HOW DID YOU BECOME A MEMBER OF THE PAKISTAN ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION?

I was a... professor here, in 1957. And that's about the time when Pakistan government decided to set up the commission, and they were looking for physicists. And clearly I was the only Pakistani scientist who was... in the public eye, because I was a professor here, so I was asked to become a member.

DID YOU HAVE A PARTICULARLY SPECIALTY?

Physics.

COULD YOU TALK ABOUT THAT?

Well, I am a particle physicist, which is the nearest branch to nuclear physics. So in that sense I was the sort of right connection with the subject of nuclear energy and so on. So, but also, there's, I think, one more reason. I had been Secretary of the Atomic Energy Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy in the United Nations, in 1955. So at that time, I had already, was a part of the, if you like, the nuclear energy establishment. So there's two reasons I think are, were enough for them to decide to ask me to become a member.

DO YOU REMEMBER WHEN PRESIDENT EISENHOWER TALKED ABOUT THE ATOMS FOR PEACE PROGRAM AT GENEVA? HOW DID YOU FEEL ABOUT THAT?

Well, I don't remember the actual speech, but since I was concerned with the... atomic energy conference, which is... being held at about the same time, I don't know the sequence of events, whether the speech made the conference possible, or whether it was already decided how the--

THE SPEECH MADE THE IAEA POSSIBLE. HOW DID YOU FEEL THAT PAKISTAN MAY BENEFIT FROM ATOMS FOR PEACE?

Well, don't forget those were the 1950s and '60s, when everybody was thinking of atomic energy as the future source of energy, and those were the days — now, one doesn't think of this in that way; people are very differently motivated nowadays. But at that time, everybody decided, including President Eisenhower, and everybody in the commission, in Pakistan, everybody in Pakistan government, that this was the future source of energy. And so, it was a very big thing that the... we were being offered help in this respect, although the offer was a miserable little offer of $300,000, but one didn't look the gift horse in the mouth, and, I think in the end, Pakistan atomic energy people spent about, I don't exactly remember -- Usmani would know much better than... myself the figures — but it was I think $1.5 million or even more.

WHAT WAS THE ENERGY COMMISSION TRYING TO DO IN PAKISTAN AT THE TIME? WHAT WERE THE GOALS?

Well, there was two people I had to deal with; one was the first chairman, Dr. Nazir Ahmed; he was rather... what shall I say, he was not a nuclear physicist; he was a cotton technologist, had been. A good man, but he did not have many of the ideas. Then I was the man who was responsible for getting Usmani into the picture; I spoke to President Ayub Khan and he, on my recommendation. Usmani I met in a very strange way: we were traveling together in a railway train, and I never knew him before that, and we just got to know each other. And I saw his merits right away, because he was being wasted, a research physicist. He was being wasted in other disciplines, in other branches of the subject, of the government, of the administration; for example, he had been asked to take charge of the mineral deposits, and so on, in Pakistan, geological survey. When I recommended to President Ayub Khan that he should be the man who should head the commission. So, the president accepted my... proposal, and Usmani was asked to leave that job, and come back to the atomic energy side.

HOW DO YOU SEE THE FUTURE OF THE PAKISTAN ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION AT THE BEGINNING THERE?

Well, it was quite clear to us that we had to think of power, nuclear power, right away. And, in the meanwhile, the important point was to get the commission, like all the commissions in the world, to train the manpower in Pakistan. There was no other body in Pakistan that was training people. You see, and who's that?

WHAT WERE THE GOALS THAT YOU SET OUT TO ACHIEVE?

Yes, there was two goals: one was the goal of training people in all disciplines relating to atomic energy. Pakistan had no training programs whatsoever in the basic sciences or in applied sciences. And that was the first goal, that Usmani and I together were busy with. We got about six hundred people trained under the umbrella of the Atomic Energy Commission. The six hundred were not all physicists; they were physicists, mathematicians, they were health scientists, they were engineers, they were all disciplines of... that was remotely con-, even remotely, 'cause mathematics is not very well connected with atomic energy. But we thought this was a good umbrella to get people trained, and so we made lists, we selected the boys, we got them placed here, and elsewhere, and even we built the space sciences under that umbrella. I don't know if Usmani talked to you about that.

THESE SCIENTISTS WERE TRAINED IN AMERICA AND IN BRITAIN. COULD YOU EXPLAIN THAT? HOW DID PAKISTAN BENEFIT FROM THIS?

