Interviewer: FIRST OF ALL, COULD YOU DESCRIBE FOR ME BRIEFLY YOUR OWN SCIENTIFIC BACKGROUND AND HOW YOU CAME TO BE APPOINTED THE CHAIRMAN OF THE PAKISTAN ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION?
Usmani: Well, my scientific background is that for everyone to see.
Usmani: I did my graduation from the Aligarh Muslim University in India.
Usmani: Uh, having graduated first from Bombay took my M.Sc.
Usmani: from Aligarh, Ph.D.
Usmani: from London...
Usmani: all in physics.
Usmani: But in London at Imperial College I did my Ph.D.
Usmani: in atomic physics, under the very famous Professor G.
Usmani: P.
Usmani: Thomson who, as you know is the son of another Nobel prize winner, Sir J.J.
Usmani: Thomson who discovered the electron at Cambridge.
Usmani: And then he came to London and I was joined--I mean I joined him at London at Imperial College and then did my Ph.D.
Usmani: under him.
Usmani: That was some time in 1939 when the war was...
Usmani: had already been declared actually.
Usmani: And I knew G.
Usmani: P.
Usmani: Thomson, Professor G.
Usmani: P.
Usmani: Thomson, did lead a delegation of eminent British atomic physicists who went to advise the Canadians and the Americans about the possibility of good old Hitler getting hold of the bomb.
Usmani: I mean, he was himself conducting certain experiments on fission of uranium and did not know why a particular hut in which his equipment was employed didn't blow up.
Usmani: But the Germans did it earlier then he did, and he was very sorry about it.
Usmani: The, the reason why he could not succeed and the Germans succeeded was because the neutrons with which Thomson was playing were fast neutrons.
Usmani: The Germans played with slow neutrons, and apparently slow neutrons caused the fission and not the fast neutrons.
Interviewer: I'D LIKE TO KNOW A LITTLE ABOUT YOUR BACKGROUND IN PHYSICS.
Interviewer: IF YOU CAN JUST MAKE THAT A LITTLE BRIEFER--IMPERIAL COLLEGE, PEOPLE WATCHING WON'T KNOW WHO THOMSON IS.
Interviewer: SO YOU DON'T NEED TO SAY...
Interviewer: JUST EXPLAIN TO US AGAIN.
Usmani: Well, my thesis work was actually on the diffraction of electrons by crystals and to watch the growth of crystals and see how the atomic lattice which makes the crystal is actually developed.
Usmani: That was my thesis.
Usmani: And I worked with electrons and electron diffraction, patterns of chemical compounds and things like that under the guidance of G.
Usmani: P.
Usmani: Thomson.
Usmani: But we had a number of seminars, colloquia, and day to day discussions with Thomson on the prospects of finding out why nature was so whimsical, or wise, as to end up the whole of the periodic table at 92 uranium.
Usmani: After uranium there was no other material.
Usmani: So we were investigating under Thomson's leadership as to why not 93 and why not 94? There are only 92 elements then known up to 1938, and the possibility was that the 93 did exist but probably existed for a very short time and disappeared and so on.
Usmani: And everyone was trying to look at the possibility of adding a little neutron into the body of the nucleus of uranium.
Usmani: And what happened was not that 93 was born, but the whole atom of uranium...
Usmani: the whole nucleus of uranium is split into two halves.
Usmani: And the fission was for the first time discovered by the Germans.
Interviewer: NOW HOW DID YOU COME TO MOVE FROM THE IMPERIAL COLLEGE TO THE PAKISTAN ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION AND BECOME ITS CHAIRMAN?
Usmani: Well, it's a long story, but to cut it short when I returned from India, due to the war there was no possibility of conducting any research, at least atomic research or electron diffraction research.
Usmani: And I didn't like to take a job in the then India teaching physics and deriving the same formula for the benefit of the B.Sc.
Usmani: or M.Sc.
Usmani: students--the periodic time of the pendulum is this--unless there was some opportunity to research.
Usmani: There was no opportunity to do research and therefore, I took to the very prestigious examination of the Indian, old Indian Civil Service of the British Raj.
Usmani: And by fluke or otherwise, I got it.
Usmani: Then came partition and I came from Indian Civil Service to the Pakistan Civil Service.
Usmani: And when Ayub Khan took over in Pakistan the reins of power, he sent for me.
Usmani: He said, "I understand that you are a Ph.D.
Usmani: in atomic physics".
Usmani: I said, "So I am".
Usmani: He said, "Have you had any occasion to read that famous speech of President Eisenhower, the president of the country where atomic energy was born? Namely that technology is going to be developed as a result of this spin off from the bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki or whatever.
Usmani: Where electricity in future will not be a problem.
Usmani: It will just be abundant and cheap around the bend of the corner." In fact, if I remember right he used the word that it would be cheaper to produce electricity from the atom rather than metering it.
Usmani: So metering would be more costly than generation of power.
Usmani: So my president Ayub Khan said, "Usmani, what the hell are you doing here? Why don't you go to the United States and find out what it is all about." And I did come, and find that in the same very speech which the head of the United States government, President Eisenhower, delivered in 1953 in the floor of the United Nations General Assembly he announced that any friendly country which was to take up nuclear research and was determined to find out the secrets of the splitting up of the atoms for peaceful purposes, the United States Government would give an outright grant of $300,000 for the acquisition of the wherewithal of an atomic research reactor.
Usmani: So I came to the United States and concluded an agreement, bilateral agreement, between the government of Pakistan and the government of the United States where, like any other, the government of Iran and the government or Korea and all other friendly countries did get an atomic reactor, toward the cost of the atomic reactor $300,000.
Usmani: So my submission is that following that speech there were Atoms for Peace conference in 1955.
Usmani: Every five years there was an Atoms for Peace conference, and the Atomic Energy Agency of the International Atomic Energy Agency of the United Nations was born with a charter of its own.
Usmani: And the charter prescribed how this international body could help the countries to understand and take to nuclear to nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.
Interviewer: I WANT TO BREAK THIS DOWN A LITTLE BECAUSE YOU'VE COVERED A LOT OF GROUND THERE.
