IT was a Dayafter cover story by Dinesh Kampani, not today or in the recent past, but full 15 years ago, in January 1987 issue. It brought us many bouquets and brickbats as we expected. But it was a time when the world was divided into two super power blocks and the Soviet Union as a contender of the great United States was very much there with all its nuclear and conventional arsenals of war. With their weapons and armies, there military groupings of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and the Warsaw Pact fought cold and hot wars in proxy and directly in every part of the world where some or another kind of conflict flared up for one reason or the other.

But I am very much tempted to recall that story in the New Year issue of 1987, presented to our readers to focus on "Terrorism" of a very special kind. Shall I say terrorism as an instrument of national and global policy and conventional and nuclear terrorism as a means of threat and deterrence to neighbours and rivals? For, there were many lessons for students and researchers of terrorism as a human menace and threat to world security.

I did not totally agree with Dinesh Kampani’s conclusions at that time when President Ronald Reagan’s doctrine of Strategic Defence Initiative, which became the backbone of the foreign and defence policies of the then most powerful man in the world and was based on "anti-Sovietism". Now that the Soviet Union has long ago been wiped out off the world map and President George Bush Junior has found enemies to chase, the already demolished Saddam Hussein of Iraq, not yet demolished Ossama Bin Laden, the arch- priest of fundamentalist terrorism and his Al Qaeda organisation, and the next military target of the Bush "initiative"----- the Islamic Republic of Iran, I am having some second thoughts that Kampani was perhaps more right than I thought him to be at that time.

At that point of time, Kampani had proved with facts and figures that despite its public and global declaration, the United States was the biggest "nuclear power" in the world and was the biggest proliferator and nuclear threat to the world. At that time he had pointed out that till then the United States had carried out 806 nuclear tests, the Soviet Union 566, France 140, Britain 38 and China 81.

The break-up of the strategic nuclear force of the two super powers, call them the original weapons of mass destruction, was an interesting contrast again. The United States had 1,054 Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs), 656 SLBM’s, 388 long range bombers and 7301 war-heads while the Soviets had 6000 war-heads, 156 long range bombers,1398 ICBMs and 1003 SLBMs.

In terms of Naval weapons, the United States had 173 major combat surface ships, 80 attack subs, out of which 74 were nuclear powered and six diesel powered, 13 aircraft carriers, 11 helicopter carriers and 1200 combat aircrafts. In comparison, the Soviet Union had 289 major combat surface ships, 257 cruise missiles and attack subs out of which 91 were nuclear powered and remaining diesel powered, 2 aircraft carriers, two helicopter carriers and 775 combat aircrafts. Besides, the US had 550, 000 aircraft strong air force with 189, 000 mariners and the Russians had 475, 000 aircraft strong air force with a 550, 000 strong air defence force.

The American army had 11, 759 tanks and 774, 00 troops against the Soviet Army’s 50, 000 tanks and 18, 25, 000 troops.

Kampani, in his devastating investigatory story, had made the point "Not long ago Adolf Hitler used force to make the world bow to his command. And he failed. So did the Alexander of Macedonia, and all those who tried to dictate the world their terms and so will President Regan whose Soviet phobia has forced him to make a bid to turn the whole world his ally, by hook or by crook. No number of summits can make him dissolve the controversial Strategic Defence Initiative Programme… because that is the only way he can turn the Soviet defence ‘obsolete’ and the rest of the world ‘impotent’".

There is no more an entity called the Soviet Union, there is only one super-power today, the United States of America headed by President George Bush Junior and followed by those who are part of his programme to make the rest of the world ‘impotent’. How does one really choose between a Bush and a Saddam Hussain as an anti-terrorism role model? I do not know. I am only reminded how right Kampani was and not I.

‘That New Year issue of The DayAfter was quite controversial, and much talked about. It carried reports like the "Micronesia Mystery", "International Terrorism", "Who Sold Arms to Whom?", "Man First Appeared in Africa", "What Do You Get For Rs. 30 Crore a Day?" , "House is a Basic Right", Vulgarity Erodes Spiritual Nature of Sex" and "World Youth Rises against Fascist Racism in South Africa".