...AN INTERVIEW WITH DR. HOMI SETHNA IN BOMBAY, THE 16TH OF FEBRUARY, 1987. CAN I ASK YOU FIRST TO RECALL THE DAYS OF THE GENEVA CONFERENCES? CAN YOU TELL ME WHAT THE ATMOSPHERE WAS LIKE AT THOSE CONFERENCES?

Well, the first one was very, very exciting. For the first time, you know, all this information on, uh, nuclear energy had come out, uh, under the auspices of, uh, the United Nations, and quite a few papers which were read were quite revealing, in the sense that it showed how far, what progress has, had been made. Especially papers from France, uh, were very, very interesting; uh, the Russian papers were there, but half the sense was, well, I wouldn't say half uh, you, you lost a lot in the translation, uh, but they... very, very good papers. The spirit was also one of openness. The... '58 conference, there was a tremendous amount, number of papers, et cetera; um, there was, you might say, an explosion of information... but the one after that, I think that was in, uh, '64, uh, the information flow started petering out. So that is how it was.

HOW MUCH DID YOU LEARN FROM THE SOVIETS? DID YOU UNDERSTAND MUCH?

Well, you, you saw it through the, sort of, you heard it through the translator, and, uh, it was, uh, quite difficult, quite difficult. Um, we visited the Soviet Union immediately after the conference, uh, talked about, uh, the delegation, and, Um, we went round a good bit of the USSR they were advanced, but... not that advanced, let's put it that way. We had different ideas on, uh, health and safety, for instance, that was one. As far as their technology went, I must say that it was impeccable. They, there's no doubt about it, they knew what they were doing. Of course, those days everything was small... nothing on a gigantic scale, and anyway you were shown only a few figures. That's to be expected.

HOW FAR ALONG WAS THE INDIAN PROGRAM AT THIS TIME? WHAT WAS THE ATMOSPHERE LIKE AMONG THE INDIAN SCIENTISTS?

It was a very, very... small group; um, a very cohesive group, and sort of, you know, when you start something new, you're always on the go, trying to get things done, et cetera; in those days, up 'til '55, we were just setting up, uh, all our analytical facilities, et cetera. In '55, we took a decision, after, uh, the conference, to start the Apsara, that is the pool-type reactor, at the same time from the USSR we moved to Canada, for the Canada-India reactor, CIRUS as it is called now; and we had discussions with the Canadian AECL, with Lorne Gray, with whom I still correspond, Dr. Lewis, and that whole lot, Bennett, W. B.... So, it was a very, very exciting time. And, uh, shall we say, exponential growth. Where, uh, very interesting, and... what should I say, uh, very, sort of, everybody was working very, very closely, very closely. No problems.

CAN YOU TELL ME A LITTLE BIT ABOUT DR. BHABHA AND WHAT HIS ROLE WAS IN THE EARLY PROGRAM?

Well, he's the man who sort of was the, what shall I say, the main pillar, and the sort of inspiration. Uh, he... at times ex-, overextended us... we were the fellows who could deliver the goods, at, uh, but he listened to reason, and, I must say, he backed us up, uh, a hundred and one percent, we never had any problems, to speak of. Very occasional, some little bit or the other, but, on the whole... very, very smooth sailing. He is the one who would, uh, see to it we got our proper funding, that, uh, our projects went through, and we didn't have the usual government red tape to deal with, otherwise I don't think we would ever have started, because... all governments are the same, and our government, especially in those days, was very, very bureaucratic, highly bureaucratic, so... he, he sort of, what you might call in American football was the fellow who ran interference.

CAN YOU TELL ME ABOUT PANDIT NEHRU'S VIEWS ABOUT NUCLEAR ENERGY IN THIS EARLY PHASE?

He uh, Panditji was a person who firmly believed in science and technology. Uh, but, he had one reservation, as far as nuclear energy went, and that is it should be used only, and repeat only, for peaceful purposes. And that was clearly defined. In fact, our atomic energy act has a clause in it, probably one of the first ones, I don't know whether the others had it or not. I think one or two others have it, but we were the first ones, our act says that nuclear energy, as far as India is concerned, shall be used only for peaceful purposes And that is laid down. Now, we've been accused of all sorts of things since then, and I think, uh, we've stuck to that so far. And I'm sure we will stick to it.

