In this revised edition of the highly praised Engaging India, Strobe Talbott updates his bestselling diplomatic account of America's parallel negotiations with India and Pakistan over nuclear proliferation in the late 1990s. The update looks at recent nuclear dealings between India and the United States, including Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's 2005 visit to America. Under the highly controversial agreement that emerged, the United States would give India access to U.S. nuclear technology and conventional weapons systems. In exchange, India would place its civilian nuclear program under international monitoring and continue the ban on nuclear testing. Praise for the hardback edition ""A fascinating study of how diplomatic dialogue can slowly broaden to include subtle considerations of the domestic politics and foreign policies of both countries involved."" Foreign Affairs ""An important addition to the literature of modern diplomatic history.""—Choice ""Detailed and revealing... an honest behind-the-scenes look at how countries make and defend policies.... A must-read for any student of diplomacy.""—Outlook (India) ""A rapidly engrossing work and a welcome addition to modern world history shelves.""—Reviewer's Bookwatch ""A highly engaging book; lucid, informative and at times, amusing.""—International Affairs Strobe Talbott is president of the Brookings Institution. He served as deputy secretary of state from 1994 to 2001. For twenty-one years prior to his service in government, he was correspondent and columnist for Time magazine. He has written nine books, including The Russia Hand: A Memoir of Presidential Diplomacy (Random House, 2002), a personal account of U.S. diplomacy toward Russia during the Clinton administration. Engaging India Diplomacy, Democracy, and the Bomb By Strobe Talbott Brookings Institution Press Copyright © 2006 Strobe Talbott All right reserved. ISBN: 9780815783015 Chapter One The Lost Half Century When I arrived for work that damp, overcast morning of Monday, May 11, 1998, I was expecting a relatively normal week, at least by State Department standards. There was plenty to do at the office and plenty to worry about in the world, but nothing that quite qualified as a crisis. Shortly after 8:00 a.m., I chaired the daily meeting of the department's senior staff. As deputy secretary, I was supposed to keep tabs on what was going on in the building and around the globe. Assembled at a mahogany table in the windowless conference room across from my office on the seventh floor were about twenty assistant secretaries. Their bureaus either covered various geographical regions or sought to advance such global objectives as the promotion of democracy and human rights, the protection of the environment, the struggle against terrorism, and the effort to stop the proliferation of lethal armaments, materials, designs and technologies. Each official reported briefly on what had happened over the weekend and reviewed what lay ahead. The British government and Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army, were looking for help in bringing peace to Northern Ireland. A team of American diplomats was in the Balkans trying to avert war over Kosovo. Iraq's deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz, was barnstorming through Europe, lobbying for an end to the U.S.-led campaign to isolate the Baghdad regime. The annual summit of the Group of Seven major industrial democracies, or G-7, was coming up later in the week in Birmingham, England. Boris Yeltsin, the president of Russia, would be attending for the first time as a full member of the group, making it the G-8. As the administration's point man on Russia, I planned to spend most of the coming days preparing for the private session that President Bill Clinton would have with Yeltsin in Birmingham. When the senior staff meeting ended, I returned to my office and settled behind the desk to read the New York Times . I skimmed articles on the front page about the latest Arab-Israeli tensions and drug trafficking in the Caribbean but skipped a feature article about India. That country could hardly have been further from my mind. In government, it is often said, the urgent drives out the merely important. India-the world's second most populous country, its largest democracy, and the most powerful country in a region that is home to nearly a quarter of humanity-seemed permanently stuck in the latter category. At that moment, Phyllis Oakley, the foreign service officer in charge of the department's bureau of intelligence and research, was returning to her own office from the senior staff meeting when her deputy intercepted her in the corridor with the news that India had set off a nuclear device several hours earlier. Phyllis was stunned. How had we learned? she asked. From CNN, she was told. She winced, then rushed back to my office to make sure I had gotten the word. I hadn't. After sitting motionless for