Interviewer: CAN I ASK YOU TO REPEAT, WHAT WAS YOUR REACTION TO THE ATOMS FOR PEACE SPEECH? YOUR PERSONAL REACTION AS A SCIENTIST.
Usmani: My personal reaction was that having played with the atoms in the laboratories at the Imperial College I was very excited to take part in the utilization of that energy of the atom for peaceful purposes, particularly for the generation of electricity.
Interviewer: AND HOW WOULD A COUNTRY LIKE PAKISTAN BE ABLE TO BENEFIT FROM IT? AGAIN, I'M BREAKING IT DOWN A BIT.
Usmani: Well Pakistan, like any other developing country would gain enormously if the dream of those days came true.
Usmani: Namely, that cheap and abundant power could be generated.
Usmani: As you know no socioeconomic development is possible without energy, without electric power.
Usmani: Modern civilization will come to a standstill without electric power.
Usmani: And Pakistan was notoriously short of fossil fuels, particularly coal, and gas, and oil.
Usmani: It had some very good potential for hydro-power.
Usmani: So as a supplementary source of electric power for the socioeconomic development it excited me enormously.
Interviewer: AS PART OF ATOMS FOR PEACE AS I UNDERSTAND IT, SCIENTISTS CAME TO AMERICA, AND THEN THERE WAS THE RESEARCH REACTOR YOU TALKED ABOUT--AGAIN, IF YOU COULD JUST MAKE IT QUITE CONCISE, HOW DID PAKISTAN BENEFIT FROM THE PROGRAM IN LOGISTICAL TERMS?
Usmani: I think it's a good question.
Usmani: First we undertook to send a large number of boys and girls to the United States--mostly to the English speaking countries like Canada, United States, England, Australia--for getting the necessary training in the fields of "nuclear disciplines," as I call them.
Usmani: It included engineering, it included nuclear physics, radiation chemistry, nuclear chemistry, nuclear medicine, agriculture and so on.
Usmani: The idea was how to utilize the radiation from the atom after it was split, and one way was...
Usmani: the liberation of the energy for the generation of electric power.
Usmani: But the radiations that continued to emit from the radio isotopes which were also a by-product of the fission could be utilized for the treatment of cancer, for the generation of new varieties of crops, and there were applications in industry, and continue to be.
Usmani: Even today nuclear medicine is something which...
Usmani: Pakistan has contributed, and gained in my opinion, a great deal from our research reactor which we took from the United States and produced our own isotopes for.
Usmani: Agriculture applications, industrial applications, medical applications.
Usmani: Besides learning how to control the fission of the atom at a level which could generate electric power.
Interviewer: BERTRAND GOLDSCHMIDT DESCRIBES IT AS A "NUCLEAR RENAISSANCE AFTER THE NUCLEAR MIDDLE AGES." DID YOU FEEL A SENSE OF THIS EUPHORIA? A NEW INDUSTRY AND A NEW FUTURE?
Usmani: The late '50s and the early '60s in my opinion can very easily be termed as "the era of euphoria about nuclear power." And I must say very frankly that Bertrand Goldschmidt, myself, and all of the contemporaries went headlong to find ways and means and resources to get this new source of energy--to actually show what could be done with the liberation of energy, as well as the utilization of the radiation from isotopes.
Usmani: Now in retrospect, I feel that the Three Mile Island accident in the United States and the Chernobyl accident in the Soviet Union showed that in those early years of euphoria about nuclear power we rushed and planned to generate electricity, forgetting that there are certain problems of radioactive waste disposal, problems of nuclear remnants like plutonium which are also fissionable and could be diverted for military purposes.
Usmani: But the radioactive waste disposal and safety problems were ignored, and we all went headlong with the technology of generating nuclear energy and nuclear power.
Interviewer: COMING BACK TO THIS INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION, CAN YOU TELL ME SOMETHING ABOUT THE MOOD AND ATMOSPHERE OF THE GENEVA CONFERENCES? WHAT DO YOU REMEMBER AS A PARTICIPANT?
Usmani: I found that practically all the participants, including technologists, and scientists, and Nobel Prize winners were outstanding men in their own right, at that time.
Usmani: Physicists, chemists, mathematicians, engineers and so on.
Usmani: They were all full of beans about nuclear power, and I distinctly remember a session which I chaired at Geneva on the desalination of sea water.
Usmani: Now you have unlimited quantities of energy available from the fission of the atom, and unlimited quantities of water, so you have water, water everywhere, and all the drops to drink, if you could only match the energy of the atom and the enormous quantities of sea water, so that problems of lack of water or aridity and desertification and so on, could be also solved, and that attracted me a great deal, because my country, as you know, has plenty of deserts and arid areas.
Interviewer: WHAT ELSE DO YOU REMEMBER?
Usmani: Another thing that sticks to my memory of those conference days was the trip of the civilian ship propelled by a nuclear reactor, like the submarines, and that was on the Savannah, I believe.
Usmani: There was a United States ship, which was propelled entirely by nuclear reactors, marine reactors, so that they could not be required to fuel and change oil from tankers or from supplies of diesel.
Usmani: They would be permanently fueled by reactors.
Usmani: That demonstration was shown to us at, in Sweden, actually.
Interviewer: DID IT SEEM RATHER EXTRAORDINARY THAT THE AMERICANS, HAVING CLAMPED DOWN SO TIGHTLY ON NUCLEAR TECHNOLOGY, SUDDENLY DID THIS?
Usmani: No, I think the backing-down, if I may say, on nuclear power by the United States...
Usmani: started some time, or coincided with the oil crisis in the days of President Carter.
Interviewer: I MEANT AFTER THE WAR, THE MCMAHON ACT, BUT THAT'S A LITTLE EARLIER...
Interviewer: AT THE SAME CONFERENCE, GOLDSCHMIDT MADE A SPEECH ON THE PLUTONIUM SEPARATION PROCESS, AND CAME IN FOR A LOT OF CRITICISM SINCE.