CAN I ASK YOU AGAIN TO SUMMARIZE PANDIT NEHRU'S VIEWS ON NUCLEAR ENERGY?

He, uh, looked upon it as a tool to introduce the toiling masses of India, uh, into the 20th century... to improve the lot of the common man by, shall we say, energy, per se. We were very, very short of it, we still are. Then, it's used in agriculture, it's used in medicine, and the fallout that you get, not the nuclear fallout, but the scientific fallout you get from using nuclear techniques in other, other branches of science and technology. This was his main objective.

WAS HE SUPPORTIVE OF DR. BHABHA IN THESE EARLY DAYS?

Oh, yes, extremely, always was supportive, right to the very end. Uh, there's no doubt about that. Very supportive. And so was Shastri, and so was Mrs. Gandhi. And I'm sure so is Mr. Rajiv Gandhi, but I haven't had the pleasure of working under him.

CAN YOU TELL US SOMETHING ABOUT THE NEGOTIATIONS FOR THE TROMBAY REACTOR, OF WHICH YOU WERE VERY MUCH A PART?

Which one, the Apsara?

THE CIRUS.

Uh, there we had discussions with the Canadian aid people, because this was to come under Canadian aid to India. The leading person on the Canadian side was Lorne Gray, Jewel (James Lorne) Gray, uh, who subsequently became the president of AECL. He is the man who, who, uh, what shall I say, started the ball rolling, an extremely competent engineer, and a very fine human being. Um, the question was, What would we do in India, and what would Canada supply? One of the arguments which we had was on the fuel, the metal fuel, and we were told that, uh, you know, uh, this is a highly sophisticated, uh, uh, industry, that, uh, the technology is very... very, very difficult to master, et cetera, et cetera, but Dr. Bhabha took the view that... it had to be done sometime or the other, so we broke it up into parts. It was first to make the metal, and second convert the metal to fuel elements. Um, I had the, uh, the fortunate task, let's say, of coordinating the metal production as well as the fuel production. It wasn't that difficult as, uh, was made out by the, uh, Canadians; I mean, yes... it took us a couple of months longer than what we had planned, but otherwise, we had no problem, right from the word go. The fuel elements were absolutely okay, and they were the ones which went into the reactor, 50 percent Indian, and 50 percent Canadian. And they worked.

TO WHAT EXTENT WAS INDIA DEPENDENT ON FOREIGN ASSISTANCE AT THIS POINT?

Well, let's, let's put it this way: that the... CIRUS, the Canadian reactor, did give us, uh, a methodology of working to nuclear standards. Otherwise it would have taken us... longer. It merely, what shall I say, compressed the time, which was required by us to move farther along the way. But otherwise it was our own effort, completely our own effort.

DID INDIA BENEFIT IN ANY WAY FROM ATOMS FOR PEACE?

Oh, yes. Because it opened our eyes to what was going on in the rest of the world, and it gave us a fresh impetus, you might say, to which direction to look in, what would suit our condition, and, uh, how far it could go. The last, the last point being the most important. Because in '58, uh, we took the decision to set up a fuel reprocessing plant, to turn and plant it... have you been to Trombay? It's there, at the very end.

CAN YOU RECALL WHY THE DECISION WAS TAKEN IN '58 TO BUILD THE REPROCESSING FACILITY AT TROMBAY?

Well, um... we we had to store those rods, the irradiated fuel. Well, what should we do with them? The second thing was, that we were already thinking in terms of setting up a fast breeder reactor; these are things we, had come out of the '55 conference, the EBR, the American EBR et cetera, the Russians had put forth some papers... so the idea was, let's see if we can extract plutonium from the irradiated fuel. Uh, in '58 we took the decision that was conveyed to me when I was in Geneva and told that as soon as I came back, I would have to start working on it. Which we did, and I think that the plant was, the first fuel element went in 1963 or '64, uh, the reprocessing plant started. It worked very well, I must say; we had a couple of, we made a couple of errors, but... uh, they were not very, what shall I say, costly, in the sense that, um, we could handle them, ourselves; we didn't require any outside assistance to set it right. And it worked.

