Göteborg May 30 1998

To The Ambassador of India
His Excellency Mr. Sushil Dubey
Stockholm

Dear Mr. Ambassador,

On behalf of myself and dr. Hans Levander I wish to thank you sincerely for receiving us and giving us a clear picture of how your government views the nuclear program of India. Also many thanks for your hospitality at lunch. We enjoyed meeting Dr. Bhagwati, who could add an additional perspective.

I believe we agreed that India has through decades tenaciously worked for international disarmament of nuclear weapons. We also agreed that there is, in spite of or because of the recent developments, hope that India will continue and this work.

The main point of my argument was maybe not emphasized sufficiently: Deterrent does not work. If India wants to build a nuclear deterrent that would not be easily destroyed by a first strike by China, at least one hundred nuclear weapons on long distance missiles would be needed. I use here the type of calculations that USA and NATO often present, resulting in a need of 1000 nuclear missiles for USA. The twenty charges that India reportedly has sufficient fissile material to produce may paradoxically increase the risk that the nuclear threshold is crossed in a conflict: You cannot allow an adversary in a major conflict to keep his nuclear bombs intact.

One hundred nuclear missiles in India would of course be perceived in Pakistan as a formidable threat and a reason to try to keep up the arms race, or to obtain stronger "security" guarantees from China. It would also be more difficult than today to get China to accept the abolition of nuclear weapons.

Mr. Ambassador, I maintain that the nuclear weapons program of India will greatly reduce the security of the population of the country. India has fallen for the same false logic as the previous nuclear weapons states, that claims that deterrent provides security. I give you that the policy of the USA, being threatened by no one, is even more illogical.

I have read the speech given by Prime Minister Vajpayee on May 27th carefully. In defending India's nuclear tests, he emphasizes the right of India to have nuclear weapons, and says that India will take its rightful place in the international community. He makes only general and to me unconvincing references to the security needs of the country.

I am a physician. To me, security for a poor woman in Bihar is access to pure water, to a health clinic and vaccination for her family, to schools for herself and her children. Not a nuclear bomb The obscenely expensive nuclear weapons program will deprive the country of such resources and seriously compromise her real security.

Mr. Ambassador, I sincerely hope that what we have seen is the end, and not the beginning of the nuclear weapons program of India and Pakistan. I wish I could say that I expect the P5 to take an initiative more productive than sanctions to obtain this outcome, but I don't. They also have their domestic problems, and they do not dare to "weaken their security" by declaring their intention to abolish nuclear weapons, fearing not an imagined enemy but their own hawks.

I place my hope with India.

Again, thank you for your hospitality and for taking so much time with us.

Sincerely

Gunnar Westberg MD
President, Swedish Physicians against Nuclear Weapons

Svenska Läkare mot Kärnvapen - SLMK
31 maj 1998
Bengt Lindell