Interviewer: WERE YOU THERE?
Usmani: No, I was there, but I didn't attend the chemical sessions.
Usmani: Bertrand, of course, was a magician chemist.
Usmani: But I didn't care, I was more interested in what happened to plutonium, I couldn't care less.
Usmani: But what happened to the fission of the atom and the energy that it liberated, so that we can catch all of that energy and generate electricity, that was my fascination.
Interviewer: HOW ABOUT THE...
Interviewer: HOW MUCH TAPE DO WE HAVE...
Usmani: Incidentally, those conferences I miss very much now, because, as you know apart from anything else, whether you attended a particular session on chemical separation of plutonium, or desalination of sea water, or generation of electricity from the atom, apart from anything else, the contact it produced worldwide between east and west, between north and south have been absolutely inestimable.
Usmani: And I don't think under any single subject today which can attract the peers of science as the Atoms for Peace conferences did in Geneva.
Interviewer: DO YOU HAVE ANY STORIES ABOUT THE SOVIET SCIENTISTS THERE?
Interviewer: IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE YOU CAN ADD ABOUT PAKISTAN'S ROLE AT THOSE CONFERENCES?
Usmani: The role of Pakistan's delegation to the conferences, other than the very first one in 1955, when the Atomic Energy Commission in Pakistan was not even born, was to get as much information from the international community as possible, to...
Usmani: the famous speech of President Eisenhower, namely that electric, cheap electric power would be around the corner.
Usmani: That was the main focus of our program...
Usmani: what we could get hold of, was the opinion, enlightened opinion on that subject, from our technical colleagues in different countries.
Interviewer: IN THE COURSE OF TALKING TO PEOPLE ON THIS PROGRAM, THE SOVIETS SAY IT WAS GOOD BECAUSE THEY WERE ABLE TO SHARE INFORMATION.
Interviewer: THIS WAS RATHER UNUSUAL, THE AMERICANS AND SOVIETS WORKING TOGETHER.
Interviewer: CAN I ASK YOU ABOUT THE INDIAN SCIENTISTS AT THIS PARTICULAR CONFERENCE?
Usmani: Well, Homi Bhabha, I must say, emerged from the Geneva Conferences; Homi Bhabha, you mean the Chairman of the Indian Atomic Energy Commission, who was my contemporary, did emerge from these conferences--
Interviewer: CAN I JUST ASK YOU TO SAY AGAIN, HOMI BHABHA AT THE BEGINNING?
Usmani: Homi Bhabha was a very brilliant physicist who got his initial degree from Cambridge in England, and was then appointed by Jawaharlal Nehru, the Prime Minister of India, to be the chairman of the Indian Atomic Energy Commission.
Interviewer: LET ME INTERRUPT YOU THERE.
Interviewer: WHAT DO REMEMBER ABOUT WHAT HE SAID AT THE CONFERENCES?
Usmani: At the conferences he emerged as the champion for nuclear electric power for the developing countries.
Usmani: And had at that time the most advanced program planned for the nuclear technology in India.
Interviewer: MOVING ON NOW TO PROJECT PLOWSHARES.
Interviewer: PAKISTAN'S VIEW OF PEACEFUL NUCLEAR EXPLOSIONS, IF THEY HAD A ROLE IN THESE EARLY DAYS.
Usmani: None at all.
Usmani: Actually when we got the invitation to the Plowshares experiments in the United States, where the underground explosions were--
Interviewer: LET ME REPHRASE IT THEN.
Interviewer: WHY DID PAKISTAN NOT FEEL THAT PEACEFUL NUCLEAR EXPLOSIONS HAD A ROLE? IF YOU COULD REMEMBER FROM JUST THAT TIME.
Usmani: What little we did read about the efficacy and the economics of using nuclear explosions for digging canals, and deepening the harbors and so on, didn't appeal to us to be a very worthwhile attempt to divert our resources for that purpose.
Usmani: For one very simple reason: and I don't know whether I was right or wrong at that time, for one very sample reason that there must be some radioactive fallout to these explosions.
Interviewer: VERY BRIEFLY...
Interviewer: DID YOU THINK PAKISTAN COULD BENEFIT AT ALL FROM PROJECT PLOWSHARES?
Usmani: No.
Usmani: I didn't think at that time that Pakistan would benefit from the Plowshares project at all.
Usmani: Partly because we were not familiar with the technology involved; somebody brought a black box, magic box, and it exploded, and that's it.
Usmani: So we were not participant in that design or in the makeup or, of that explosion.
Interviewer: HOW DID YOU VIEW THE ROLE AND FUNCTION OF THE IAEA?
Usmani: At the time I thought that IAEA...
Usmani: the charter of the IAEA at that time, and I have speeches made before the board of governors as well as the general conference of the IAEA, that the charter of the IAEA did combine the functions of a witness and judge at the same time.
Usmani: It was a beautiful idea to establish a UN organ for the promotion of nuclear power, but in promoting the nuclear power it created lot of other problems.
Usmani: And the same organization to look after those problems as well as promotion appeared to me to be a little contradictory.
Usmani: I mean, you have the safety problem, the safeguards problem, the diversion of military...
Usmani: and they still say, "Go, go and use more and more nuclear power." The two organizations should be totally independent in my opinion.
Usmani: I felt it at that time and I still say that the charter of the IAEA needs to be revised.
Usmani: It should be either an organization for the promotion of nuclear power--and somebody should overlook the shoulders of the IAEA as to what the promotion would lead to environmental degradation or whatever other peaceful fallouts.
Interviewer: HOW WAS THE IAEA SYSTEM APPLIED IN THE PAKISTAN ATOMIC ENERGY PROGRAM?
Usmani: Well, I think it is on record that we from Pakistan were the first country ever to subject a nuclear power reactor to the IAEA safeguard system.
Usmani: We believed in the international inspections, we believed in the non-diversion of fissionable materials for military purposes was wrong, and at that time IAEA was the only body for such safeguards.
Usmani: And the only thing is that the, what I did not like was, and I must be very frank here, was that the safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency were not attracted at all to any nuclear facility unless the member state concerned had approached the IAEA for assistance.
