ABSTRACT
In December 1938 a discovery was made in Germany of a new nuclear process called fission and the scientific community of the Western World was prepared for it, not that it was not a surprise, in the sense that it was very quickly recognised that this new discovery made possible the chain reaction and to release the energy of the atomic nucleus. The result was that in 1939 five countries Germany, France, Great Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union began programmes for the development of this new process, first for the work designed to understand and exploit it. The National Defense Research Council (NDRC) brought top-level scientists with national and world reputations for the first time into contact with top-level military and political leaders and the President himself. The Indians, unlike any of the previous five, are signatories of the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, though as is well known they refused to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
