279. Letter From Prime Minister Nehru to President Kennedy
[Source: Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Countries Series, India, Nehru Correspondence, 4/1/63-8/31/63. No classification marking. This letter has not been declassified by the Indian Government. In his biography of Nehru, Gopal summarized the substance of the letter, which was an Indian response to U.S. efforts to mediate in the Kashmir dispute, and quoted a sentence from the letter which summed up Nehru’s reaction to those efforts: “Intervention by third powers, if quiet, inobtrusive and objective, might have been helpful; but public and semi-public efforts at pressure had only worsened the situation. ‘I am convinced that these ill-considered and ill-conceived initiatives, however well-intentioned they may be, have at least for the present made it impossible to reach any settlement on this rather involved and complicated question.’” (Gopal, Jawharlal Nehru, Vol. 3, p. 259)]