Usmani: In other words, if you were to stand on your own, IAEA safeguards would not be attracted at all.
Usmani: So all the advanced countries of Europe, for example, Germany, Belgium, France, Sweden, if they had their reactors and they had their reprocessing plant and if they had their fuel cycled...
Usmani: you know, fuel fabrication plant and so on, they would not, and if they did not choose to go to the IAEA for assistance, the IAEA safeguard would not apply, which was very ridiculous, in my opinion.
Interviewer: IN 1965, WHEN PAKISTAN CONTRACTED WITH CANADA FOR THE KANNUP REACTOR, WERE YOU PART OF THAT NEGOTIATION?
Usmani: I negotiated myself personally.
Interviewer: CAN YOU TELL ME ABOUT THAT?
Usmani: Well, as I said from the word go, we were anxious to utilize nuclear energy for production of electricity.
Usmani: Now nuclear energy comes from either natural uranium, or artificially enriched uranium.
Usmani: Natural uranium, as you know, has got only .7 percent of fissionable material, and this can be enriched to 3.7 or 2.7 in reactors of the American design.
Usmani: But the Canadian reactors use natural uranium, of which we had the reserves.
Interviewer: I'M MORE INTERESTED IN THE ACTUAL NEGOTIATION, THE HUMAN, THE PERSONALITY SIDE OF IT.
Usmani: Oh.
Usmani: Mr. Lorne Gray was the chairman of the Atomic Energy Limited of Canada, and he and I had met several times in Vienna, which was the Mecca of international atomic energy, if you will.
Usmani: We talked about the possibility of Canada assisting us, and he encouraged me to come over to Canada to see the systems and meet the scientists and so on.
Usmani: And there I decided it would be in the interest of Pakistan, if it is going to have a nuclear power program, to follow the Canadian example right through.
Usmani: Canada, I think, is the only country in the world which can make an atom bomb if they like, but they have not.
Interviewer: AT THIS TIME, HOW DID YOU PERCEIVE THE INDIAN ATOMIC ENERGY PROGRAM, IN THE EARLY '60S, WHEN YOU WERE CHAIRMAN?
Usmani: Well, the atomic energy program of India also was...
Usmani: linked to the same philosophy as that of Pakistan, namely to utilize the Canadian experience of natural uranium, heavy-water types, rather than light-water and enriched uranium, of the American type.
Usmani: And...
Usmani: I at one time did mention even to my colleague from India, Dr. Homi Bhabha, that we may have a get-together on the concepts of reactors and designs and safety features which are peculiar to the environment of the Subcontinent, and not to the environment of a cold country like Canada.
Usmani: Unfortunately, it didn't turn out to be what I thought it could and should have.
Usmani: And the design therefore of KANNUP is not a carbon copy of the CANDU reactors in Canada, which was adopted by my colleagues in India.
Interviewer: AFTER THE CHINESE EXPLOSION IN '64, HOMI BHABHA ANNOUNCED THAT INDIA COULD ALSO PRODUCE A NUCLEAR BOMB WITHIN 18 MONTHS.
Interviewer: HOW SERIOUSLY DID PAKISTAN ASSESS THIS POSSIBILITY?
Usmani: Well we knew that the Indians had set up a plutonium plant, but I didn't give any credibility to that statement of Homi Bhabha at all, because India did not have a reactor of her own from where it could get the plutonium to do the explosion.
Usmani: I did not doubt the capacity of the Indians to make the bomb, provided they had the material.
Usmani: Now it is very sad that the so-called Peaceful Nuclear Explosion which India did stage, in 1974 I believe--wasn't it?
Interviewer: YES, I WAS COMING TO THAT A LITTLE LATER.
Interviewer: LET'S JUST GO HISTORICALLY THROUGH.
Interviewer: THIS MAY BE MORE OF A POLITICAL QUESTION, BUT HOW DID THE INDO-PAKISTAN WAR OF '65 INFLUENCE THE NUCLEAR PROGRAM? DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA AT ALL?
Usmani: No.
Interviewer: BEFORE WE GET TO THE INDIAN EXPLOSION THERE'S THE NON-PROLIFERATION TREATY, AND I WONDER IF YOU FELT THAT YOU COULD COMMENT OF PAKISTAN'S DECISION NOT TO SIGN?
Usmani: I think Pakistan effectively signed the treaty in the sense that it subjected it's only power reactor to IAEA safeguards, which were a part of the treaty, as you know.
Usmani: The IAEA was asked to monitor the nuclear facilities in the developing and other countries, but the thing that particularly worried me at that time was the inability of the two other nuclear powers, namely France and China, not having signed the treaty so far.
Usmani: Why is the world so anxious that the developing countries sign, and not these two giants like China and France? Why? It's a truncated treaty.
Interviewer: AFTER THE SIGNING AND BEFORE THE INDIAN EXPLOSION, YOU WERE CONCERNED ABOUT INDIA'S NUCLEAR PROGRAM AND I BELIEVE YOU TALKED TO PRIME MINISTER TRUDEAU ON A VISIT.
Interviewer: I WONDER WHAT YOUR RECOLLECTIONS WERE OF THAT VISIT?
Usmani: My recollections are very clear in my mind.
Usmani: I said in my welcoming speech--to lunch, which was very informal--to Prime Minister Trudeau that nuclear energy has been invented, we can not dis-invent it.
Usmani: We have to learn to live with it.
Usmani: There are two doors to the same room; one door has a very clear sign, "Death and Destruction," the other is, "Unlimited Prosperity." The key to the door is in the hands not of the scientist, but the statesman, like Trudeau.
Usmani: That's all.
Usmani: You can open any door you like.
Interviewer: WHAT WAS YOUR REACTION WHEN THE INDIANS DID HAVE THEIR PEACEFUL NUCLEAR TEST?
Usmani: Sheer disgust.
Usmani: Because if that explosion was supposed to demonstrate that 10-12 kilos of plutonium will explode, that was unnecessary.
