Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume XXV, South Asia

308. Memorandum of Conversation¹

Washington, March 29, 1966, 10 a.m.

SUBJECT

• Indo-U.S. Talks: Food, Disarmament and Nuclear Policy

PARTICIPANTS

• India
  • Prime Minister Gandhi
  • His Excellency B.K. Nehru, Ambassador of India
  • Mr. L.K. Jha, Secretary to the Prime Minister
  • Mr. C.S. Jha, Foreign Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs
  • Mr. P.N. Haksar, Deputy High Commissioner of India to the U.K.
  • Dr. P.K. Banerjee, Minister, Embassy of India
  • Mr. Ashoke Chib, First Secretary (Political), Embassy of India
  • Mr. Krishna Rao, Treaties Division, Ministry of External Affairs
• United States
  • The Secretary
  • Ambassador Raymond A. Hare, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs
  • Ambassador Chester Bowles, Ambassador to India
  • Miss Carol C. Laise, Director, Office of South Asian Affairs

The Secretary opened the discussions by asking what would be the principal questions Prime Minister Gandhi would face in Parliament about her visit here. Mrs. Gandhi said it would be, “have I sold the country?” The Secretary noted the dilemma concerning the public presentation on food. It shouldn’t be such as to frighten people in India, but on the other hand the need must be seen to be real in the United States. Mrs. Gandhi observed that the need is real. The Secretary said things may be said here that will be uncomfortable for India. Mrs. Gandhi suggested that the subject might be treated as a localized matter. Mr. L.K. Jha observed that this won’t help either of us. He said that the disturbance on the Indian side arose out of the Pope’s public appeal, which led to the belief that there were dead bodies in the streets. He thought the case should be presented as this being the year in which famine was averted; it was a natural calamity and we are all doing our best to meet it. Ambassador Nehru commented that this was too much an understatement; if we don’t get the wheat, there will be a famine. The situation in the United States is that to get a response, the need must be somewhat overplayed. Mr. C.S. Jha said “let’s emphasize the positive.” The Secretary replied that maybe emphasis should be on prevention rather than cure. He thought it would be helpful to publicize information on the caloric content of the diet, i.e. there is a need for more food because people are eating more.

The Secretary said there are three central questions in Congress: (a) the character of the need; (b) what is India doing for itself? and (c) what are other countries doing? He noted, for example, that although Canada had increased its contribution to India, it had also announced another million and one-half ton wheat sale to China. This somewhat negated the effect of their gift to India. However, he recognizes that there was nothing India could really do about this. Prime Minister Gandhi observed that surely if China is being helped this is all the more reason to give wheat to India. The Secretary acknowledged this was a good answer, but the question in Congress will be why isn’t Canada, a fellow member of the Commonwealth, as good a friend of India as the United States.

The Secretary then asked if food came up in Paris. The Prime Minister replied that it was mentioned. The French had said that they would look into it. They had noted that it is a long time since the last harvest and the stocks have already been committed to sales; August is the harvest month.

The Secretary changed the subject to the Geneva Conference and disarmament. He said that following the test ban treaty we had been in frequent contact with the U.S.S.R. in an effort to go forward. It was heavy weather but we had been beginning to turn down military budgets by mutual example; Vietnam led this to be put aside. Nevertheless, there should be a chance to move ahead on nonproliferation. As a matter of policy, we and the U.S.S.R. agreed on limitation, but things are snagged at the moment on what they say about nuclear cooperation in NATO. If they would concentrate on nonproliferation, we could satisfy them. Nothing contemplated in NATO is as potentially dangerous as the existing arrangements. The Soviets have understandable nervousness as long as they don’t know what the West intends to do with its nuclear forces. They don’t like NATO or anything that ties the U.S. to Europe. They don’t like any arrangements to share in NATO or to enhance Germany. On this we can’t help them. Maybe the importance of this would wither away in time. If we think solely of proliferation, we can help meet that problem. As regards the non-nuclear powers, we are interested in the Indian views.

