The Thar Incident - 10
Continued from Part 9.
******************
The team from Washington was just setting up for its presentation. Matthew eyed the others on the table, the Prime Minister and the PPS, and wondered if these were the only people that knew.
In the room next door, the rest of them, the Chairman of the National Security Council Secretariat(CNSCS), the National Security Advisor(NSA), the Principal Scientific Advisor to the PM (PSA), the Cabinet Secretary (CabSec) and the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) sat eyeing the screen which showed the scene before the PM.
One of the members of the American team, Maj. Gen. Nathan Walters, nominally an adminstrator in the Pentagon, began to clear his throat. The other person on the team was Carlotta Hills, nominally listed as a deputy assistant to the Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
The CNSCS stared at her image on the screen, a mixture of curiousity and foreboding filled his mind. The NSA too pondered where this road would lead them.
Maj. Gen. Walters began, and the men in the adjacent room all leaned towards the screen.
"In the late summer of 1929, the rocketry pioneer James Goddard was able to secure the interest of Charles Lindbergh, and members of the Guggenheim family in space exploration. With their financial backing he set up a small rocket testing facility at the Mescalero Ranch in a little known town called Roswell, New Mexico. Despite the setbacks due to the Great Depression, the Gughenheim family managed to keep the ranch funded, however in the early forties as war clouds gathered over Europe, a strong military presence was allowed to establish itself sub rosa at Roswell. Eventually the facility was host to a series of experiments proving the military value of rockets and the work there served as the starting point for a vast amount of research activity in the field of military and commercial rocket science. "
"The War period saw the Navy Department become the center of a vast range of military R&D activity. The nuclear weapons project, the first rocketry experiments etc... were all initially coordinated from within the Office of Naval Armament. The US Airforce at the time had not emerged from within the Army Department and the Navy was viewed as a logical choice for handling projects involving sophisticated machinery. It was at the Navy's insistence that a new test site for powerful explosives was set up near Alamagordo, New Mexico. However as soon as these weapons were developed, the Airforce emerged as the only service able to deliver them and took charge of the project. The Roswell area eventually came to house a major Army Airforce Base and this base was the node for all the subsequent atomic weapons testing held at the Alamogordo area prior to the end of World War II. After World War II, the Roswell Army Airforce base became the staging ground a wide range of nuclear weapons deployment related activities."
"In the early hours of the morning of June 23, 1947.... "
At this point, the men in the other room began to pull back. They all knew the story, the matter had been uncovered by a young Indian science fiction writer years earlier and then subject to a more thorough investigation. The investigation had provided some startling insights into events in the last fifty years and created as many new questions as it had answered, though not generally regarded as being reliable, the story had become familiar among those that needed to know.
It was almost an hour later that Gen. Walters ended his presentation. He was surprised to see that neither the Prime Minister nor the PPS had any questions.
The PM thanked the General and then turned towards Matthew and simply said, "I will send you my responses by the end of the day." With that the meeting ended, the PM and the PPS left through one door, the Americans were escorted through another.
As the PM and the PPS walked into the adjacent room, the men seated there stood up to greet them. The PM looked and asked "So...".
The NSA spoke first "We need to see something that proves this treaty of 1954"
The CNSCS chimed in, "There is no problem with returning the craft, but this agreement was concluded without our participation. How are we bound by it?"
The Cabsec and the CDS took more neutral postures, the PPS and the PSA said nothing at all.
The NSA continued, "Look we are completely reliant on their inputs for this treaty. While on the face of it, the treaty looks like something we would negotiate, how do we know this is not some elaborate ruse to get us to hand it over to them?"
The CNSCS picked up where the NSA left off, "So is there a finders fee? seems like the rules so far have been finders keepers."
The CDS was now getting a little nervous with the pace of this discussion, "So what if they get angry and do something? can we hold that off?"
The NSA looked askance and said,"By their statements, the treaty itself specifically forbids harvesting the technology to build weapons."
The CDS was more than a little exasperated,"It forbids *DIRECTLY* harvesting weapons technology, there are no limits on lateral exploitation. They could have technology development cycles that run parallel to their investigation and develop technologies which they never actually field, waiting for such eventualities."
The NSA continued,"But if they could take from us by force, they would have done so already.."
The CabSec had had enough, look at the PM, he simply said "that way madness lies.."
There was a long pregnant pause.
The PPS and the PSA had remained silent. It was not the PSA's place to provide political advice and the PPS was holding back in case a deciding vote was needed. He needn't have done that the PM had made up her mind.
"Well.." She cut into the silence, " I have to give him some reply, since there is so much to take in, I might as well tell him the truth, that I need time to think things through", turning to the NSA, "you seem to think that there is something we can verify?... okay proceed."
The CabSec, much as he knew and liked his friend the NSA, could only think one thing,"Well my friend, now you know what it means when someone says you have a very big mouth.."