Usmani: It will explode, everyone knew it.
Usmani: You can read it in the textbooks, even a high school student at Princeton could write the equations which would be responsible for an explosion.
Usmani: And what did India achieve by it? I should have thought that the country which owes its independence to the philosophy of non-violence would come forward as a leader of the developing countries and show that nuclear power for peaceful purposes was more important than a tiny explosion of 10-12 kilos of plutonium.
Usmani: I think it caused a great setback to the peaceful use of nuclear energy in the Third World, I really do.
Interviewer: THAT BRINGS ME TO THE POINT THAT THE TECHNOLOGY IS THE SAME RIGHT? CAN YOU JUST DESCRIBE THAT FOR SOMEBODY WHO HAS NO KNOWLEDGE OF SCIENCE?
Usmani: Well, there are two very positive routes to the fission phenomenon.
Usmani: One is the fission of uranium-235, it's an isotope of uranium which is split under the bombardment of slow neutrons.
Usmani: Now it so happens that all materials, or all elements, after uranium like plutonium for example, is not 93, but 94, and it's a very stable element in the sense that its half-life is 24,000 years.
Usmani: So you can play about with plutonium; it won't disappear, sort of thing.
Usmani: So from 92 uranium, you go to 93 for a very short time, and then get down to 94, solid, stable.
Usmani: And the beauty about the 239, the discovery of my friend Dr. Seaborg, of the United States, is that when it absorbs a neutron, like 235 and fissions, it also gives rise and birth to two or three other neutrons, which can trigger the same fission reaction in other atoms and so on, and you get what you call a chain reaction.
Usmani: In other words, uranium-235 and plutonium-239 are the only two elements known to man so far which not only split in fission, but are in a position to sustain a chain reaction.
Usmani: Which made the reactors possible, which made the atom bomb possible, and so on.
Usmani: Now you can, you can fission any atom, the nucleus of any atom will fission, but it will not be sustained chain reaction.
Usmani: And for the chain reaction, you need a critical minimum mass.
Usmani: The first atomic bomb, that was dropped on first at Hiroshima and then at Nagasaki during the war, by the Americans, incidentally the Americans had only four bombs at that time, one they tested in New Mexico, two they dropped on Japan, and they had a fourth one.
Usmani: Which caused all the...
Interviewer: THE TECHNOLOGY IS THE SAME...JUST A LITTLE SIMPLER, A LITTLE MORE CONCISELY.
Usmani: I'm not going into the details, but let me tell you that there is a minimum mass which is required for explosion.
Usmani: Less than that it won't explode, and above that, it, it will not go, it will automatically explode.
Usmani: So, 10-12 kilograms is normally assumed to be the minimum weight of plutonium, if you can get hold of 239-plutonium, or pure 235, about 10-12 kilos.
Usmani: So what they do in a bomb is, that they...
Usmani: put six kilograms on one side, and six kilograms on the other.
Usmani: Now, these are sub-critical masses; they won't explode by themselves.
Usmani: There is a lead window in the bomb, there is a lead window--which I'm describing it very very, uh, outlines of a bomb.
Usmani: The bomb has the same casing, the same mechanism, as you have in a conventional bomb, which is dropped from the air, except that it has a lead window; we have two halves of the so-called atom bomb...
Usmani: on either side of the window, and as soon as the window is, as soon as the...
Usmani: the plane that is due to drop that bomb, is on the target, the window is lifted, and the first half, of six kilograms, rolls over into the compartment of the second half, and the two together become 12.
Usmani: And the 12 is critical and they go.
Usmani: Why? Because there is...
Usmani: a neutron source placed under them, which is emitting neutrons, so you have a neutron source, two parts of the 239, or 235, whichever it is.
Usmani: And they roll over, they come to a critical mass and explode over the target.
Usmani: Now, in a reactor, this is not the case.
Usmani: The two halves have to be 98 to 99 percent pure uranium or pure plutonium; the reactor can live, and reactor is not a bomb.
Usmani: It's a controlled fission reaction; 10 kilowatts, 50 kilowatts, 100 megawatts, 200 megawatts, 1,000 megawatts, we control the genie that is liberated at any level by poisoning the fission, not encouraging the fission, but poisoning the fission.
Usmani: So you add a certain poison in the reactor, which inhibits the fission reaction, to a point which we would like to have, namely, 10 megawatts, 100 megawatts, 1,000 megawatts; as the case may be, the size of the reactor.
Usmani: So it is called a reactor, because there is a reaction, which is controlled.
Usmani: In the case of the bomb, which is a simpler mechanism, there is no control; the more energy liberated, the better it is.
Usmani: So that is the difference.
Interviewer: COULD YOU EXPLAIN TO ME THE DIFFERENCE IN TECHNOLOGY BETWEEN THE WEAPONS PROGRAM AND THE CIVILIAN PROGRAM?
Usmani: Well, once it was established that a fissionable material, whether it be plutonium, which is the by-product of the fission of 235, of uranium, or pure uranium-235 by itself, once it was proven that 10-12 kilograms of either material can, is the critical mass, which you must have if you wish to have a bomb, the, the question which scientists like myself, who were more keen to find the peaceful uses of this enormous liberation of energy, applied their minds to controlling the liberation of energy, so the bomb was born under the stress and duress of the war, and nobody wanted to control the liberation of energy; in fact, the more the explosion, the better it was.
Usmani: But there were certain conscientious objectors, like myself, if I may say so, who began to wonder whether this enormous source of energy could be harnessed by controlling the liberation of that energy at any level that we like.
Usmani: So came the concept of the reactor, and the difference in the reactor and the bomb is that although bomb is an uninhibited and uncontrolled liberation of energy, the liberation of fission energy in the reactor is very much controlled.
Usmani: Now there are two mechanisms, and two, um, uh, disciplines involved in controlling that energy, which are not involved in the bomb, and that is the difference between the two.
Usmani: One is that you don't have to start with 100 percent-pure 235, or 100 percent-pure 239 plutonium.
Usmani: You can live with a lesser percentage, because it was found that man does not have any access to materials which would be able to withstand the tremendous heat that is generated from the liberation of this energy.