JUST TO SUM UP THIS WHOLE EARLY PERIOD, IT SEEMS THERE WAS A WHOLE BANK OF INFORMATION AND KNOW-HOW THAT INDIA ALREADY HAD AT THIS STAGE.

No, I wouldn't say that. From the data which was available for reprocessing, available in literature... was totally incorrect. I can assure you, if we had followed that data, nothing would have worked. Let, let's be frank about it. So we had to generate our own data, which we did; uh, as far as... to go back earlier, when we made the metal also, we had to generate our own data, we had to build it up; um... where we did profit was from methods of analysis to find out the parts per million and parts per billion, what is the method of analysis one uses. But the... process itself, the setting up of plans, et cetera, was entirely an Indian effort. We got a window, yes, this is how things are done, but then we were on our own, we had to do it ourselves. You, you, you, you couldn't get that type of, uh, information naturally; I don't blame people for not giving it to anyone.

CAN YOU JUST REPEAT THAT POINT THAT NEHRU WAS SUPPORTIVE?

Yes, uh, uh, when this decision for the reprocessing plant was taken, I think that the cost of the plant was some four crores of rupees, which is a lot of money, especially in those days. And uh, what one might say, one had never seen what plutonium looked like, what were the intermediate compounds which we were looking for looked like, so, it was a pretty, what shall I say, risky decision, to be taken by, uh, Pandit Nehru. Um, but he took it, and I think it was the right decision at that time. He had faith in the people who, who were going to handle this project.

HOW AND WHY WAS THE DECISION TAKEN NOT TO SIGN THE NON-PROLIFERATION TREATY?

Well... it's totally un-, I mean, uh, you see, look, I'll, I'll put it this way. The... basis of that treaty is, to put it quite bluntly, you do what I tell you to do, but don't do what I do. Now, it's totally unacceptable. If, however, the... first portion of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, that is included in the preamble, it says, you will go in for nuclear disarmament and all that type of stuff. Could, in some semblance, some semblance — I'm not saying do it a hundred percent, but at least some steps in that direction could be implemented, you could talk about it. But... there's no such thing. I, I mean, I don't see, since the time this treaty was, uh, put up for signature by various countries, that there has been any, uh, reduction in the nuclear arms race. I mean, everybody seems to... to be going flat out to see how many people they can kill, in one go.

... well, it's an unequal treaty, as I said... It's a, we have always emphasized that it is a treaty which is totally unequal, that it... doesn't treat everybody equally. The basic, uh, principle in that treaty is that you do what I tell you to do, but don't do what I do. Now, if there was any question, if there was some indication, even, that you were going to reduce nuclear arms, which is there in the preamble to the treaty, one could look at it. The second point is that you have divided the world into people who... who are the haves and the have-nots. What are you looking at, whether I'm doing something peacefully, you want to inspect. But... if you are preparing for war, uh-uh, you need not inspect. This is a, this seems to me to be somewhat an incongruous situation; of course, nobody will agree with me, in, uh, quite a few countries of the world. But the fact remains that, supposing tomorrow, by a... a dictum, you say, that all nuclear activities listed below shall move to the military. Then there are no safeguards. The safeguards cease automatically. There is no question of safeguards. Now... to me it seems rather peculiar that what you exactly trying to achieve what you don't want to achieve: that is to move everything into the military field.

CAN YOU TELL ME THE BACKGROUND TO HOW THE DECISION WAS MADE TO GO AHEAD WITH THE P.N.E. IN 1974?

Well... 1974, well, uh, we wanted an experiment, to tell you the truth; it was an experiment because, when you look at what has happened since 1974, and now it's 1987. So '74 was purely, uh, an experiment. As I called it, a 'Peaceful Nuclear Experiment.' Uh... we wanted to see whether we were capable of carrying out such an experiment, and... the results are there. We are capable. That's all. I mean, people try to read a bit too much into it... I don't think one should. One should leave it at what it is. The future will prove whether I'm right or whether I'm wrong.

