The initiative came from the CIA and Chinese external intelligence, independent of each other, offering to “organise a dialogue” between the R&AW and the ISI. “What the US was suggesting was a joint counter-terrorism mechanism similar to what Prime Minister Manmohan SIngh had agreed to during his talks with President Pervez Musharraf in Havana in September 2006,” writes Raman, recalling that the US offer came after a visit by then CIA Director James Wollsey to Islamabad to meet then Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

The Chinese offer came through the “liason channel” after R&AW took up the matter of AK-47s and ammunition of Chinese manufacture found after the blasts. Rao shot down both the offers and Raman quotes him as saying that “the R&AW has been having a relationship with the CIA for 25 years. It has not been able to get its cooperation in counter-terrorism. Before suggesting to us counter-terrorism cooperation with Pakistan, let the US first cooperate sincerely with us in counter-terrorism”. According to Rao, it would be a “dangerous illusion” to think that anything useful would emerge from a cooperation between the R&AW and the ISI.

Raman, who retired as Additional Secretary in the Cabinet Secretariat in 1994, feels Rao’s decision could have been influenced by then Foreign Secretary J N Dixit, who felt that if the Prime Minister did feel it necessary to have such a dialogue or liaison relationship, it should be the Intelligence Bureau and not the R&AW that should handle it.

Meanwhile, the Government is planning to put in place a set of guidelines for former officials writing about their days in sensitive organisations and departments. Raman’s book, due to hit the stands on Monday, is the second book in recent days dealing with the R&AW. An earlier book, India’s External Intelligence—Secrets of Research and Analysis Wing by Major General V K Singh, had annoyed the R&AW and prompted a request to ban it.

Raman’s book, which dwells at length on the history and evolution of the organisation, also takes a critical look at authorities for not taking preventive steps in the run-up to Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination. A few months before the assassination, there was an input from German intelligence about a Sri Lankan Tamil living in Germany and who was reputed to be an expert in explosives visiting Chennai.

“Unfortunately, this was not properly inquired into by the IB. They maintained that their inquiries did not indicate that he was an explosives expert,” writes Raman. The book notes that the entire focus of intelligence was on LTTE’s activities in Sri Lanka like gun-running and there was no specific focus on likely threats to Rajiv Gandhi’s security from it.

Another revelation deals with “potentially controversial move” to provide arms training to RSS cadres in Jammu so that they could be used for countering Pakistan-sponsored terrorists. Then Cabinet Secretary Vinod Pandey wanted the R&AW to organise “clandestine” arms training for the RSS cadres. Two meetings were held with the RSS—one each in Jammu and Delhi—to discuss the training. But the plan remained a non-starter after differences between VP Singh and the BJP over Babri Masjid, the book says.

On Bofors

Rajiv Gandhi “unnecessarily” tied himself up in knots in trying to cover up the Bofors scandal, the book says. “He frantically mounted a cover-up operation and personally got involved in the cover-up exercise, thereby creating unnecessary and incorrect doubts in the minds of some people about his own integrity,” Raman writes. According to the book, Rajiv also encouraged officials close to him to create problems for VP Singh and the intelligence agencies vied with one another in giving him ideas on how to go about the cover-up.

Their moles, our mole

The book claims French intelligence had penetrated the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) in the early 1980s. “It had access to a large number of top secret reports sent by the R&AW and the IB to the Prime Minister on their sensitive operations,” writes Raman, adding that the intelligence and documents it collected were shared with West European and US counterparts.

The CIA felts its own officers would be under close surveillance by the IB due to Indira Gandhi’s well-known distrust of the US. “It therefore operated through the intelligence agencies of other countries, which were not under similar surveillance till the detection of the penetration of the PMO by French intelligence,” Raman says.

But India had its own moles too, like the one in Yahya Khan’s office who provided a tip-off about a planned pre-emptive strike on the Western Air Command days before it was supposed to be carried out. The information meant that the strike failed, says the book.