Usmani: So the first thing they did was, and even now--
Interviewer: WE'RE GETTING A BIT LONG AGAIN.
Interviewer: THE TECHNOLOGY AND THE MATERIALS ARE THE SAME...
Usmani: The technology and the materials are the same, one is uninhibited, uncontrolled, in the case of the bomb.
Usmani: In the case of the reactor, it has to be controlled, so two things have been done: one is to control that reaction, in the reactor, you start with three percent purity, and not 98 to 99 percent purity, number one.
Usmani: And number two, the liberation of energy is poisoned by mechanisms which can control the level of liberation.
Usmani: We would like only so much of energy to be liberated, so what you do is to kill that reaction, partially, by injecting some material into the body of uranium, rods or whatever you like to call it in the reactor, the boron and other material, that inhibit the reaction itself.
Usmani: They don't smother the reaction completely, but they inhibit to the point that man can say, "Oh, now I know how much poison is to be given to this three percent uranium, in order to get 10 megawatt or a 100 megawatt, a 1,000 megawatt, as the case may be."
Interviewer: SO JUST BRIEFLY NOW, HOW DO YOU BUILD A BOMB, AS OPPOSED TO THE REACTOR.
Interviewer: WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE?
Usmani: This is a very...
Usmani: difficult question to answer, but the bomb is built entirely by the chemists, who are called upon to separate a chemical called uranium from its other impurities, et cetera, number one.
Usmani: Now, uranium, in nature, exists in a mixed form, which has got a "fat brother," as if it were, weighing 238 units of weight in an atom in protons, neutrons, or whatever...
Usmani: Well, briefly, I can't...
Usmani: see how.
Usmani: But, the point I'm making is that it is impossible to separate 235 from 238 by pure chemical means.
Usmani: It's impossible.
Usmani: Therefore, physical means have to be done, have to be adopted, and the physical means are that we convert this...uranium-238 and 235 mixture, into a gas.
Usmani: And pump this gas through very fine membranes so that the "fat" 238 remains on this side, and the on other side 235 comes out.
Usmani: And like that we go on pumping this gas...
Usmani: a million times, perhaps, in order to get no 238 going through those holes.
Usmani: I mean, the technology of the membrane is the technology of the secrets of the atom bomb.
Usmani: Which is called the diffusion process.
Usmani: So today the diffusion process is the only process which gets the main, pure 235 at the end of the tunnel, which is about two miles long, and requires as much electricity to pump it...
Usmani: as the total generating capacity of the whole of Pakistan.
Usmani: So only a big country like the Soviet Union, the United States, and very advanced countries like United Kingdom or France could do it.
Interviewer: GOLDSCHMIDT SAID, "IF YOU WANT TO BE SOMEBODY IN THIS WORLD, YOU HAD TO HAVE A BOMB." WOULD YOU AGREE WITH IT?
Usmani: I totally disagree with Bertrand, and we had many discussions on the subject.
Usmani: I totally disagree that the only way to get your goal is...
Usmani: of prestige or whatever it is, I'm, and your...
Usmani: is to get the bomb.
Usmani: I think Canada, is as advanced as, as France; France has the bomb, Canada does not have.
Usmani: Japan today is the richest nation in the world, next to the United States, in terms of GNP.
Usmani: She has all the nuclear power, but no nuclear bomb.
Usmani: China, on the other hand, is one of the poorest countries, as far as per capita GNP.
Usmani: She has the bomb, but no nuclear power.
Usmani: So all sorts of combinations are possible; I don't think Goldschmidt can say that unless you have bomb you will not be regarded as something; in my opinion it is absurd.
Usmani: Germany has no bomb, but she is one of the most economically...
Usmani: most prosperous; they have won the, both Japan and Germany have won the peace and lost the war.
Interviewer: AT THE PRESENT TIME, NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION IS SOMETHING OF A BACK-BURNER ISSUE, AND I WONDER HOW YOU SEE THE FUTURE.
Usmani: Well, the non-proliferation is, started with politics, with questions of sovereignty, with questions of discrimination, with questions of technology, with questions of espionage, and all sorts of things.
Usmani: And I don't know which aspect you are talking about, but the fact of the matter remains, that if five nuclear weapon states of today cannot agree among themselves to sign a nuclear non-proliferation treaty, just as France and China have not signed out of five, two have not signed.
Usmani: Imagine fifty countries having nuclear weapons: would they sign? So...
Usmani: proliferation of weapons is something to be condemned all around, no question about it.
Usmani: Whichever treaty you consider in future must provide for the total elimination of nuclear weapons.
Usmani: There's no question about it in my mind.
Usmani: And all the technology that goes, and all the funding that goes, should be diverted to peaceful uses of doing research, and the waste-disposal research on safety, because as I said, we have to live with nuclear power, just as we live with electricity, if you put your finger in the plug you will die instantly! Immediately electrocuted! So, it is a very unforgiving technology.
Usmani: If you make a mistake you get Chernobyl or Three Mile Island.
Usmani: And many people think that aircraft and...
Usmani: for example, or...
Usmani: flying in the air, is also a very unforgiving technology, it is.
Usmani: If you make a mistake, well, the plane comes down, that's it.
Usmani: And the whole jumble, 300 people die.
Usmani: But in the case of a nuclear reactor, like Chernobyl or Three Mile Island, it is often a case of an unforgiving technology, as I call it, in the sense that by mistake, or sabotage, or war, or whatever, the reactor goes wild.
Usmani: Due to human error or whatever it may be.
Usmani: The aftereffects of going wild are not confined to the occupants of the plane and the operatives of the reactor; it just goes wild in a big way.
Usmani: The entire populations are affected, and slow radiation can cause a lot of cancer deaths and so on.
Interviewer: ANOTHER QUESTION I WANT TO REPEAT...HOW YOU CAME TO BE APPOINTED CHAIRMAN OF THE ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION?
Usmani: I was in the civil service of India...
Usmani: I was identified by President Ayub Khan who took over in 1958, and he said, "If you are a Ph.D.
