Mumbai: Anil Kakodkar Former Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) disclosed Siegfried Heck The former director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in the United States repealed the ensuing sanctions in the U.S. Senate in 2008 Pokhran No. 2 The test had no impact on India’s nuclear weapons programme.
On May 18, at an event organized by the National Academy of Sciences at New Delhi to commemorate 50th anniversary if Smiling Buddha, India’s first nuclear test at Pokhran, Rajasthan on May 18.The code name for this test.
Manhattan Project, a secret U.S. program during World War II to design and develop first atomic bomb which was located in Los Alamos National Laboratory where Hecker served as its director from1986-1997.
Quoting Heck before US Senate, Kakodka said “I don’t think our sanctions specifically stopped their (Indian) nuclear weapons program. What our sanctions did was slow down their nuclear energy program.” Therefore, it can be remembered that Kakodka also noted that Heck’s statement stated that India has become a nuclear weapon state today.
According to Kakodka, Heck also told the Senate “I believe that nuclear energy cooperation with India could actually be of great benefit to us.”
Heck’s assertion is in line with what he told R Chidambaram who reported thus: “They will never get rid of their existing nuclear weapons until there is global disarmament,” argued Chidambaram during his testimony before the US Senate.
R Chidambaram, another former AEC chairman and Operation Shakti architect besides conducting five series of nuclear tests between May 11-13th are among those who spoke on Saturday In his address he left no doubt regarding whether there was any real difference between a ‘peaceful nuclear explosion’ (PNE), which referred to Operation Smiling Buddha, 1974 and a nuclear weapons test.
According to Chidambaram, “It’s just in terms of packaging,” implying that for a country like India nuclear weapons were necessary and important.