Prime Minister Gandhi said that India is interested in nonproliferation; “we are sure we don’t want to go into the manufacture of nuclear devices or bombs.” Mr. L.K. Jha asked whether part of the Russian anxiety wasn’t the fear of the German finger on the trigger. The Secretary replied that if there were any reality underlying this fear, we would be on the Russian side. We are utterly opposed to sharing nuclear weapons. The prime example of this is France. We paid a price for our policy; we can’t let anyone help fire U.S. nuclear weapons. From the point of view of the U.S.S.R., that should be satisfactory. It isn’t because they don’t know the details of any arrangements we might reach, but it is simply because we haven’t worked out the details ourselves. The Secretary noted that conventional forces could set off the chain of nuclear war, so the problem of a German finger on the trigger is not a real argument. We need Russian help if we are to avoid development of the wrong kind of a nationalist Germany. The Secretary said that he felt the Russians believed our statements were made in good faith but they think we are wrong about the steps that will follow. He hasn’t abandoned hope. Mr. Krishna Rao asked about the recent amendments which we had submitted in Geneva and wondered if this would help solve the problem. The Secretary said the amendments would help close the gap, although the Russians had rejected them. Nevertheless, Gromyko had indicated interest, which would perhaps be picked up after the Moscow meeting of the Communist Party. The Secretary went on to note that we are also concerned about lesser countries. These countries seem to show great concern about disarmament of the major powers, but show little concern about it as it affects themselves. When the UN was debating disarmament, 70 countries were lining up to buy arms from us. This extends to Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. We hope to have movement on the nuclear free zone in Africa and Latin America and have talked to Russia about it in the Near East. We feel strongly that the Geneva efforts should continue and we should gnaw away at the problem.

Ambassador Nehru asked the Secretary to develop his ideas about security of the non-nuclear states. The Secretary said this is a complex question for all of us. It is not inconceivable that the U.S.S.R. and the U.S. might act jointly, but there is no disposition on the part of the U.S.S.R. to talk. This raises the question as to whether the U.S. and U.K. should take on the obligation and, if so, wouldn’t this require some sort of an alliance, and does India want an alliance? Mr. C.S. Jha replied, “No”; Prime Minister Shastri had gone into all this and the Indian Government had concluded that the U.S.-U.K. guarantee would not work. The Soviet position is that the guarantee should involve all powers and it doesn’t want to indicate willingness to use nuclear weapons against nuclear powers. A general prohibition is what they want. The difficulties with the treaty as Mr. Jha saw it are (1) differences among the nuclear powers, and (2) the attitude of the non-nuclear powers. India goes along with the position of the Eight. The two main points here are (a) the question of balance of obligations. What this would be is a matter for negotiation; India doesn’t know. Cutting down stockpiles raises a question of inspection and the U.S.S.R. is not prepared for this; (b) some kind of assurances to the non-nuclear powers. As far as India is concerned, it is China that looms large. Some solution should be found. The Soviets have come out with the prohibition on the use of nuclear weapons and the proposal that no nuclear power will use the nuclear weapons first. He understood that this gives the U.S. problems. The Secretary observed that if we could get balanced reduction of armaments, we could compromise on the first strike problem. Mr. Jha asked what was the significance of the latest U.S.S.R. statement that they are prepared to consider IAEA safeguards? The Secretary responded that the U.S.S.R. has moved on the question of safeguards and this is possibly of significance, particularly in the Near East. This could reduce fear in the area. Maybe we could move here in lieu of the nonproliferation treaty. We had the impression at the time of the signing of the nuclear test ban treaty that the U.S.S.R. had China very much on its mind. In regard to the issue of fingers on the trigger, we have pointed out to the Russians that on the two key arrangements there are safeguards. The more fingers that are added, the greater will be the inertia and, therefore, the U.S.S.R. has less cause for worry. Mr. Jha observed that when the Indians were in the U.S.S.R., Kosygin had said that Germany is a more serious problem for the U.S.S.R. than Vietnam is for the U.S.

Mr. Jha said he had one point to raise on the question of a matter of balance. The Indian Government (i.e., the Ministry of External Affairs) had been giving thought to this; they did not insist on the assumption of too much of an obligation by the nuclear powers; all they sought was a beginning. He asked what the U.S. reaction would be to a nonproliferation treaty that does not spell out the balance but contains a promise by the nuclear powers that they would come to some arrangement to cut back. After two years there would be a review and if the nuclear powers had not been able to make progress toward balanced reduction, the treaty would fall to the ground. The Secretary assured the Indians that the U.S. was interested in nuclear disarmament, reduction in production of fissionable materials, etc. The snag is inspection; the U.S. is very forthcoming on this. One of the difficulties, however, is that inspection asks the Soviets for a unilateral concession. The U.S. is an open society, the U.S.S.R. is not. It is not just a question of trust and faith; if we are to prevent deep fear in this country, we have to be able to say we know whether the Soviets are keeping their word. We need inspection, therefore, from a military and a psychological point of view. A good many things can be done without intrusion on the U.S.S.R. On the comprehensive test ban, we have sought to deal with it as a matter, not of policy, but a technical problem of detectability. If we could conduct joint inspections, progress would be possible, but the U.S.S.R. objects on political grounds.

