George Fernandes has always attracted controversy. He led the Railways strike in 1974, was accused in the Baroda Dynamite case and as Janata government minister drove Coke out of India in 1977. So, when he became defence minister in the Vajpayee Government, labelling the Chinese as potential enemy No. 1 was only true to type. But he has combined this streak with an unconventional yet impressive style. He shook up the Defence Ministry by ordering two babus to Siachen to learn about field conditions. He visited almost all field areas in his first six weeks in office, mixing freely with troops. The Defence Ministry seemed to be well run until the unprecedented sacking of navy chief Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat in January. Fernandes was back in the news.

The episode has gone beyond just a spat between two strong-headed people (Sunk; January 11, 1999). The Bhagwat issue has become the Opposition's ammunition to blast Fernandes, who is one of Vajpayee's key trouble-shooters. He defended the Government over the Staines' murder; he also brokered an earlier compromise with alliance partner J. Jayalalitha. This irony is lost in the present compulsion for the Opposition, which knows that if Fernandes goes, so will the Government.

Deputy Editor Raj Chengappa and Senior Editor Manoj Joshi, who wrote this week's cover story, conducted interviews within the defence and political establishments, talked to Fernandes, researched documents available exclusively to India Today, to unearth the real story. "The phrase 'national security' is a double-edged sword," says Chengappa. "As we found, it's being used as much to hide the real story as tell it." With our article, we hope to take the debate about who is right and wrong forward, a debate that must end in only one way: unearthing the truth.

(Aroon Purie)