262. Letter From the Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs (Jones) to the Ambassador in India (Bunker)1
Dear Ellsworth: Thank you for your thoughtful and well-reasoned letter of June 15 defending—and indeed urging—the sale to India of items of military equipment supplied to Pakistan.2
The fundamental question, as I see it, is how best to build stability, progress and a community of Free World purpose in a divided South Asia. The divisions remain severe and suspicions continue high, much as we hope to assist in their abatement. Between Pakistan and India, it is certainly clear that the latter has virtually all the cards, and that the gap between them, in terms of national power, is bound to widen as time goes on. India has the self-assurance that comes from knowing that its achievements to date and its potential growth have earned for it a position of real and ever increasing importance in the world. In my opinion, now that even limited warfare requires a reasonably strong financial and industrial base, India really has nothing to fear from Pakistan’s military establishment, even if a momentary “qualitative superiority” in some individual weapon crops up from time to time as a result of our policy of gradual modernization of that establishment. Whatever their public positions may be, I believe the leaders of both countries fully realize this.
Pakistan [6½ lines of source text not declassified] has committed itself to us and the West. In becoming our wholehearted military ally. Pakistan has undertaken real responsibilities and risks, making its territory available to us for a series of projects highly important to our national security. A military alliance in these days of hectic technological change cannot be a static thing, and Pakistan naturally looks to us for further confirmation of our alliance in the light of each new major development on the world scene.
I am impressed by the table on our aid to both countries which was an enclosure to your letter. However, as you well know, Pakistan does not—and, I’m afraid, never will—accept the “per capita” theory of aid, and it will always hold to the belief that an ally should certainly be given better treatment than a “neutralist” country. We certainly cannot, at this time or in the foreseeable future, give Pakistan the [Page 546] feeling that there is no advantage to alliance with us and that it could do better by playing both sides, as it feels India does. Whatever the merits of the Pakistani arguments, the hard fact remains that, if our mutual security system is to remain intact, we must show Pakistan—and many of our other allies—that substantial benefits flow from a military alignment with us against the Communist bloc. We cannot, therefore, afford to undermine this stand by adopting a policy of automatically offering to sell to India items of military equipment which we provide to Pakistan.
Please do not feel, however, that we are indifferent to your arguments or taking a negative stand on the specific matter of “sidewinders”. We are now, in fact, in the process of obtaining a decision on whether “sidewinders”, presently a highly strategic item which can be given to some—but not all—of our allies, will be made available in the near future for sale to certain friendly, non-allied countries. If the decision is in the affirmative, we would then be able to consider carefully the possible sale of this item to India.
There are other problems involved in the provision of “sidewinders” with respect to the time-lag of delivery. Actual programming cannot begin for any country until after a thorough, on-the-spot security check conducted by U.S. military and civilian personnel, and the construction or remodeling of storage sites acceptable to our security experts. Then, even though the desired number of “sidewinders” might be available from our stocks, there must be manufactured the “launchers”, without which, of course, the “sidewinders” are of no use. These “launchers” are not held in our military stocks and a delay of six months or more must be expected before they are assembled by the one firm engaged in their production. Two other smaller problems might be noted. We are unclear as to whether the sidewinders will fit India’s current fighter planes. Although the price of the comparable British weapon may be higher, representatives of the British Embassy here, who have admittedly an interest in selling British products, maintain that the firestreak is a better instrument than the sidewinder.
Our only report of any Indian interest in acquiring “sidewinders” is that contained in your telegram 4073 of June 13, referring to Krishna Menon’s almost casual mention of them to Secretary Sharp and yourself.3 Certainly, the very active Indian Air Attaché4 here has not raised the question officially with the Pentagon, although he, Ambassador [Page 547] Chagla, and Secretary Pulla Reddi discussed it informally with Fred Bartlett. Perhaps the need for an on-the-spot security survey has dampened their initial enthusiasm.
Because of the need, as I see it, to get “sidewinders” to Pakistan first, even though some months from now, and because of the other delivery problems mentioned above, I would hope, therefore, that no one encourages the Indians to approach us on “sidewinders”, at least until “sidewinders” are actually in Pakistani hands.
In this connection I fully agree that it is desirable to bring the GOI armed services closer to the West, including the United States. I feel certain we can foster this trend without antagonizing Pakistan, but it should, in my opinion, be on a case-by-case basis. I would like to see us concentrate for the time being on areas of cooperation which are clearly (to GOP as well as to others) in Free World defense interests and which are fundamental to India’s basic defense needs. Preferably such cooperation would also be unspectacular, but if conspicuous items are necessary from time to time, I hope they can be tailored clearly to the special requirements of the Indo-Tibet border situation and not of a kind which would be likely to impress the GOP as a “transferable threat”.
Yours ever,
- Source: Department of State, SOA Files: Lot 63 D 110, India—Sidewinders. Secret; Official–Informal. Drafted on July 11 by G. Lewis Jones, Parker T. Hart, Bartlett, and Robert W. Adams.↩
- See footnote 3, Document 260.↩
- In telegram 4073, Bunker stated that India’s recent inquiries regarding Sidewinder missiles consisted entirely of a remark by Menon to Dudley C. Sharp, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Matériel, and himself that India wanted to purchase the missiles. (Department of State, Central Files, 791.5612/6–1360) Sharp was in India at the time on a brief visit.↩
- Group Captain H. S. Ratnagar.↩
- Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature.↩