This is just one incident that reflects the deep sense of betrayal Americans diplomats have felt at the Indian tests. Time and again they have charged New Delhi with deceit and duplicity, of being Janus-faced and fork-tongued. The anger runs particularly deep in the State Department's South Asia bureau, the smallest andnewest of the bureaux (established only in 1990), in which India is the crowning glory.

Long consigned to the sidelines even in the State Department scheme of things, the bureau was only just coming into the limelight, with a Presidential trip planned for the region later this year. Poor cousins compared to the Department's more fancied and frenzied Middle-East, Far East, European or even Africa bureau mandarins, the South Asia babus were beginning to preen themselves. Now all that lies in tatters (Ironically though, they have now begin to get even more attention).

Down the line in the administrations, officials feel they have been ``had'' by the Indians. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright had squeezed in a visit to India in between the Iraq crisis. Under Secretary Thomas Pickering had done the spadework. Inderfurth had made three rapid visits. Things were on a roll and strategic dialogue was the buzzword. Says George Perkovich, an expert on nuclear matters in the region, ``There was a strongtilt towards India. It was seen as an economic powerhouse. Pakistan was fast becoming a basketcase and the President's November trip was going to basically be an India-trip.'' Everything blew up on May 11. The Indians of course see it differently. Albright's scheduled three-day trip last November was curtailed to 24 hours. Every time a US official visited India, they had to mandatorily visit Pakistan, once again accentuating the zero-sum game the administration had practised. And the strategic dialogue was getting nowhere Washington was not even offering civilian nuclear cooperation banned after India's 1974 tests while falling over backwards offering reactors to China.

Could the difference in perceptions have been cultural? In their mode of communication? Some experts think so. The Americans swear that when their officials always raised the subject of nuclear programs and asked Indians not to do anything to precipitate it and the Indians promised not to. The Indians say they did not say ANYTHING. Orthey said, they would keep there would be a continuity in Indian policy. Did the US take Indian silence as acquiescence. Did the Indians use silence as a weapon? This becomes particularly relevant because the last high US official to visit India, US Ambassador to UN Bill Richardson, apparently came away feeling thing were well under control and there was nothing on the cards, after meeting Prime Minister Vajpayee.

In fact, Richardson was so confident that the US had a handle on the BJP Government that on the obligatory stop in Islamabad on the way back, he virtually certified the Vajpayee Government ``clean'' to the highly-suspicious Pakistanis who were already wringing their hands about the BJP's assertive foreign policy. Having stuck out his neck, Richardson now feels he has egg on face.

As do a whole lot of Clinton administration officials who say the BJP's mention of nuclearisation did not escape their attention. In fact, the administration did have its red flag up briefly before both Vajpayee andDefence Minister George Fernandes publicly backpedalled from the stated policy of inducting nuclear weapons at least not until a strategic defence review they initiated. But now the State Department is slowly struggling back to its feet. The anger is dissipating. In fact, at least one high official -- Pickering, a former Ambassador to India -- is said to have taken things in his stride and refused to be a part of the ``piqued clique''.

Pickering, in fact, has reinitiated contact with the Indian side and is said to be restoring a sense of balance and proportion to the administration's reaction or, as the Indians see it, over-reaction.