Observable Implications - Media Rhetoric

One of the observable implications of the claim that India’s ‘peaceful nuclear explosion’ (PNE) caused various other processes and events is based on the idea that the PNE is linked in some way to the thinking surrounding decisionmaking. An interesting example of how it might be linked comes from a 1976 article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists by Norman Gall about the Brazil-West Germany nuclear deal. Gall covers a lot of ground and makes numerous claims of causation and justification (journalistically) but two claims are relevant to the PNE. In one he states that:

The Brazil-German agreement was negotiated in the months following the Indian nuclear explosion of May 1974. That event had a special psychological impact among developing countries, particularly Brazil and Argentina, the rival “near-nuclear” neighbors who both have refused to sign the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). A New York Times editorial headlined "Nuclear Madness" spearheaded U.S. reaction to the deal. It called the agreement a “reckless move that could set off a nuclear arms race in Latin America, trigger the nuclear arming of a half-dozen nations elsewhere and endanger the security of the United States and the world as a whole”

Here Gall is arguing not only that the PNE is evidence or proof that developing countries might acquire a nuclear weapons capability but that the PNE actually spurred them on, increasing the probability of their doing so. This is classic “domino theory” thinking. Similarly, at another point in the article, Gall argues that

“The Indian nuclear explosion of May 1974 had a major impact both in Argentina and Brazil. For some time these two countries had viewed each other’s activities in the nuclear field with suspicion. After May 1974 it became a topic of common table talk among the elites of both countries to speculate about who would get the bomb first.”

However, this is not the only use that Gall makes of the PNE. He also deploys the Indian example as a proof-of-concept, that is, as an example of how proliferation might occur through seemingly innocent nominally civilian activities. This description highlights certain aspects of the process, creating an implicit schema for thinking about how civilian nuclear assistance could be repurposed for military use.

Until the Brazil-German deal was negotiated, there had been little official concern or public discussion as to the economic wisdom and military implications of the drive to export, and even give away, nuclear reactors. The plutonium for India's 1974 explosion was diverted from the unsafeguarded "Cirus" research reactor donated by Canada in 1956, for which the AEC supplied heavy water. India's first nuclear power plant, built by General Electric, was financed with a $74 million U.S. foreign aid loan at 0.75 percent interest over 30 years, after a 10-year initial grace period, with additional support coming from the AEC and the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations.

With her own scientific community building on the technological base provided by the United States and Canada, India has created an immense network of nuclear facilities of all types, including her own plants for producing heavy water and for separating plutonium. The "Cirus" reactor located at the Trombay laboratories, near Bombay, alone employs 10,400 persons, including 2,400 scientists.

During construction of the plutonium separation facility at Trombay, senior Indian scientists repeatedly visited the AEC reprocessing plant in Idaho under the "Atoms for Peace" program, for extensive interviews, with staff members on the technical problems of extracting plutonium from spent fuel. Today, India manufactures her own rockets and solid fuel propellant, and plans to launch rockets by 1979 capable of putting a 1,200-kilogram payload into orbit, or of delivering a nuclear warhead anywhere in Asia.

India's example has not been lost on other ascendant powers.

Here various aspects of what could be thought of as civilian activity, like research reactors, power reactors, a scientific community of nuclear experts, plants for fuel recycling and moderator production, are all directly associated with the India’s capability to “deliver a nuclear warhead anywhere in Asia”.

[This section also emphasizes the Canadian and US role in providing the funding, technology, and expertise to India for its nuclear activities.]

These two types of usage, proof-of-concept and domino, are also evident in the New York Times editorial that Gall quotes.

The German sale only requires inspection of equipment and materials provided by West Germany, Bonn has acknowledged. Once Brazil masters German technology, it will be able to duplicate German equipment and make nuclear explosives free of international supervision, much as India did.

…If half a dozen such countries follow India into the nuclear club, pressure will undoubtedly grow in Japan, West Germany and other nuclear capable but politically inhibited countries to do the same.

That the Indian PNE is used in these ways is suggestive evidence that it affected thinking on these matters. These examples are not by themselves proof that the reaction to the Brazil-West Germany deal would have been any different had the PNE not occurred, but they are consistent with the claim that the PNE shaped the reaction in identifiable and recurrent directions.
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Norman Gall, 1976. Atoms for Brazil, dangers for all, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, June, pp. 4-10

Editorial, Nuclear Madness, New York Times, June 13 1975, p. 36.