196. Letter From the Ambassador to India (Galbraith) to President Kennedy0
Dear Mr. President: I have been wanting for the past ten days to give you a more detailed and intimate account of our affairs here. I have been sending rather full dispatches to the Department, some of which you have doubtless seen. But as you will have discovered, few Ambassadors [Page 381] have ever been completely candid in such reporting. There is truth and there is also what one must have believed. I merely try to minimize the difference.
These past three weeks have brought great change here—no doubt the greatest change in public attitudes since World War II. The most treasured of preconceptions have been shattered. The disillusion with the Chinese is of course total. So, save at the top, is that with the Soviets. And the other unaligneds are not very popular. Nehru remains an exception. Even he is now hoping only for friendly neutrality from the Soviets rather than active support. But with him there is another factor. All his life he has sought to avoid being dependent upon the United States and the United Kingdom—most of his personal reluctance to ask (or thank) for aid has been based on this pride. He did not like it because it advertised what hurt his pride. Now nothing is so important to him, more personally than politically, than to maintain the semblance of this independence. His age no longer allows for readjustment. To a point we can, I feel, be generous on this.
The departure of Menon is an enormous gain. I have little doubt that in recent years he was an immediate and efficient channel of communications to the Soviets and possibly even to the Chinese. His departure means, among other things, that we can work with the Indians on sensitive matters—things which I resisted before because of the insecurity involved—although the Indian Government remains a sieve and his men are still around. More important he no longer has the capacity for stirring up action against us or for the Communists. Many people here think that in recent years whenever the Chinese penetrated a little further in Ladakh, Menon arranged some shooting on the East Pakistan border as a diversion. I have no doubt that the march on Goa last year was timed to take peoples minds away from the anti-Chinese syndrome which was developing as the result of last summer’s penetrations. It worked. Within a few days last December China disappeared from the headlines and the liberating forces of Menon became the center of attention. The U.N. job was an admirable complement to all this for it made him the defender of Kashmir and gave him a forum for whipping it up against us.
In the United States we no longer think of an individual having this much power. But there is still a role here for a Rasputin. And all of this is apart from Menon’s utter incompetence as a Defense Minister and his deeply divisive political influence on the Army.
At one juncture, I feared that Menon might engineer the turnaround and get credit for the appeal to the United States for aid. And it is a measure of his conscienceless gall that he made the effort. I managed to forestall this without any suggestion, even from the Menon kept press, that we had a role in throwing him out. In the absence of your counsel on the [Page 382] matter I might have pressed the point a little harder. But I was also desirous that no one in Washington, yourself included, would think me at all anxious to rush arms to a ministry headed by this man.
The Government is currently in disarray. The Prime Minister is old and tired and angry with events that have treated him so harshly. Chavan, who is coming in as Defence Minister, is young by Indian standards. He is a competent politician and operator. No one need pay any attention to the suggestions that he is left wing—he has merely made his obeisances. Unfortunately he is very inexperienced in all military matters—as are all Indians. T.T. Krishnamachari, who will take over as Minister of Supply, was at one time head of Lever Brothers here and is a man of incredible vanity. He was brought into the Cabinet at Menon’s behest but sensed at an early stage that Menon was in trouble. He thereupon broke with him on grounds of principle reinforced by more practical considerations. He tries to live up to his view of himself and about halfway succeeds. So he will be fairly effective. My working relationships with both men are good.
One thing much on my mind these last days has been the American press. We have had a great influx of correspondents plus a large itinerant delegation covering the arms lift. Under Menon the Indian Defence Ministry completely excluded the press from all operational areas—partly so no one would hear the criticisms of Menon. Were they bottled up here, the Indians would get a bad press and so, inter alia, would we. I have now pretty well broken through on this, though I had to go to the Prime Minister himself. There will be many stories on the infirm character of his leadership, but that is not our business. I think Nehru is still playing down our role to protect the sensitivities of the Soviets and perhaps, more especially, to protect his own feelings. I have told him this was something we couldn’t take and have pictured the repercussions in the American press. We cannot decently help someone who is afraid to be seen in our company. There will be some damage along these lines, I fear.