Usmani: in physics and a civil servant, why don't you take over the nuclear power--I mean Atomic Energy Commission--chairmanship?" So I first was appointed as a member of the Atomic Energy Commission, and then 1959 I was appointed--1960 I was appointed the chairman.
Usmani: I was a civil servant, knew the rules and regulations and procedures, but what I did was, and I told president Ayub Khan that an atomic energy program is not a biblical or koranic injunction for Pakistan to follow, unless it had a focus, and that focus was nuclear electric power.
Usmani: And he agreed.
Usmani: I said we must train our people.
Usmani: How to train? Well we get the reactor...and forward.
Usmani: But the focus was nuclear power, electric power.
Interviewer: WHY DID YOU DECIDE TO LEAVE PAKISTAN?
Interviewer: I decided to leave--without saying too much about a dead man--because late prime minister Bhutto and I developed some serious differences of opinion on the direction the nuclear power program should take in Pakistan.
Interviewer: I thought that Pakistan was too poor a country, in fact it still is the poorest of the 34 countries of the world, including India, Pakistan, China, Bangladesh, Bhutan, you know, the World Bank has got some criteria of judging the poverty or prosperity of a country.
Interviewer: So we belonged to the league of the 34 poorest countries of the world, and I genuinely was, and genuinely now, feel that the poverty can only be resolved by having abundant and cheap electricity.
Interviewer: If nuclear power can do it, fine.
Interviewer: If hydrogen power can give it, excellent.
Interviewer: If solar energy can give it, all the better.
Interviewer: But we must have energy to accelerate the process of socioeconomic development.
Interviewer: Now, this was my idea as to why we started a research reactor, followed by a power reactor, and more and bigger power reactors, and so on.
Interviewer: The late prime minister probably had some other ideas.
Interviewer: That's all.
Interviewer: And because we didn't tally, and didn't consider this to be a worldwide effort, I thought I had done my job, and 11 years was quite a long time as the chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission of Pakistan, I developed some very wonderful contacts with friendly scientists in the Soviet Union as well as in, in the West and so on, and I thought it was time to go, and quit.
Interviewer: Fortunately for me, the oil crisis came, and I got a job in the United Nations.
Interviewer: WAS THERE ANY PARTICULAR EVENT, ANY TURNING POINT? PEOPLE ALWAYS TALK ABOUT THIS FAMOUS MULTAN MEETING.
Usmani: The Multan Meeting has been made a big...step in that direction.
Usmani: I don't think the Multan Meeting has any significance at all, except that it gives an inkling of the working of the mind of the late prime minister, who had already decided to replace me.
Usmani: For reasons I don't want to disclose, nor do I wish to discuss.
Usmani: But the fact of the matter is, that he had made up his mind, the Multan Conference was just a carnival show in which he was doling out jobs to this man, that man.
Usmani: I was not interested, I had made up my mind to quit in any case.
Interviewer: I HAVE ANOTHER GENERAL, POLITICAL-TYPE QUESTION.
Interviewer: TO WHAT EXTENT DO YOU AGREE WITH THE NOTION THAT IF A COUNTRY IS GOING TO DEVELOP A BOMB, IT WILL DO SO ANYWAY?
Usmani: It's not so easy.
Usmani: I would like to give my very candid opinion that there seems to be a lobby somewhere which goes on whipping up this euphoria about the bomb--Israel getting the bomb! Pakistan getting the bomb! India getting the bomb! All of the developing countries not signing the Non-Proliferation Treaty! I think at the back of their mind is that they want to make the bomb!--and so on.
Usmani: But I as a technologist tell you, madam, that all this is an illusion of knowledge, rather than knowledge itself.
Usmani: It is not easy to make the bomb! You have to have a very sophisticated chemical and metallurgical infrastructure first in the country before you begin to think of being a nuclear power.
Usmani: Now to smuggle a bomb, or to make do and make a jigsaw puzzle and say, "here is the bomb," et cetera, would court in my opinion--would invite disaster.
Usmani: Because you cannot sustain the make up.
Usmani: You don't have the hydrofluoric acid, you don't have certain metallurgical components, you don't have certain electrical gadgetry and oscilloscopes and so on--denied to you.
Usmani: You can be made to come to an absolute horror; and it will be disastrous.
Interviewer: STOP THERE...OKAY.
Usmani: In support of my thesis, it is not easy to make the bomb...
Usmani: It is not easy to make the bomb.
Usmani: In the true sense of self-reliance, I mean, if you make one bomb, you should be able to make two or three, et cetera, as the case may be.
Usmani: But if you wish to smuggle the bomb, supposing I give you the drawings of a Boeing aircraft.
Usmani: Now does it mean that you can make a Boeing aircraft, without the metallurgical parts of the aircraft and the jet-engine theory of propulsion, et cetera? I mean, you can assemble an aircraft just as a little child does assemble something, but it would be very risky to assemble and not be able to sustain it.
Interviewer: BUT SO MANY COUNTRIES HAVE THE INFRASTRUCTURE NOW.
Usmani: No, none.
Usmani: If that was so, it would not take 40 years — when did the war end? 1945? Well, now we are 40, 40, 41 years.
Interviewer: LET'S JUST REPEAT THAT.
Interviewer: SO MANY COUNTRIES HAVE THE INFRASTRUCTURE, EVEN A COUNTRY LIKE BRAZIL HAS THE WEST GERMAN...
Usmani: You see, no, no, this is what I am trying to say.
Usmani: To have a nuclear power reactor, or a nuclear electric power program, does not mean that that country which has a nuclear power reactor automatically becomes a candidate for a nuclear bomb.
Usmani: I oppose this concept, right on the basis of technology, on the basis of actual conditions prevailing and so on, for the simple reason I give you, one simple reason.
Usmani: And that is, that if you have a reactor, the power reactor, it doesn't mean that you automatically become a nuclear power.
Usmani: Now Brazil has a power reactor, Pakistan has a power reactor, India has a power reactor, and so on...
Usmani: Korea, or Taiwan, or...