PEOPLE ALWAYS ASK THE QUESTION, 'WHY 1974?'. BECAUSE INDIA HAD THE POSSIBILITY BACK IN '66 WHEN YOU ACTUALLY HAD GOT THE PLUTONIUM. ...WHAT ARE YOUR MEMORIES OF THE CEREMONIAL OPENING OF THE CIRUS REACTOR?

Oh, it was, uh, a big, big affair. We had scientists from all over the world, because Canada had a very strong contingent, naturally, but, uh, I think it was Sir John Cockcroft who came from Britain, a few others, uh, from the US, we had the USA.C. chairman and the members, um, in fact from all over the world there were people. The... the, you know that in those days, uh, the Atomic Energy Commissions were sort of a club de sant club: that is to say, you all sort of, uh, worked together, used the same language and you were all for each other, whether it be US or India or anybody else, you know, you all worked together. Um, it has changed since then. Competition has increased. Problems have increased.

SOMEWHERE IN THE CHINESE TEST, DR. BHABHA MADE AN ANNOUNCEMENT THAT INDIA COULD PRODUCE A BOMB WITHIN 18 MONTHS. DO YOU RECALL AT THIS STAGE ANY DISCUSSIONS ABOUT THIS?

Um, let's, let's put it this way: that, um, let's talk about numbers. Eighteen months was a fair period, because we already had the, uh, raw materials with us it could have been done, I think. It could have. It would be... a pretty tough schedule, but... it could have been done. It was a lot easier later on.

HOW MUCH PROGRESS WAS THERE IN THE INDIAN NUCLEAR PROGRAM WHILE SHASTRI WAS IN OFFICE?

He was there for a very short time, you know? Um, it was during this time that the plutonium plant started working, um, CIRUS operation became normal, we had certain problems with CIRUS in the sense that, um, uh, there's some algae growth, we had to kill the algae, et cetera, you know, set everything right and all that. Um, and as we mentioned, those were the two milestones, of when he was the prime minister. Uh, he was a very direct sort of a person, but a very nice man. Very nice man. Uh... he, uh, he... he was... a, a bit, what shall we say, economical as far as expenditure goes. Let's put it that way.

DID YOU SHARE ANY OF HIS VIEWS ON NUCLEAR ENERGY AND NUCLEAR PROGRAMS?

Well, he's the first prime minister who said that, uh, if required we will... go in for, uh, the other side of nuclear technology, let's put it that way. Or words to that effect.

GOING BACK TO '74... JUST BEFORE THE P.N.E. IN '74, THERE WERE LEADING SCIENTISTS, I UNDERSTAND, WHO WERE ARGUING IN FAVOR OF THE NUCLEAR OPTION. DO YOU REMEMBER THAT?

Yeah, but I'll just, I'll just put it the other way: you're mixing up, uh, uh, an experiment, an explosive experiment, you might say, with a weapons system. I mean, these are two completely different things. See, if you look at the world, uh, countries which are nuclear powers, who have weapons, have always got a fairly substantial enrichment program. So 'til you talk about enrichment, um, this is the high-enriched stuff, 'til you do that, uh, you shouldn't talk about any weapons systems.

CAN YOU EXPLAIN FOR THE LAY AUDIENCE WHAT THE DIFFERENCE IS BETWEEN THAT PNE AND A BOMB?

Um... a PNE... can lead to a bomb. Let's be frank about that. But...when you're talking about a weapon, a weapon has to satisfy many conditions. One is... the size, the shape, the portability, and the ability to, what shall we say, to drop it on target. Now, whereas, uh, an explosive device, you don't have to worry about any of those things, because the static thing, you push it underground, and then you fire it in a normal way. Now, there, it's much more sophisticated, it, uh, it requires inputs which you would normally put into any weapon, I mean, whether it be, uh, a rifle or, or ammunition, or a... conventional bomb, or anything, there are certain, uh, military specification, which you don't have to, uh, bother about, as far as a PNE's concerned.