Turning to the CNSCS, she said, "If there is a political angle, find it". It was not the CNSCS' turn to look worried, had he too like the NSA perhaps bitten off more than he could chew?
The CDS now wanted to disappear before his number came up, but it didn't and the CabSec did his best to pretend like he wasn't really there, it wasn't very hard, it was an art he had practiced for years now, so he too seemed to get away without any more work.
With that the PM trooped out with the PPS and the PSA in tow. Back in the privacy of her office, she turned to the PSA and asked him, "you were very quiet back there". The PSA replied, "It appears that despite all pretences to the contrary, the Americans don't have all the answers either." The PPS joined in, "It was just as well for them that we asked no questions."
The PM looked at the picture of Jawarhalal Nehru on the wall, and said, "you know he was right about the verification, and the political angle is not implausible."
The PPS was a master of sensing the mood, " Why close our options.."
The PSA now jumped in, "Well the best verification would be to make contact ourselves..."
The conversation went around a few more times but died soon after. The men left the office and the young Minister of State for Science and Technology entered.
Late that evening, at the beginning of the inaugural dinner of the Indian National Science Academy's annual session, the PM rose to give her speech. The jaded scientists and bureaucrats anxiously awaited the food and hoped that the PM would get her speech over with so that the gorging could begin, the Kashmiri wazwaan might get cold, then where would India be? such was their state of mind. Within minutes it was clear to the unfortunate scientists that this was not going to be an ordinary speech.
About ten minutes into the speech, an incredulous Director of the Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre stared at his boss, the Director of ISRO. The Director of NAL looked speechlessly at the Minister of State for Science and Technology, whose face gave no hint of emotion.
Half an hour after the PM's speech ended, that the first headlines began to appear on the TV news services, soon after that websites were carrying reports and before long the first opinion editorials were being churned out by blogs everywhere. After that a dozen TV channels were bringing every expert they could lay their hands on to talk about it
Matthew recieved the PM's reply a few minutes before he saw the news on TV. As Matthew watched the ticker run, he eyes narrowed on the words in the letter before him "no further actions pending a more complete evaluation"
By the next day the Gray Lady ofcourse had weighed in on the subject her opinions on what India, a country with 200 million starving people, was capable of and even the Daily Times of Pakistan, widely suspected to be an Inter Services Intelligence mouthpiece ran the following headine,
" Indian Prime Minister says India Will Put A Man In Space Before The End Of The Year".
Matthew was not a happy man, he had been warned this would happen.
******************
The team from Washington was just setting up for its presentation. Matthew eyed the others on the table, the Prime Minister and the PPS, and wondered if these were the only people that knew.
In the room next door, the rest of them, the Chairman of the National Security Council Secretariat(CNSCS), the National Security Advisor(NSA), the Principal Scientific Advisor to the PM (PSA), the Cabinet Secretary (CabSec) and the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) sat eyeing the screen which showed the scene before the PM.
One of the members of the American team, Maj. Gen. Nathan Walters, nominally an adminstrator in the Pentagon, began to clear his throat. The other person on the team was Carlotta Hills, nominally listed as a deputy assistant to the Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
The CNSCS stared at her image on the screen, a mixture of curiousity and foreboding filled his mind. The NSA too pondered where this road would lead them.
Maj. Gen. Walters began, and the men in the adjacent room all leaned towards the screen.
"In the late summer of 1929, the rocketry pioneer James Goddard was able to secure the interest of Charles Lindbergh, and members of the Guggenheim family in space exploration. With their financial backing he set up a small rocket testing facility at the Mescalero Ranch in a little known town called Roswell, New Mexico. Despite the setbacks due to the Great Depression, the Gughenheim family managed to keep the ranch funded, however in the early forties as war clouds gathered over Europe, a strong military presence was allowed to establish itself sub rosa at Roswell. Eventually the facility was host to a series of experiments proving the military value of rockets and the work there served as the starting point for a vast amount of research activity in the field of military and commercial rocket science. "
"The War period saw the Navy Department become the center of a vast range of military R&D activity. The nuclear weapons project, the first rocketry experiments etc... were all initially coordinated from within the Office of Naval Armament. The US Airforce at the time had not emerged from within the Army Department and the Navy was viewed as a logical choice for handling projects involving sophisticated machinery. It was at the Navy's insistence that a new test site for powerful explosives was set up near Alamagordo, New Mexico. However as soon as these weapons were developed, the Airforce emerged as the only service able to deliver them and took charge of the project. The Roswell area eventually came to house a major Army Airforce Base and this base was the node for all the subsequent atomic weapons testing held at the Alamogordo area prior to the end of World War II. After World War II, the Roswell Army Airforce base became the staging ground a wide range of nuclear weapons deployment related activities."
