.5 billion in private foreign currency deposits in Pakistani banks and suspending the licenses of foreign exchange dealers. Fearing a rush to withdraw foreign currencies in view of the impending economic sanctions, the government acted instantly, nervously aware that its central bank had only $1.6 billion in foreign exchange reserves. At $32 billion, Pakistan’s foreign debts were a whopping 64 percent of its GDP. It announced a 50 percent cut in all expenditures except development projects.26

  The only foreign leader Sharif shared his top-secret decision to conduct atomic tests with was Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, the de facto leader of Saudi Arabia. In appreciation of this gesture, Abdullah offered to supply Pakistan fifty thousand barrels of oil per day, about one-seventh of its total consumption, for an indefinite period and on deferred payment terms. This helped to relieve to a certain extent the ill effects of the sanc
tions by the United States and the European Union.27 Saudi Arabia was one of the two countries that congratulated Pakistan for taking the “bold decision,” the other being the United Arab Emirates.

  Domestically, the political upside for Sharif was a dramatic turnaround in his popularity, from a slow, irreversible decline to a meteoric surge. Vajpayee too gained in the esteem of the public, which saw him as a staunch upholder of India’s security. This uptick in their popular standing made the two leaders amenable to cease saber rattling and mend fences.

  Postblast Thaw

  They did so by sticking to the long-established practice of meeting on the margins of the annual South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation summit. In July 1998, it was hosted by Sri Lanka. News of this event encouraged Clinton to consider easing sanctions against the two South Asian neighbors.

  More substantial progress was made during the cordial parley between Sharif and Vajpayee in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session on September 23. Sharif stated that in a nuclear weapons environment neither side could even contemplate the use of force.28 They decided to revive dialogue between their respective foreign secretaries on the eight outstanding issues and to break new ground: resume bus service between Delhi and Lahore to encourage people-to-people contact. This in turn led Clinton to withdraw his opposition to the IMF loan to Pakistan.