264. Telegram From the Department of State to the Embassy in India0
3366. Verbatim Text. Deliver following message from President to Prime Minister Nehru at earliest appropriate opportunity:
March 9, 1963
“Dear Mr. Prime Minister:
I appreciate your replying to my letter in the same frank manner in which I had written to you.1 I can understand the discouragement you expressed about Kashmir. I can see, however, how the accumulated tensions and emotions of the last sixteen years make the path of compromise most difficult to tread on either side.
[Page 520]If possible, the United States should also send planes flown by American personnel wouldhave to man these fighters and communications. American personnel would have to man these fighters and installations and protect Indian cities from air attacks by the Chinese till Indian personnel had been trained. I’m persuaded you will agree from your own experience that, in negotiations such as those between India and Pakistan on Kashmir, day to day developments tend to take on an importance they do not always deserve. They sometimes seem to obscure the broader realities which initially caused each party to conclude that agreement rather than difference was in its national interest. As I think you will agree, the realities which dictate India’s discussions with Pakistan include the security of the subcontinent from outside aggression, the need to free energies and resources for internal development, and the need to end the fear of one nation and one people of the subcontinent of another. These realities, and the talks resulting from them, provide a historic opportunity for laying the foundations of friendship, well-being and strength in South Asia. India’s potential role and responsibility in this historical process is central and your own capacity to exercise a decisive influence is great.
In your letter you described the proposal made by India during the talks at Karachi. While this was a real step forward, I suspect that until India and Pakistan have made serious proposals which take into account the position of each regarding the Vale, they will not have made use of the historic opportunity presented by the talks. Pakistan certainly has not done so. But I hope that India would nevertheless begin discussion of the Vale. It would be tragic if that beginning were not made.
Let me, therefore, renew my urging that India continue to make proposals which will be proof positive to the Pakistanis that you genuinely seek a settlement by signalling a willingness to give Pakistan a substantial position in the Vale. I urge this not only because I hope that statesmanship can yet find the way to honorable compromise that is so much in the interest of the subcontinent as a whole. I urge it also because India would demonstrate to the world its sincerity in seeking a Kashmir settlement, and would clearly show Pakistan India’s desire to compromise the central issue of the dispute. You will appreciate the dangers of waiting too long to take this step.
As to Pakistan, I hold no brief for the timing of Mr. Bhutto’s visit to Peiping nor the extent to which Communist China has been enabled to use the conclusion of this agreement to serve its interests. We have made this clear to them. But we cannot remake the past. And with patience and tolerance there is still an opportunity for the future. I hope the talks go well at Calcutta and that real progress will be made.
Sincerely,
John F. Kennedy”
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, POL 32-1 INDIA-PAK. Secret; Operational Immediate; Limit Distribution. Drafted by Schneider; cleared by BNA, Laise, Harriman, McGhee, and McGeorge Bundy, and in draft by Rusk; and approved by Talbot. Also sent to Dacca, Karachi, London, and Calcutta.↩
- For Kennedy’s letter, transmitted to New Delhi on February 6, see Document 251. For text of Nehru’s February 16 letter, see Document 255.↩