When Hans Blix came to Vienna in 1981 it was no big deal. The diplomat and lawyer from Sweden was just the new head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) located in the tallest tower of the Vienna International Center (VIC) here where scientists were left alone to promote nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. Today along with Mohamad El Baradei his successor, Blix is probably the most wanted man, at least by the media. And VIC’s tallest tower has the longest line of those waiting for even a moment’s audience with either Blix or El Baradei or even a nuclear weapons inspector. Many a scribe is said to have lost face before editors in recent days for having failed to find Blix for that quotable quote.

This was not always so. Throughout the Cold War era the IAEA may have succeeded in generating some electricity but little interest in itself. In comparison many more from the media marched towards the offices of the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) in the opposite tower to witness a more exciting tug of war of ideology between those representing the rich and those, the poor of the world. For the premises of all United Nations offices where the aspiration of developing country populations that sprawling mass of the majority in the world still without income, food or shelter were allowed to let off steam were naturally considered much more of a hot house. The election of the head of UNIDO for example was a far more exciting event once upon a time than any event at the IAEA.

So when Blix retired in 1997 from the IAEA it was again no big deal. He may have even disappeared silently into the pages of history if circumstances did not force the world to wake up to the fact that the Cold War is indeed over. It was three years ago when UN Secretary General Kofi Annan hunted the 75 year old Blix out of a holiday in the mountains and immediately sent him into the heart of the desert to dig out Saddam Husain’s clandestine nuclear programme.

It is his reputation of being both daring and demure at diplomacy that has made the United Nations depend upon Blix at a time when more and more people seem to be against any World War III that may lurk around a corner of the globe.

The IAEA was founded in 1957 at the initiative of America’s Dwight Eisenhower as an independent intergovernmental, science and technology based organization within the United Nations family to serve as the global focal point for nuclear cooperation. Away from the podium of heated political debates scientists at the IAEA developed nuclear safety standards in the cool comfort of laboratories and looked into human health and the environment against ionizing radiation.

In the post cold war era the biggest challenge faced by the IAEA became the prevention of nuclear energy it helped to create from being misused. Public attention was first focused on the IAEA after the 1991 Gulf war when Iraq’s secret nuclear activities were exposed. To this day the IAEA is struggling with Iraq to get the country to declare and destroy its chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction. And as if Iraq was not enough, North Korea aggravated the situation by revealing its intention to develop nuclear warheads from enriched uranium. North Korea has expelled IAEA inspectors, removed cameras that monitored the nuclear freeze in Pyongyang and reactivated its nuclear reprocessing plant to produce plutonium.

The IAEA fears that if this activity continues without international oversight it would be in violation of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), a matter of grave concern as plutonium can be used directly to manufacture nuclear weapons. But the IAEA can only warn and advice for it has no power to take action against a nation that plays around with its nuclear arsenal.

While the IAEA was still pleading with North Korea to let it monitor the country’s nuclear energy transfer into electricity Iran announced that it was building a nuclear power plant with the help of Russia. Although Iran has said that it will use the reactors only for peaceful energy production the IAEA would like to make sure for itself.

Then there is Pakistan that is reported to have assisted North Korea in building and operating a uranium enrichment facility. South Korean intelligence reports have found similarities between Pyongyang’s centrifuges and those used by Islamabad’s secret nuclear weapons plants. Since it is not a signatory to the NPT, Pakistan’s export controls on banned materials are lax or nonexistent. This is how much the IAEA has so suddenly landed on its plate and performs almost a thankless job today in trying to observe, verify and report the activities of governments that hide the truth about their nuclear intentions and motives. And that Blix is helping the world in trying to get to the truth is perhaps why he has become such a big deal suddenly.

-----Mehru Jaffer