CAN YOU EXPLAIN WHAT INDIA ACTUALLY DID IN 1974 FOR A LAY AUDIENCE?

All right, I'll put it very, very simply. We dug a hole in the desert, we pushed this device inside, and then we fired it. Very simple. Just three sentences. But, uh, it required a lot of planning. Uh... to get the right geological strata, uh, to see that there was no venting, because that would create problems with everybody: our neighbors, and ourselves also. And you might say, the sheer logistics of it, to operate in a, in a desert-like area is no joke, I can assure you. It's difficult.

AND WHAT DID THE EXPLOSION ACHIEVE?

Well... we got some interesting data on the, uh, what, I mean, it gave us interesting data insofar as monitoring a test is concerned; that's the first one. On the geological formations in and around India, because the way in which the waves travel to your seismic stations, and also finally that, uh, we could do things which we wanted to do, if we wanted to do it.

WHY WERE THERE NO FOLLOWUP TESTS?

We were not interested in weaponry. If we were interested in weaponry, they would do it, but we were not. And... really... let's, let's, let's put it the other way: that, if a country wishes to... go in for weaponry, and I think, uh, any country would be crazy to go in for that, unless you're very very rich, you have to cut down somewhere. I mean, it, it's not something which comes to you on a platter, that you have enough funds available that you can have both conventional and nuclear forces, and if you have nuclear force, you cut down on the conventional, fine, but then you'll never use that nuclear force, you'd be crazy if you were going to use it. So why go in for it? Why make an investment of several thousand cros of rupees, for something which you know you're not going to use, and which you cannot use... it's absurd to even...think along those lines. That's my view and has always, has been that view: it has never changed.

AT THE TIME OP THE EXPLOSION, WHERE WERE YOU, AND WHAT WERE YOUR FEELINGS?

Well, I was there, at the site. And it was a sense of relief, that's all: that it's all over now. Now to answer the questions when I get back, and that was the only problem. Beyond that nothing else.

DID YOU ENCOUNTER ANY PROBLEMS DURING THE TEST?

Nothing to speak of. Very minor things, you know. Because... even though it's a desert, there were a lot of deer around that area; we couldn't, cannot believe it, there were about, oh, this much, very long, and they used to move all over the place. So to clear that, so that they don't get... hurt or anything of the kind, uh, that, that, that took some doing, you might say. But, beyond that, nothing. No ecological damage, let's put it that way.

WHY THE TEN-YEAR WAIT?

Oh... I don't know. I wasn't the chairman; I became chairman in '72, you know? Uh, '66 to '72 I was the director of the Bhabha Atomic Research Center. Uh... I... suppose well... we do make suggestions, and they either accept it or reject it. When they accept it we do it; when they don't accept it we don't — that's all.

ANYTHING ELSE ON MRS. GANDHI'S ATTITUDE TO NUCLEAR ENERGY? WAS SHE ALSO SUPPORTIVE?

Extremely supportive. A very nice person, if I might say so. Uh, very human, very, very human.

WHAT WERE INDIA'S ENERGY REQUIREMENTS IN THE EARLY '70S?

I'll put it, you see... we, I mean, you take this state, for a change. It's about the size of, what shall we say? Italy, it's bigger than Italy... I don't know what our population is, but it's something frightening. Uh, yes, we produce roughly four or five thousand megawatts of power as the install capacity. We... but we run our industry and... our industry consumes something like, uh, 70 percent of our uh, electrical energy; uh, we run it mostly in a staggered fashion. Not all factories close over the weekend, or on Sundays; everybody has a... weekday off, but that's a rotating off, so somebody's factory shuts on a Wednesday, somebody else is on a Monday, and the lucky ones on a Sunday. So, there is, if you work, as you do in the United States, or in Europe or anywhere else, there is even in this state... which they say is a surplus state, a shortage of power. Uh, I, I don't think that, uh, we'll be able to achieve, uh, comfortable, I'm saying the word comfortable means everybody shutting on the same day and all that type of stuff, 'til the year 2000 or... probably beyond that. We won't be able to achieve that target at all, we'll have to go along this basis of having, what shall I say, marginal shortages, and big shortages, in some part of India or the other.