Well, nuclear cooperation is a totally different thing. These are men trained in the universities of here as well as in the US...

IT WAS ALL PART OF ATOMS FOR PEACE...?

Well, not always.

NOT ALWAYS?

You know, for example, all the ones who came here were paid for... paid for by us. By Pakistan.

SO WHAT DID PAKISTAN SET OUT TO ACHIEVE?

Well, as I said, number one was to get training for people in all disciplines of science, and that was fully succeeded in Pakistan's total research manpower now consists of those people we trained; it's not been added on to. Regretfully, very regretfully. And so that we succeeded admirably in. The second goal, which was quite clear to us, was to build up laboratories in various research disciplines, the PINSTECH laboratory is just one of them. But there are several other laboratories, the one in Faisalabad, for example, on nuclear agriculture. We called it nuclear agriculture because that's the only way we could get money which was agriculture. And it's one of the best agriculturally important laboratories in Pakistan. So, that was the second. So we were building up science, if you like, not just nuclear physics, nuclear sciences, but science in general, under the guise of, under the umbrella of the atomic energy. Atomic energy was likely to get monies; we were going to exploit that, and we did, very successfully, both Usmani and I, and that's our greatest achievement. The second achievement was to get a nuclear reactor built in Pakistan, and show that nuclear reactors could be built and operated by Pakistanis safely; and for the future, because as I say, at that time we, everybody was talking of nuclear power. And so a nuclear power reactor was built in Pakistan, by the Canadians, which was operated... by the Pakistanis now; this is the reactor, as you know. And that was also successful. So both these ideas were quite successful by the years 1972.

YOU WERE A PARTICIPANT AND LEADING MEMBER OF THE GENEVA

That's right. There were two conferences held in '55 and '53, of which I was scientific secretary. '55 was a very important conference for me personally, because that's the first time I'd got in touch with the United Nations. I entered, as I've described it elsewhere, I entered at and I fell in love with it immediately. I thought this was really the family of man in all its colors and hues and all its range of behavior, and so on. And this was the thing to serve. And that's what I have been serving since 1964 as you probably know, at the Atomic Energy International Center for Theoretical Physics at Trieste — that's the center which I founded. And founded at the, near, the suggestion of the IAEA forum, because I was a delegate from Pakistan at 1960 conference. So for me it was a very important occasion, 1955 conference. Then in '50, '58, I was again asked to become the scientific, one of the 20 scientific secretaries, and I was also concerned with that. And then after that, of course, 1960 onwards, I was spending all my time trying to lobby and to found the center at Trieste.

DO YOU REMEMBER THE OTHER SPEAKERS AT GENEVA?

Well, one of the most important speakers at the first conference was Niels Bohr. Oh, let me start with Bhabha, who was the chairman of the whole conference — he was the atomic physicist from India. And he was the one who, I think, from our point of view, committed the supreme indiscretion, which was very good, which was very helpful to the future generations, that he mentioned fusion in his very first address. Fusion was supposed to be a hush-hush subject, which you were not supposed — it's a very... interesting, I was reflecting last night on the sort of times of those... First of all science was very much more important than it is now; scientists were much more believed, and there was a science advisory committee that consisted of Rabi and Bhabha and Salvi and that man Goldschmidt, I think, was a member, and well I shouldn't have very tall man who discovered the positrons, Attlee but I've forgotten his name. But anyhow, these men were sort of supremos. They were looked upon as really the great wizards of the age. And the United Nations organization looked upon them in a way which no scientist has since attained the credibility of. Then at the meeting itself, as I said, Bhabha made that wonderful speech, which led to the fusion being the important subject in the '58 conference, '55 already, it was fusion-less, but for the president to make the very first talk on fusion was rather important, because it brought in this, the sort of what do you call it, the de-classification of the fusion business. Then the most memorable talk, for me, was that of Niels Bohr, at the first conference, in the '55 conference. I don't think Usmani was there; he was not yet inducted into atomic energy.

WHAT DO YOU REMEMBER NIELS BOHR AS SAYING?

