845.01/189
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Chief of the Division of Near Eastern Affairs (Alling)
I had a lengthy conversation today with Mr. Graham Spry, who acted as Special Assistant to Sir Stafford Cripps on the latter’s mission to India. Mr. Spry, who is well known to Mr. Max Thornburg,68 is a Canadian national and, as I understand it, was associated with Sir Stafford for only a short period before the latter’s trip to India.
Mr. Spry corrected several stories which have been current regarding Sir Stafford’s relationship with Mr. Churchill. He said that both men had been unanimous in their opposition to Mr. Chamberlain and that, although they approached problems from a different point of view, he did not feel that there were any fundamental differences between them. Moreover, they had long been close, personal friends. Accordingly, he was quite sure that there was nothing in the story that Mr. Churchill had sent Sir Stafford to India in the hope of terminating the latter’s political career. On the contrary, Mr. Spry said that he knew definitely that Sir Stafford had volunteered for this mission, which was very close to his heart.
From the beginning Sir Stafford Cripps had felt that there were only three chances out of seven of a successful outcome of his mission. Although he was naturally disappointed at the unsuccessful outcome, he was not greatly surprised. I asked Mr. Spry to what he attributed the failure of the mission. He replied that it was almost entirely [Page 652] due to the efforts of Mr. Gandhi and four or five members of the Congress Working Committee who, although not particularly sympathetic with Gandhi, were quite willing to go along with him in their opposition to the Cripps plan since it coincided with their own narrow political views. Mr. Spry said that, surprising as it might seem, he was convinced that Gandhi had been successful in opposing a plan which would have gone far toward uniting the peoples of India with those of China and the United Nations. I asked him why this small group of four or five Indians on the Congress Working Committee was willing to go along with Gandhi, and he replied that it was entirely due to their unwillingness to accept political responsibility during wartime. These men reasoned that the British Government had got India into the war and that there was no political gain for the Indians to take over at this time. In other words, their ends were entirely selfish. Mr. Spry felt that Nehru, if he had had sole control, could have been dealt with without undue difficulty.
I asked Mr. Spry why Mr. Jinnah, head of the Moslem League, had disagreed to the Cripps proposal since it seemed to me that the proposal would have been quite acceptable to him and his associates. He said that as a matter of fact the plan was acceptable to Jinnah and the Moslem League and that Sir Stafford Cripps had had informal assurances from them on that point. However, the Moslem League did not wish to take a public stand in the matter until the All-India Congress had made a decision. Once that decision was unfavorable the Moslem League felt that for political reasons it, too, had to turn down the plan. Mr. Spry went on to say that at the time Sir Stafford Cripps left India he felt there was still a good chance of coming to some working arrangement with the Indian leaders. At the present time, however, in view of the attitude of the All-India Congress, which had now by a large vote adopted Mr. Gandhi’s viewpoint of non-violent resistance, Mr. Spry felt there was little likelihood or possibility of a solution in the near future. I asked Mr. Spry whether he felt that if the Indian leaders had accepted Sir Stafford’s proposal it would have contributed greatly toward the defense of India. He was not inclined to believe that the question of Indian independence had much to do with the defense of India, which was largely, if not entirely, a military matter. He went on to say that most people fail to realize that the recent Congress declaration was not entirely negative so far as the British were concerned. After all, Congress leaders do not propose to use non-violent resistance as against the British but only as against the Japanese. In other words, the Indian leaders did not propose to hamper the British war effort in India. Perhaps that was all that could be expected of them. In any case, volunteers were coming forward in India at the satisfactory rate of 50,000 a [Page 653] month, and that number was all that could be equipped with India’s present production.
Mr. Spry volunteered the information that Colonel Johnson had been helpful in many ways, that he and Sir Stafford Cripps had got along famously, and that, although Colonel Johnson was something of an enigma to the old-time Indian civil servants, he believed that Colonel Johnson’s activities had been advantageous to all concerned. Mr. Spry did not seem to feel that there were any further steps that could be taken either here in Washington or in India that would be helpful to the existing situation.
In closing the conversation Mr. Spry referred to the influence of the Indian industrialists who apparently had influence not only with Mr. Gandhi and the Congress Party but also with the Hindu Mahasabha, both of which organizations these industrialists apparently helped support. Apparently the sole aim of these industrialists was to continue to make profits and for that reason they strongly disapproved of the scorched earth policy. They also endeavored through their influence with the Congress Party and other political organizations to feather their own nests by advocating higher protective tariffs for their products.
Mr. Spry impressed me as a very intelligent and liberal minded person who, as a Canadian national, saw both the British and the American point of view and who wished to do all he could to be helpful in making the views of each understood by the other. I gained the very definite impression, however, that he felt that for the time being at any rate the best way to handle the Indian problem was to let well enough alone.
- Petroleum Adviser.↩