DO YOU REMEMBER THE CRITICISM THAT WAS LEVELED AT INDIA DURING THE CARTER PERIOD? YOU WERE CHAIRMAN, YOU MUST HAVE TAKEN A LOT OF THE FLAK.

Oh, yeah, I did take a lot of the flak. But then, you see, you've got to look, uh, you have to look at your own country first, and then bother about the rest. And I looked at my own country, so it was... just too bad.

WHAT IN FACT DID THE CARTER LEGISLATION HAVE IN IT?

You know, I never even read the Non-Proliferation Treaty... the, the, uh, the Non-Proliferation Treaty of the United States. There is one, uh, clause in it, now I forget because, you know... for three years I haven't even looked at it, um, which is to my may, way of thinking, somewhat skewed. It says that, on a presidential determination. I'm not quoting exact words. Oh, yes, it was affected, and, uh... Tough. That's about all, one, but one had to grin and bear it, I mean, uh... there's very little you can do about it; I mean, you're, you're, you're not, uh, what shall we say, you relied on an agreement which had the force of a treaty because... parapod agreement lay on the floor of the House, as far as the US is concerned, and then it was approved, so it has the force of a treaty; now, all right, so you want to break it, you break it, what else can we do about it?

CAN YOU EXPLAIN WHY INDIA THOUGHT THE US HAD BROKEN THE AGREEMENT?

Well, supposing you have an agreement which has the force of a treaty. Yes, that... that Tarapur agreement was still, I think 1990-something-or-the-other. And, uh, there, uh, the US was to supply all the requirements of Tarapur, for fuel, as well as the spare parts, which are required for the running of the reac-, for the safe running of the reactor, and... India on its part shall buy the enrichment from no other country except the US, and India will buy all the raw material, all the, uh, spare parts, et cetera, also from the US All this was a perfectly sort of, what shall I say, straightforward agreement, where there was a mutuality of interests. All of a sudden you say, "Sorry, but I can't do it." Well, all right. So you've got to start scouting around, and it was quite a problem, to get alternate supplies, to make arrangements for spare parts, et cetera; it was quite a job. In a way... we started to sort of look upon Tarapur also as an Indian reactor, an Indian-built reactor, and, uh, we started to have to do quite a few of the things in India, and I think to the, in that way it was a good thing; it increased our nuclear capability, to put it in the American way.

YOU WERE CHAIRMAN OF THE INDIAN ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION AT THE TIME WHEN THE LONDON CLUB WAS MEETING. WHAT WAS YOUR PERCEPTION OF WHAT THEY WERE DOING?

Well, it was like a cartel, you know, like, uh, what OPEC was... when they put the squeeze on everybody as far as the price of oil was concerned. At least they would get the oil, provided you had the money to pay for it. Here it was sort of a blank embargo that until, unless you did this, you wouldn't get any supplies, through also what is called a, a trigger list, that means certain things could not be obtained from abroad, certain technologies could not be obtained from abroad. But by that time, they had, uh, advanced enough and, except for a very short period, I don't think, uh, well, it did affect us, in the sense it did delay us, but the effect wasn't a disastrous thing we had to shut down everything, except that we had to change, that's all we had to do.

THERE WERE VARIOUS EFFORTS MADE DURING THE CARTER PERIOD TO CONTROL WHAT HE SAW AS PROLIFERATION. ONE WAS THIS INTERNATIONAL NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE EVALUATION GROUP. WHAT WAS IT ACHIEVING?