Niels Bohr's speech was --

Niels Bohr... was speaking on the promise of nuclear energy and peace and so on. It was an interesting speech, because he, as a true Dane, spoke English in this atrocious accent — absolutely atrocious. So, somebody had the brilliant idea — he was speaking in the big hall in Geneva, very big hall, and about 3,000 people were listening to him — and somebody had the brilliant idea of putting an English speaker, a proper English speaker, onto the English channel, so you could either hear him speaking English, or his words translated into proper English, just laid out properly, into the English channel. And that was one of the very... amusing episodes in the whole meeting. He had the trick of lowering his voice, like all Danes do, whenever there's an important point to be made, and that was corrected by the English speaker. Then the '58 conference was important because Dr. Ecklund, who became subsequently the Director-General of the IAEA in '62, was the supreme scientific secretary; he was number one, and we were his underlings, twenty of us, and from that time became, I gave, I got into a friendship with him. And that stood us in greatly, gave very good stead when we came to the founding of the International Center of Theoretical Physics in Trieste, because he was the Director-General of the agency. And having the director-general on your side was a very important point.

HOW WOULD YOU SUM UP THE WHOLE ATMOSPHERE OF THOSE CONFERENCES?

Well, amazing, because nothing like them has happened since. And I don't know whether it will happen again, because they were sort of the '55 conference in particular was a very crucial conference in the sense of declassifying and demystifying nuclear energy. For example, people went over all the cross-sections of neutrons thermal neutrons, and it was so hush-hush, it was classified before, and this was not to be future, in the future they ought to be made in the open, and so to get the Russian data as well as... simple scientific things, but they were very clothed in a sort of atmosphere of awe, and that sort of atmosphere prevailed in the whole conference. '55.

HOW COULD PAKISTAN BENEFIT FROM THAT?

Pakistan was one of the spectators. Like all the most of the nations were. The four or five nations which had the nuclear data, they were the ones which were putting it out. They were collaborating and so on, but the rest of us were all spectators, and that was very important for us to, at that time, to get into the business, and that brought us in. And the '55, '58 conference was different. That was still, physics was very much in the fore. Science was very much in the fore. But first of all it was fusion — fusion reaction, and fusion reactors and so on that were talked about, mostly, and... I remember, I was scientific secretary for one of the... sessions on pure science, pure physics, and at the conference was announced the discovery, made at CERN, just a few days before, of the pi-meson decaying into electron and neutrino. Never before had been this decay seen. So, I, it was my task to speak to the people... the assembly address afterwards, and tell of this great and new discovery which had been made at CERN next door. I did that, and the next day the reports which came out in the press were rather the Times reported it like this — it said, "Professor Salam was the scientific secretary who told us about this great discovery, and he told us also that young people were dancing in the streets of Lahore." Now, I was... of course, taken... rather I didn't like this way of... sarcastically putting this statement, so I was talking with G.P. Thompson, who was, as you know, a Nobel laureate when I was professor here, and then he was master over at Cambridge College, at that time. I... told him that I said, "Look, Professor, Sir G.P., I have got very bad publicity." And he came out with the memorable words, he said, "Salam, no publicity is bad publicity." Of course, I'm sure President Reagan doesn't think that now.

WERE YOU SUPPORTIVE OF THE PROJECT PLOWSHARES?

No. I was I think I had a debate with Teller once about this project. That's the only time I met Teller in person; I have great respect for his scientific abilities, of course. But I think we were on opposite sides in... La Jolla, in '71, was it? No, no, earlier, much earlier, '60, '62, perhaps. '61 or '62.

CAN WE JUST START THAT AGAIN?

No, no, I was not. I was I thought it was... this was the project which tried to build dams and lakes and things like that.

RIGHT.

And I think Teller was the biggest proponent of that, and one would have liked him to succeed, but the point is that nobody had ever tried it, or nobody was sure of the radioactivity which would be left behind, and nobody would unless the project was tried somewhere, and Teller wanted it to be tried in Pakistan, for example, and that's why he was very keen to meet me. And so we talked about it — I think it was '61 or '62 in La Jolla — and I think we had a public debate about this, and I'm afraid I was a bit cagey, very cagey, about the whole project. So I don't think anything has come of this yet.

HOW DID YOU VIEW THE IAEA? DID YOU FIND THAT RESTRICTIVE?

Yes, I was very happy with the setting up of the IAEA in '57, and the fact that we were able to use it in 1960 for our purposes, to set up an international center was of course a very good thing. So, altogether, I think IAEA has done more or about more, very much... good to the universe in its various programs, and in its supporting of basic sciences as well as other sciences, and in its technical cooperation program particularly, it is now a very big part of the IAEA — that's the part with which I deal with, much more than any other part, technical cooperation program. In the beginning, the technical cooperation used to be mainly giving contacts to USA and UK and France, and that was one of the things which we had to fight against and we did successfully.