The great question is what the Chinese intend. In the beginning I thought that this was essentially a border conflict. The Chinese have a serious claim to the Aksai Chin Plateau in Ladakh. It provides them with a strategic access to Sinkiang and they had been building their road there for two years before the Indians reacted. By getting a good foothold in the east, they could establish a claim for the area they really want. In addition, no doubt, they are motivated by jealousy and dislike plus the feeling that Indians were the world’s safest object of animosity. So with their superior ready manpower and equipment they could show the Indians and the Asian countries that in military affairs at least they had superiority. All this could be accomplished by a major border demonstration. I have not entirely discarded the above theory. But last week the trickle of evidence on forces north on the frontier, the concentration in the [Page 383] real danger areas which are the Chumbi Valley and back near the Burma border, the incursions and patrol actions in new places and the drift of Chinese propaganda caused me to conclude that we should assume something more serious. The Indians have consistently underestimated Chinese intentions. In one way or another our estimate influences them. And, of course, we are in less danger if we have to withdraw from a too somber estimate than if we must revise a too sanguine one. In the former instance we shall have at least done some of the right things. My recent estimates have reflected the above considerations. Deep in my own mind I am not persuaded that the Chinese are as ambitious as this implies or that they can be so indifferent to the deterrent effects of our position.
If the Chinese should really come down the mountain in force, there will be more political changes here. Much so-called nonalignment went out the window with Menon. In his pro-Soviet maneuvers and his articulate anti-Americanism he was the counterbalance for five ordinary pro-Western ministers. Popular opinion and our military assistance has worked a further and major impairment. The problem in face of a really serious attack would be how we would react to the prospect of a new, large and extremely expensive ally. I personally hope the Chinese do not force this choice. The Indians are busy worrying about the end of non-alignment. It is we that should be doing the worrying on this.
Generally speaking, I think our affairs here are in good shape. We have managed to appear as a solid and steadfast friend. Even the left press has not seriously pinned on us the charge that we are seeking to entangle or otherwise exploit the situation. On most matters our course has seemed clear. During the Cuban affair I moved ahead but with a fairly good sense of what would be in your mind. The period has not been without interest.
We do have a serious problem next door and this has been much on my mind. The Pakistanis have not taken the attack very seriously and have seen it as the great opportunity to get concessions from the Indians. As I am sure Ayub himself saw, no one could press the Indians in their moment of despair. But instead the Paks were pressed themselves for assurances. And our weapons, in an action not too gracefully cleared with the Paks started coming to India. Their disappointment is understandable. I have worked hard and I think with a certain measure of success here. The Ministry of External Affairs at my behest has asked the press to be very quiet in response to the Pakistan fulminations. I have given strong encouragement to a Congress Party group which is urging reconciliation with Pakistan. I have pressed the Indians to give the Pakistanis information on Indian troop movements and I succeeded last week in getting Nehru to write a long and friendly letter to Ayub on the situation, while their new High Commissioner is proposing the resumption of ministerial talks. Meanwhile McConaughy has been doing noble [Page 384] work in Karachi to calm the Paks and make them see that the threat is to the subcontinent. My sense of the situation is that we should not press the Pakistanis any more in the immediate future. However I should continue all moderating efforts here. Eventually but not too soon the Indians must be asked to propose meaningful negotiations on Kashmir. This should not incidentally raise the question of a plebiscite, an idea in which there is no longer any future. The only hope lies in having a full guarantee of the headwaters of the rivers. Each side should hold on to the mountain territory that it has and there should be some sort of shared responsibility for the Valley. I really don’t think that a solution on these lines is impossible. It may be wise incidentally when the time comes to have the British do it as a Commonwealth exercise.
With the great advantage of perspective, I regard the election results as a strong endorsement of the Kennedy Administration, your Cuban policy and the persistence of Mr. Endicott Peabody.
Yours faithfully,
- Source: Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Countries Series, India, General, 11/11/62-11/13/62. Confidential. A handwritten note on the source text indicates that it was taken from the President’s weekend reading file, dated November 17.↩