It was achieving absolutely nothing. It merely created a scare in the US that you should not have reprocessing in the States, therefore anywhere else in the world. We went ahead with our plans. We think that... no, India thought that, uh, the best way of containing nuclear waste is to separate the valuable stuff, which is the plutonium, the remnants of the uranium, from the fission products, and as far as fission products were concerned, you could handle them, in the form of classified material, for which, uh, a plant was set up, in Tarapur, I think it's still working, uh, which is, which to our way of thinking, is about the best way to handle nuclear waste. Then you got a segregation. Now Carter thought that from, uh, power reactors, the plutonium you got could be used for making weapons. Well... if you are as sophisticated as the United States of America, yes. But... no country in the world has reached those peaks, let's face it, and therefore, the only use you could make of that plutonium was to push it back into a fast reactor, fast breeder test, uh, fast breeder reactor, and generate electricity from it, which was our idea. Uh... these things happen, you know? Politicians usually have some... ideas, which are not necessarily those which... others may have.

AND DID HE MANAGE TO ACHIEVE ANYTHING?

He managed to put a full stop as far as nuclear energy is concerned, in most parts of the world, because whatever the US thinks today, the rest of the world does tomorrow. You know, you people, when you get a sneeze, the rest of the world gets influenza.

ALL RIGHT. IF YOU CAN TALK ABOUT PAKISTAN BRIEFLY. YOU WERE THE CHAIRMAN OF THE INDIAN ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION AT THE TIME THAT THE NEWS WAS FILTERING OUT ABOUT THE KOHETA PLANT. WHAT WAS YOUR REACTION TO THAT NEWS?

Well, I only knew what I read in the papers as far as uh, Pakistan was concerned.

LET ME ASK YOU, WERE THERE MANY CONCERNS IN INDIA?

Yeah, there are among certain people.

WERE THERE CONCERNS AT THAT TIME? LET ME ASK YOU ABOUT THAT TIME.

Yeah. But um, you see, after all, you need enrichment when you have a reactor which is going to use it, otherwise why should you have enrichment... we're going to put it into..., or we're going to put it in the fast breeder at uh, Kalpakkam. So we have got two options where we can use enriched uranium. The new enriched stuff into Tarapur, the high enriched into the fast breeder at Kalpakkam. But here they don't have any use for it. And I don't intend to comment on it either.

(QUESTION INAUDIBLE)

Well, I have some views. Let's put it that way. Which may not agree with the rest; or which may agree with the rest, I don't know.

WOULD YOU SHARE IT?

No, no, no. Uh-uh. I'm out of this racket, thank God.

DO YOU THINK THAT PAKISTAN DOES HAVE THE BOMB?

Difficult to say. Very difficult to say. But it has played its cards in this business very well. Because uh, you know, uh, it's uh, it's got it and it hasn't got it. So people sort of bend over backwards to keep them pacified and all that type of stuff. Whether they have it or not, I don't know. I've never been there to Pakistan since partition. The last time I was in Karachi was in, when, when was it? '47, passed through Karachi. I haven't been there since.

LET ME ASK YOU ANOTHER SORT OF SCIENCE QUESTION, ANOTHER LAYMAN'S QUESTION. CAN YOU EXPLAIN VERY SIMPLY FOR US THE TECHNOLOGY REQUIRED TO MAKE THE BOMB, AND HOW IT DIFFERS FROM THAT USED TO GENERATE ELECTRIC POWER? AND I REALIZE YOU'VE BEEN THROUGH IT A LITTLE BIT. BUT IF YOU CAN JUST EXPLAIN IT ONE MORE TIME?

Well, uh, if you can control the release of energy in an orderly and safe fashion, you can produce energy, which can be converted into electricity. If, however, you do it without any form of control, then you have a weapon on your hands, essentially. This is the basic thing. And you can, let me put it this way, it's pretty difficult to get a reactor to explode. As far as the nuclear portion of it is concerned. It may explode due to other reasons, like uh, the problems you had in Chernobyl. But as it, you can't get it to explode; it's impossible.

HOW DO YOU PHYSICALLY BUILD THE BOMB?

Oh. You slap the metal together. Then you put what is called explosives or lenses. And then you have a neutron source. And you see that the whole thing goes off together, simultaneously in uh, less than a thousandth of a second. And then you run like anything so that uh, you're nowhere near. No, I, I, I...I don't know much...no, I wouldn't put it that way. Uh, uh, I would say that if you are interested if a, if a country is interested in a bomb, then I think that the country should have a very very close look at the causes which have brought it to a stage when it takes such a peculiar decision. Uh, I firmly believe that ... you should not even think about it. To tell you the truth.

