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

419. Memorandum From the President’s Special Assistant (Rostow) to President Johnson¹

Washington, January 27, 1967, 7:15 p.m.

SUBJECT

• India Food Decisions

Gene Rostow’s report (Tab A)² lays the foundation for your message to Congress. He did not, of course, come back with signed pledges from the other consortium members for full matching. He did get agreement in principle, including agreement to go to work via the World Bank Consortium on the basis you outlined. The next step is to surface your program publicly via your message to Congress and to get the Congress aboard. Simultaneously, we’ll push for a consortium meeting as soon after India’s elections as possible.

We have a draft message (Tab B)³ as cleared by Freeman and Katzenbach. It could use some editing and shortening, but is a serious piece of work.

Before editing, however, you will have to decide the key questions as follows:

1. Size of the interim allocation. At our meeting on 12 January you preferred 1 million tons. Gene’s report in effect asks you to reconsider and recommends 2 million. When he discussed this in strictest confidence with Subramaniam and L.K. Jha, they told him that the smaller allocation would cut the ground out from under those leaders who have staked their positions on following the agricultural and economic policies we’re pushing.

The argument for 2 million tons, in addition to the political, is that we will need time to get the machinery Gene has activated into full swing. The Indians should unload about 5.3 million tons before the monsoon starts in late June. That means they need 3 million tons beyond what is in the pipeline; and it is most unlikely we can move to full sharing quickly enough to do the January–June job. Gene feels that we’ll have greater leverage with the other consortium members if we don’t appear to be unloading India all at once.

2. Sharing the burden for the rest of the year. Secretaries Rusk and Freeman and Bill Gaud have recommended (Tab C)⁴ that we use a planning figure of 6 million tons total U.S. contribution for CY 1967. They recommend that we phase into proportional burden sharing this way:

• —2.3 million tons are already in the pipeline—1.6 U.S. and 0.7 other.
• —2 million tons at the time of your message would help keep the pipeline flowing, but India would still need to pick up another 1 million tons before 30 June.
• —4.7 million tons would be needed July–December, and we would plan to do half.

Congressman Poage’s recommendation⁵ was similar to this—moving to matching by the second half of the year.

In the message, we have deliberately described this formula vaguely—“a further allocation provided that the other countries of the world contribute their proportionate share.” This way, we don’t tip our hand on amounts for the rest of the year and we don’t tie our hands with the Congress. Gene made clear to our consortium partners what we expect; but it seems wise in a prolonged negotiation of this kind to maintain maximum flexibility.

3. What we ask Congress for. Charlie Schultze has explored the possibility of seeking an appropriation. As I understand him, he fears that approach will severely limit your maneuverability and recommends you consider alternative ways to meet your objective. I will send you Charlie’s memo setting out the alternatives as soon as he has signed off.⁶ You will want to read it carefully.

4. The CARE program is tentatively included in the draft message, and we need your final yes or no on this.

5. Reimbursable purchases. If you plan to hold this message past the first of the week, Secretary Freeman would like to tell the Indians to start buying grain and booking ships on a reimbursable purchase basis, if and when Congress acts.

6. I recommend a meeting tomorrow (Saturday) for you to hear argument and decide these matters, if you so wish.

Walt

Set up a Saturday meeting⁷

See me

1. Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Country File, India, India’s Food Problem, Vol. III. Secret.
2. See Document 418.
3. Dated January 27.
4. See footnote 2, Document 411.
5. See footnote 3, Document 411.
6. Memorandum from Schultze to the President, January 27. (Johnson Library, National Security File, NSC Histories, Indian Famine, August 1966–February 1967, Vol. IV)
7. Johnson checked this option.