Usmani: you know, there are so many countries and there will be more and more proliferation, if you like to call it, of nuclear power facilities.
Usmani: But that doesn't mean that these countries will become automatically a nuclear power, and I think that lobby must be defused.
Usmani: And I know there is a very strong lobby in Washington that thinks on those lines.
Usmani: I think it would be a great harm to the Third World, which is starved for electric power, and if it can get nuclear power, cheap, of course, and economical enough, only on the grounds that if you give the reactor, my God, doesn't become another...
Usmani: additional candidate for a nuclear bomb, not at all.
Usmani: And the reason I say so is that a power reactor boils like the milk on a fire.
Usmani: If I tell you I want the cream in the morning for my breakfast, you have to put this milk on very slow fire.
Usmani: If you make that milk boil on very hot fire, you will not get cream but you'll get some sort of a mud of milk, which we call rubbery.
Usmani: Now there's a difference between rubbery and that mud of milk and pure cream.
Usmani: So that, in case you wish to go the nuclear bomb route, you have to penalize your reactor and not produce electric power.
Usmani: And work it very slowly.
Usmani: It will burn.
Usmani: You can regulate a 1,000 megawatt reactor to operate on 10 megawatts, and slow burning is possible, but it is slow burning that generates plutonium-239.
Usmani: If you boil it too much, it will turn into 240, 241, 242,--
Usmani: ...that a country doesn't automatically become a potential candidate for a nuclear bomb for the simple reason that nuclear power, in the form of electricity, is generated by burning the fuel inside the reactor at a very high rate.
Interviewer: GIVE ME THE EXAMPLE OF INDIA.
Interviewer: WHAT EXACTLY HAPPENED WITH INDIA?
Usmani: With India...
Usmani: what happened was, they did not utilize the plutonium from their power reactor, but from the research reactor, which they could burn at any level that they want, and that research reactor was supplied by Canada.
Usmani: It's an ideal tool for the production of that cream of milk at slow fire which I was talking to you about.
Interviewer: COULD YOU JUST SAY THAT IT WAS A RESULT OF A VIOLATION?
Usmani: Oh, yes, absolutely, and that is why all the supplies from Canada were cut off.
Usmani: In fact, Lorne, Mr. Lorne Gray, the chairman of the Canadian Atomic Energy Authority, of...
Usmani: Atomic Energy Company of Canada, I said...
Usmani: "You have given--
Interviewer: IF YOU CAN EXPLAIN WHAT HAPPENED IN THE INDIAN CASE.
Usmani: The Indian explosion was due to the utilization of plutonium from a Canadian safeguarded reactor, which was given to India by Canada under the Columbo Plan for all Asian countries, in that I could send my boys for training to India, on the Canadian-Indian, uh, uh, the Canadian-India reactor.
Usmani: It was a research reactor, and because it was a research reactor, it could operate on a very slow fire.
Usmani: Not a power reactor.
Usmani: And slow fire means cream, and the cream means 239, and 239 means...
Usmani: the bomb...
Interviewer: IT SOUNDS TO ME LIKE WHAT YOU'RE SAYING IS IT'S A POLITICAL DECISION IN THE END.
Interviewer: WOULD YOU AGREE?
Usmani: Absolutely, absolutely.
Interviewer: WOULD YOU LIKE TO COMMENT ON THAT.
Usmani: It is a political decision; it is something like holding a cut-throat razor in your hand.
Usmani: If you have vertical strokes, you shave the beard.
Usmani: If you have horizontal strokes, you know what happens.
Interviewer: THE FUTURE OF SOUTH ASIA, HOW DO YOU SEE IT AT THIS TIME, IN TERMS OF NUCLEAR...?
Usmani: I have very strong views of that subject, personal views, and I think the leadership should come from India being a bigger country, for the formation and constitution and establishment of what I call Asiatom.
Usmani: On the model of Euratom.
Usmani: The European countries have together combined their research, as well as their utilization of atomic energy, through the medium of Euratom...
Interviewer: (QUESTION REPEATED)
Usmani: The future of India, Pakistan, or for that matter China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Philippines, all those developing countries of Asia, the huge continent, in my opinion is inextricably bound in the future to the development of an organizational international or multinational organizational effort to the...
Usmani: establishment of what I called Asiatom.
Usmani: The purpose of this would be: (a), to have common reprocessing facilities; (b), to act as a nuclear-fuel bank.
Usmani: Do you want nuclear power? Well, here is the fuel, at a certain market price, or whatever it is and once the fuel is burned in the reactor, containing plutonium, it comes back.
Usmani: And we may have a common reprocessing facility on an island in the Pacific or somewhere uninhabited, many of these atolls were used by America and other countries for bomb explosions and testing of bombs, et cetera.
Usmani: We from the Asiatom could use a Pacific island to bury all the radioactive waste to reprocess the plant for the benefit of all the countries of Asia.
Interviewer: SO YOU DON'T SEE IT AS A CHAIN REACTION — INDIA, PAKISTAN, PAKISTAN, INDIA?
Usmani: No, Not at all.
Usmani: I think...
Usmani: I would like to quote to you from a Chinese proverb, which is that "the taller the bamboo is, the lower it can bend." And I think India and China are two very big countries of Asia; one is a nuclear power, the other is a PNE power, peaceful nuclear explosion power, and these two countries must take the initiative, of establishing an international regime which would include nuclear-weapon-free zones, which would include common reprocessing facilities, in other words, something which I can have the satisfaction that I'm not being cheated and my security is not being jeopardized by some clandestine action taking place across the border, et cetera: it breeds suspicion for nothing.
Usmani: So if I can oversee the shoulders of India, the Indians can oversee the shoulders of Pakistan, Pakistan over Japan, Japan over Korea, Korea over China, et cetera, I think it would lead, in my humble opinion, to the establishment of something which is required in Asia, namely nuclear electric power, without unnecessarily giving room to this national slogan-mongering or prestigious statements about bomb-making and so on so forth, in my opinion.
Usmani: This is what I feel.
Usmani: Thank you.