THERE ARE A LOT OF PEOPLE WHO ARE CONCERNED ABOUT THE DISTRIBUTION OF PLUTONIUM AROUND THE WORLD, AND OBVIOUSLY YOU CAN SAY THAT INDIA HAS CONCENTRATED HER EFFORTS ON THE OF PLUTONIUM FOR THE FAST BREEDERS.DO YOU SEE IT AS A POSSIBILITY THAT ONE'S OPENING ONESELF TO TERRORISTS, ACCESSIBILITY TO TERRORISM?

Yeah. I, let's put it this way, that not that the terrorists will be able to assemble a device or a weapon, because if you've got uh, uh, stuff coming out, plutonium coming out from a power reactor, you, I don't think any, any terrorist is that good to be able to make a device or anything of the kind. But they can use it as a, as a spread of radioactivity. You know, after all, uh, the little doses, roughly one millionth of a gram per adult, if you ingest it completely then you really get into trouble. But otherwise, plutonium per se from a power reactor, you can't use it for a weapon. Definitely not. Unless you are at the stage of the United States. I understand the US has carried out some experiments on it. All right. More power to them. That's all.

DO YOU THINK THAT NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION IS SOMETHING THAT CAN BE CONTROLLED?

Yes, nuclear proliferation of weaponry, let's put it that way, can be controlled, provided the Big Boys make up their minds to come down and de-escalate. But if they're going to talk about, Well, you've got 20,000; I've got 19,000, so I'll make a thousand more; then the fellow says, No, I'll make 22,000; so this fellow... Then you can never control it. Never. I think it's crazy. Because if these things are let off, uh, I don't think that there'll be anything left of what we call civilization. We'll be back again to the Stone Age if there's anything left if. And that do I doubt. There's not merely going to be the two superpowers and their allies. It's going to be everybody else. You are not going to be able to control that look, this is the belt which is going to be destroyed, and this belt is OK. It'll be the world. It's too small, we are too small for this type of uh, what shall I say, this type of play, or this type of games. It's absurd absolutely.

HOW DO YOU ENVISION THE NEXT 10, 15 YEARS OF THE NUCLEAR AGE?

I don't know, to tell you the truth. Uh, it'll all depend upon the leadership of the United States, very frankly, what it thinks. How is it going to get over the energy problem? I mean, you achieved a lot by conservation; you achieved a lot by other means. But eventually you are still going to need power. You can talk about solar energy; you can talk about wind energy; you can talk about geothermal. But where you need big chunks for manufacturing activities, you'll have to go for sources of electricity which are in a condensed form, like coal, oil, natural gas, and therefore nuclear. Let that time come when you start getting brown outs. Then they'll start thinking differently. That's what I think. It's purely a question of economics, uh, a look at life. Of course, one has to say also from the nuclear viewpoint that one has to be uh, safe to the extent possible. There's nothing like absolute safety. I mean, I, I don't think one can achieve absolute safety. But you have to be as safe as possible.

HOW MANY COUNTRIES DO YOU THINK HAVE THE CAPABILITY TO BUILD NUCLEAR WEAPONS?

Difficult to say. But among the, I'm sure, Israel has it; there's no doubt about it. Probably South Africa. Brazil. Argentina. Pakistan, so I understand. Of course, Japan, Germany, et cetera, are there always. I'm not talking about um, the countries of Europe, or Japan. Japan, of course, is a very highly advanced country. But they have, they have, what shall I say, it's one, one of the few countries in the world which has a...a an outlook, which is a national outlook, it's not confined merely to a small group, which is dead against that. And it's ah, it's more power to them. That's all I can say.

IN ALL THE TIME THAT YOU WERE THE CHAIRMAN OF THE INDIAN ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION, WHAT WAS THE HIGHEST POINT TO YOU?

I don't know. All of it was fun. Except when you got clobbered by the press.