• Because that’s a claim Strobe Talbott has just made, in fact, in an interview with me. That American satellites picked up evidence of an impending test. And then Clinton called.

What happened in 1998? There was a blackout?

• He said this time we could not pick it up.

Also Pakistan?

• But that you knew was going to happen.

Their blindness was at least impartial.

• It’s called bipartisan. But he (Talbott) clearly said Clinton called you and when you went to Washington, he came to see you and gave you evidence.

Nobody need give me evidence, I have the evidence myself...It doesn’t make one iota of difference to me whether what I am doing is known to somebody else or not. And I am not so naive as to think you can do these things with perfect confidentiality.

• The other interpretation is you strung the Americans along until we were actually ready to test at the level that you wanted to test, and a paka-pakaya, cooked-up meal you left for your successor.

All this is journalistic imagination, approximation, call it what you will. But it’s a very legitimate activity. If Raj Chengappa has written a book on this, I congratulate him. He has tried very hard to come close to the truth...To that extent, I give him full marks.

• So when will be the right time for history to know what exactly happened?

... contd.