HOW DID YOU EVALUATE PAKISTAN'S FUTURE ENERGY NEEDS? WHY DID YOU NEED THE KANUPP REACTOR?

Well, we needed it to bring nuclear energy to Pa —

Well, we were hoping to be able to demonstrate to the Pakistan government that nuclear needs would be satisfied through nuclear power, and that's why the reason was, we started to negotiate with Canada and we succeeded in getting the Canadian interest. Now, unfortunately later on, as you know, there were various things which led to Canada... not supplying the nuclear fuel for Pakistan, and so Pakistan has had to go through the old riddle of which is perhaps good for Pakistan, technologically, of supplying its own nuclear fuel.

HOW DO YOU SEE THE NEXT TEN YEARS OF THE NUCLEAR AGE?

I'm afraid there's a big confusion in the world between nuclear power and nuclear arms. You see, people really should be afraid of the nuclear arms, but the outcry against nuclear power is such, so strong, it's transferred reaction, to something with which they can hit. But that dismays me because well, Chernobyl of course, has not helped in this respect at all, but before Chernobyl or without Chernobyl the nuclear power was the safe thing.

I THINK SOME OF THAT IS DUE TO THE QUESTION OF THE TECHNOLOGY. IS THE TECHNOLOGY THE SAME FOR NUCLEAR POWER?

No, it's not. It's not. I mean, the Chernobyl technology is different from the technology which is used in the west, mainly. However, Soviet...

IS IT DIFFERENT? IN WHAT WAY?

Well, there's no containment there, no vessels of contained, well, you see, the most important point is, one should make about nuclear safety is, and this is a remark which is not new for me, this is a remark made by Ecklund, is that mankind spends much more on training pilots of aircraft than it does to train the nuclear reactor operators. Nuclear reactor operators...

Personally I would like to see that the nuclear age, in terms of power, does come, because there's no long-term future for developing countries without nuclear power. We will have to have nuclear power, and we'll have to have very highly trained people looking after nuclear reactors, and these two things are together going together, and unfortunately, people either buy nuclear power, nuclear reactors from outside, and don't train their own men, or they just don't go into nuclear power at all, they are so afraid of it.

DO YOU HAVE ANY MESSAGE FOR THE POLITICIANS?

Oh, politicians — well, first of all, they should get rid of nuclear weapons, I think. That's the only message which one could make to the politicians, that they should be much more getting rid of those things and then nuclear power will come secondly... in their thinking.

CAN YOU TELL ME AGAIN ABOUT HOMI BHABHA TALKING ABOUT FUSION?

Well, it was a very good speech; it was an electrically, electrifying speech, in that sense, because it brought together, brought out in the open, something which had been hush-hushed throughout the secretariat, throughout the conference: there was not a single paper on fusion reactions, because people were afraid that we had gone so much far--

WHAT DID HOMI BHABHA SAY AT THE CONFERENCE?

He said-

I remember Homi Bhabha saying —

I remember Homi Bhabha saying, quite clearly, that there should be a whole disclosure of what nuclear fusion can do, in terms of producing power; this meant that the whole business of nuclear reactions, at the hydrogen end, would have come out in the open, and we had not put them at all in the program, for one bit, at that time, and it was so electrifying to hear the chairman of the conference bring this point right at the outset. And this was very good. That, of course, worked in three years' time, didn't work then, because the conference had been prepared. But in '58 the whole conference was about fusion, if you like. That was the major event of the conference.

SO THE DANGER OF PROLIFERATION WAS A LONG WAY AWAY.

Oh, yes... well, those people didn't talk of... these, all these terms, proliferation and so on... were not used at that time, in that epoch. In '54, for example, India had the un-safeguarded reactor. It is the one in Bombay, as you know, and that was supplied, the reactor was supplied by Canada, the heavy water was supplied by USA, the reprocessing plant was supplied by Imperial College. Not Imperial College of Great Britain, when Imperial College Professor was the man who ran the thing, who showed them how to work it. So, all that was quite, was innocently given, and today it just wouldn't be done — I mean, there's a whole thing has changed.

WERE YOU SURPRISED AT THE INDIAN TEST?

I was. Because Bhabha had always been saying that India should make weapons and should de-, deploy them, but he had not been listened to, neither by Mrs. Gandhi nor by her father, but then the test came and we were really surprised — this was after Bhabha's death. We were very surprised.

THANK YOU.