Mr. L.K. Jha said he wished to reinforce what the Prime Minister had said about India not going nuclear. He warned, however, that one factor should be mentioned: over the last three or four years there has been public questioning of this policy. Unless there is greater speed in negotiations, India as a have-not nation may find the situation getting out of hand politically. The possibilities of preserving balance should not get so much weight so long as the direction is right. The Secretary noted it would be sometime yet before there is any significant deployment of Chinese weapons; we have good evidence of this. We would like to move on general disarmament. The U.S. has spent $850 billion in defense since 1947; such sums could be more constructively used for other purposes. The same is also true of the Soviets. Both of us are anxious to disarm.

Mr. C.S. Jha referred to the Secretary’s mention of the smaller countries acquiring arms. He noted that this worries India when it sees Saudi Arabia buying $300 million worth from Britain, and the U.S. also selling large quantities to Saudi Arabia and to Iran. India has heard and fears some of this may eventually be passed on to Pakistan. They know Pakistan has put out tenders in the world market. Chinese arms are going into Pakistan. All this creates problems and he hoped the arms-selling countries would develop some standards and norms other than profit. Otherwise instability will grow. There was then a brief exchange on controls which the U.S. exercised over transfer of our materiel to third parties, with the Secretary noting that such control exists on military aid but it is more difficult to exercise the same control over sales.

Mr. C.S. Jha asked whether we had made any assessment of recent U.S.S.R. statements and whether we saw a trend back to Stalinism developing in the Twenty-third Congress. The Secretary said we had not had a chance to analyze Brezhnev’s speech, but he would try to get a preliminary assessment to convey to Mr. Jha that evening at dinner. However, the U.S. impression is that the Soviet policy will continue to move in a moderate direction. The reasons are pressures in Eastern Europe and internal problems of allocation of resources. Mr. Jha again rephrased the question by asking whether we would think this new Soviet pronouncement might result in a shift toward China. The Secretary replied that it was much too soon to say. Undoubtedly there are different elements functioning in the Kremlin; however, most of our Eastern European contacts indicate that the dynamics are such that it would be impossible for the U.S.S.R. to move toward Peiping by acceding to Peiping’s views on doctrine. We may be in a rather dangerous period as far as China is concerned.

Prime Minister Gandhi asked what we saw as the major external problem of China. The Secretary thought it was their failures in Indonesia, Africa and at Algiers. Mrs. Gandhi wondered whether they looked at them as failures. The Secretary replied that they must be aware of the facts. In addition they see U.S. power committed to Southeast Asia. They must realize their policy is unprofitable, although they keep saying revolution is inevitable.

The Secretary raised the question of Peiping’s UN membership and said the question is what is to be done about Formosa; beyond the Assembly is the Security Council. Many countries which are supporting the admission of Communist China would not expel Formosa. One of the questions is whether other Asians want Peiping to exercise the Asian veto in the Security Council. Mr. C.S. Jha replied that the CPR wielding the veto is not a comfortable prospect. Nevertheless, he felt that it would be easier to tame the Chinese in the UN than outside. He thought they would not be likely to have things their own way. In addition he said there is a case for the reconstitution of the Security Council and he thought India had a good case for a seat as one of the permanent members. Ambassador Nehru asked the Secretary why in view of the enlargement that is taking place in the Security Council the number of vetoing countries couldn’t be enlarged? The Secretary replied that if this were done we would hope that there would be a reduction in the veto power.

1. Source: National Archives and Records Administration, RG 59, Central Files 1964–66, POL INDIA–US. Secret. Drafted by Laise on March 31, and approved in S on April 4. The meeting took place at the Blair House guest residence. The time of the meeting is taken from Rusk’s Appointment Book. (Johnson Library)