"In the early hours of the morning of June 23, 1947.... "
At this point, the men in the other room began to pull back. They all knew the story, the matter had been uncovered by a young Indian science fiction writer years earlier and then subject to a more thorough investigation. The investigation had provided some startling insights into events in the last fifty years and created as many new questions as it had answered, though not generally regarded as being reliable, the story had become familiar among those that needed to know.
It was almost an hour later that Gen. Walters ended his presentation. He was surprised to see that neither the Prime Minister nor the PPS had any questions.
The PM thanked the General and then turned towards Matthew and simply said, "I will send you my responses by the end of the day." With that the meeting ended, the PM and the PPS left through one door, the Americans were escorted through another.
As the PM and the PPS walked into the adjacent room, the men seated there stood up to greet them. The PM looked and asked "So...".
The NSA spoke first "We need to see something that proves this treaty of 1954"
The CNSCS chimed in, "There is no problem with returning the craft, but this agreement was concluded without our participation. How are we bound by it?"
The Cabsec and the CDS took more neutral postures, the PPS and the PSA said nothing at all.
The NSA continued, "Look we are completely reliant on their inputs for this treaty. While on the face of it, the treaty looks like something we would negotiate, how do we know this is not some elaborate ruse to get us to hand it over to them?"
The CNSCS picked up where the NSA left off, "So is there a finders fee? seems like the rules so far have been finders keepers."
The CDS was now getting a little nervous with the pace of this discussion, "So what if they get angry and do something? can we hold that off?"
The NSA looked askance and said,"By their statements, the treaty itself specifically forbids harvesting the technology to build weapons."
The CDS was more than a little exasperated,"It forbids *DIRECTLY* harvesting weapons technology, there are no limits on lateral exploitation. They could have technology development cycles that run parallel to their investigation and develop technologies which they never actually field, waiting for such eventualities."
The NSA continued,"But if they could take from us by force, they would have done so already.."
The CabSec had had enough, look at the PM, he simply said "that way madness lies.."
There was a long pregnant pause.
The PPS and the PSA had remained silent. It was not the PSA's place to provide political advice and the PPS was holding back in case a deciding vote was needed. He needn't have done that the PM had made up her mind.
"Well.." She cut into the silence, " I have to give him some reply, since there is so much to take in, I might as well tell him the truth, that I need time to think things through", turning to the NSA, "you seem to think that there is something we can verify?... okay proceed."
The CabSec, much as he knew and liked his friend the NSA, could only think one thing,"Well my friend, now you know what it means when someone says you have a very big mouth.."
Turning to the CNSCS, she said, "If there is a political angle, find it". It was not the CNSCS' turn to look worried, had he too like the NSA perhaps bitten off more than he could chew?
The CDS now wanted to disappear before his number came up, but it didn't and the CabSec did his best to pretend like he wasn't really there, it wasn't very hard, it was an art he had practiced for years now, so he too seemed to get away without any more work.
With that the PM trooped out with the PPS and the PSA in tow. Back in the privacy of her office, she turned to the PSA and asked him, "you were very quiet back there". The PSA replied, "It appears that despite all pretences to the contrary, the Americans don't have all the answers either." The PPS joined in, "It was just as well for them that we asked no questions."
The PM looked at the picture of Jawarhalal Nehru on the wall, and said, "you know he was right about the verification, and the political angle is not implausible."
The PPS was a master of sensing the mood, " Why close our options.."
The PSA now jumped in, "Well the best verification would be to make contact ourselves..."
The conversation went around a few more times but died soon after. The men left the office and the young Minister of State for Science and Technology entered.
Late that evening, at the beginning of the inaugural dinner of the Indian National Science Academy's annual session, the PM rose to give her speech. The jaded scientists and bureaucrats anxiously awaited the food and hoped that the PM would get her speech over with so that the gorging could begin, the Kashmiri wazwaan might get cold, then where would India be? such was their state of mind. Within minutes it was clear to the unfortunate scientists that this was not going to be an ordinary speech.
About ten minutes into the speech, an incredulous Director of the Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre stared at his boss, the Director of ISRO. The Director of NAL looked speechlessly at the Minister of State for Science and Technology, whose face gave no hint of emotion.
Half an hour after the PM's speech ended, that the first headlines began to appear on the TV news services, soon after that websites were carrying reports and before long the first opinion editorials were being churned out by blogs everywhere. After that a dozen TV channels were bringing every expert they could lay their hands on to talk about it
Matthew recieved the PM's reply a few minutes before he saw the news on TV. As Matthew watched the ticker run, he eyes narrowed on the words in the letter before him "no further actions pending a more complete evaluation"
By the next day the Gray Lady ofcourse had weighed in on the subject her opinions on what India, a country with 200 million starving people, was capable of and even the Daily Times of Pakistan, widely suspected to be an Inter Services Intelligence mouthpiece ran the following headine,
" Indian Prime Minister says India Will Put A Man In Space Before The End Of The Year".
Matthew was not a happy man, he had been warned this would happen.
posted by maverick at 2:18 PM
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