New Energy on India

Robert D. Blackwill was U.S. ambassador to India. (Gurinder Osan - AP)

Experts such as Barry M. Blechman, chief executive of consulting firm DFI International, doubt India will abandon its low-cost Russian equipment and its own indigenous arms industry. "American equipment is superior, but it also comes with strings attached," Blechman said.

Still, if U.S. arms makers are to have any chance, good bilateral relations will count, Pickering said. "Indian officials talk to us about the importance" of the nuclear cooperation agreement, "but it's not a blackmail thing," he said. Also moving through the Senate: an international accord that would limit the liability of companies building nuclear power plants.

With so much believed to be at stake, business groups and the Indian government have lined up the politically well-connected. Robert D. Blackwill, former ambassador to India, went to work for Barbour Griffith & Rogers LLC, which the Indian government hired last August for an annual fee of $700,000, according to filings with Justice Department. The Indian government is also paying $50,000 a month to Venable LLP, where former senator Birch Bayh Jr., father of Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), is a partner. Between April 15 and Sept. 30 last year, Barbour Griffith received $520,000 from the New Dehli-based Confederation of Indian Industry "to promote commercial trade."

The U.S.-India Business Council, which has been holding weekly calls or meetings with as many as 40 major companies, is paying Wisner's firm Patton Boggs. It has also hired Vickery International, a business consulting firm headed by Raymond E. Vickery, who was assistant secretary of commerce under President Bill Clinton and who accompanied him to India in 2001.

Lobbyists have also sounded nobler themes. "Without nuclear power, the only option for India is to burn extraordinary amounts of high sulfur coal, which would be devastating at this moment in the global-warming battle," Wisner said. Wisner has made a social equity point, too. "India's poor and emerging middle class deserve power," he said. In addition, many lawmakers and administration members see India as a strategic balance against China.

Critics of the U.S.-India nuclear deal say it harms efforts to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. They note that by allowing the United States and other countries to sell India fresh nuclear fuel, the agreement frees up more of India's own nuclear ingredients for weapons.

"I think there could be long-lasting damage done by this deal," said Robert Einhorn, who spent 29 years at the State Department, mostly on nonproliferation issues. "It spreads the notion that the U.S. doesn't have a principled approach to proliferation but rather a selective and self-serving one. It allows the Iranians to say that what the U.S. does is reward its friends and punishes its enemies."

But critics such as Einhorn have been outgunned by big business, Indian American groups and the administration. Even key congressional leaders on nonproliferation are supporting the deal, reassured by respected former diplomats such as Frank Wisner, who also served as special envoy on nonproliferation, and Henry A. Kissinger.

"A number of things happened. One is that the Indian American community started flexing its muscles and became an effective lobbying force," said Einhorn, now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The Indian American Friendship Council expects 100 lawmakers to attend a banquet at the Cannon House Office Building tonight.

This year, the U.S. India Political Action Committee gave $4,000 to key nonproliferation lawmaker Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) and $9,000 to Rep. Donald Manzullo (R-Ill.), who as chairman of the House Small Business Committee has been outspoken about the loss of jobs to India. The group gave to seven Democrats and three Republicans on the House Committee on International Relations, including $10,000 to Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.). In the first five months of this year, the political action committee gave $103,649 to congressional candidates, according to the Federal Election Commission.

Businessmen such as Boston's Ramesh Kapur and Swadesh Chatterjee of Raleigh, N.C., have marshaled more from fellow Indian Americans.

The lobbying effort came to a climax at the June 20 gala for the U.S.-India Business Council, which included a keynote address by Vice President Cheney and an after-dinner sitar performance by Anoushka Shankar, daughter of virtuoso Ravi Shankar.

One highlight was a speech by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's ranking Democrat, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (Del.). Several Democratic senators had told lobbyists they were waiting for Biden. Biden said that Congress would not be a "rubber stamp" and asked that India ensure that U.S. help would be for civilian nuclear plants alone, but he also said that he would not insist on a renegotiation of the deal.

"Everyone hung on his every word," said Graham Wisner. "That was extremely important."

Staff researcher Madonna A. Lebling contributed to this report.