Office of the Historian

181. Memorandum From the Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern, South Asian, and African Affairs (Rountree) to the Secretary of State1

Washington, November 12, 1957.

SUBJECT:

  • India-Pakistan Disputes
1.
You may recall that, in commenting on the memorandum concerning aid to India which Mr. Murphy, Mr. Dillon, and I sent you on October 16,2 you indicated we should at an appropriate time discuss the related questions of Kashmir, the Indus River waters, and some form of arms moratorium with the governments of India and Pakistan.
2.
In view of your White House meeting today concerning aid to India,3 I thought that you might wish to know that we are about to submit to you a memorandum proposing a confidential Presidential initiative vis-à-vis the governments of India and Pakistan in regard to their outstanding disputes. This memorandum has now been approved by our embassies in New Delhi and Karachi.
3.
While we believe that it would be counter-productive to tie our proposed aid to India to the success of this initiative, we also [Page 402] believe that there is a close relation between these two major proposals:
a.
If an Executive Branch decision is taken to aid India, this decision could be communicated to the Government of India at the same time as we approached that Government concerning resolution of India-Pakistan disputes. This should greatly increase the prospects for a favorable Indian reaction to the latter approach.
b.
If that approach, in turn, elicits any prospect of a favorable reaction from India and Pakistan before our aid proposal must be submitted to the Congress, this would probably increase the chances of Congressional approval. (This fact, incidentally, would not be lost on the Indian Government as it considered how to respond to our approach toward the lessening of tension between these two countries.)

I therefore believe that this proposal for a Presidential initiative increases both the desirability and the feasibility of our proposed program of aid to India.4

  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 690D.91/11–1257. Secret.↩
  2. Document 178.↩
  3. See Document 183.↩
  4. Telegram 1354 from New Delhi, November 22, reported that Nehru told an Embassy official that he favored a package settlement. The major difficulty was to persuade Nehru that the Pakistani Government was prepared to negotiate in good faith and could implement whatever accords were reached. (Department of State, Central Files, 690D.91/11–2257) On November 30, Rountree sent Dulles a memorandum on the subject of the “Possibility of achieving a reduction in tensions between India and Pakistan” by means of the so-called “Package” Deal. This was a modification of the draft memorandum sent to New Delhi and Karachi for comment. See telegram 1030 to New Delhi, Document 63. The revised memorandum incorporated some of the suggestions made in telegram 1225 from New Delhi, November 6. As part of the U.S. “Package,” it called for:

    “Assurance to India that the executive branch would seek to provide increased assistance to help meet Five Year Plan requirements over the next three years. The Indian Government could be informed that: (i) initially this assistance would take the form of project loans from the Development Loan Fund and perhaps of a substantial Export-Import Bank loan; (ii) eventually other means of providing this assistance, e.g., a request of the Congress for special legislation, might also be considered; (iii) whatever means of assistance were to be employed, they could not be exploited to the full without full Congressional support. Agreement to the settlement should not be a prerequisite to United States aid, since it will be in the United States’ interest to provide the aid in any event. But, the Congressional reaction to any future executive branch request for aid would be more favorable if there were some prospect of improved relations between India and Pakistan, and this could be frankly pointed out.” (Department of State, Central Files, 690D.91/11–657)

    In his memorandum, Rountree suggested that the initial approach might be in the form of an informal call by the respective Ambassadors upon the Prime Minister of each nation. They would carry a Presidential letter stating that the United States, as a friend of both nations, wished to volunteer its services in solving the problem. Rountree noted that both Ambassadors Langley and Bunker concurred in this. He urged the Secretary to develop a negotiating plan to serve as the foundation of discussions between the Ambassadors and the Prime Ministers. Since a moratorium on the arms race was a key objective of the plan, Dulles was asked to approve a recommendation that he discuss the outline of the proposal with Mansfield D. Sprague, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs. (Ibid., NEA/SOA Files: Lot 62 D 43, India Economy—June–December 1957) Since Dulles was in Paris for the NATO meeting, Acting Secretary Herter approved the memorandum “on the basis that it calls for further more detailed planning and for coordination with Defense but does not yet involve any discussions outside the U.S. Government.” Bartlett wrote Winthrop Brown on December 19 that it was thought best to pursue the package despite Nehru’s reservations in regard to the stability and responsibility of the Pakistani Government because conditions might not improve for some time and because of the breathing space resulting from improvements in the Indus Water and Kashmir problems. (Ibid.)

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