223. Letter From the Ambassador in India (Bunker) to the Director of the Office of South Asian Affairs (Bartlett)1
Dear Fred : Though I have written you a good many times since, I find that I have never acknowledged your fine letter of September 11th,2 written while you were on vacation. It came while I was also on holiday in Kashmir and somehow it got to the bottom of the pile.
This is just to say that you were very good to go to all the trouble of writing me when you ought to have been enjoying a holiday. It was more than good of you and Irene to break into your holiday to go back to Biju Nehru’s dinner in honor of Desai. He mentioned it to me on his return and was most appreciative. I am, of course, gratified that, as you say, Washington has somehow come to believe that as a matter of cold fact it is not in the United States’ interest to see India’s economy collapse notwithstanding divergencies in foreign policy and other irritants which from time to time are apparently bound to develop. This seems to me a mature judgment, one befitting a country of the power and influence of the United States and based fundamentally on our own self-interest. More and more I am coming to feel—and I hope that I am being objective about this—that India is the key to the direction things will take in this part of the world. Today we find it the only large country in Asia being governed by democratic principles. I think there is also good evidence to the effect that over the past year Mr. Nehru and the GOI have been taking an increasingly harder line toward Communism, both domestic and international. This does not mean, of course, that Nehru will give up the idea that he has to maintain some balance between East and West or that he will change his views about the fundamental historic and traditional basis of Indian foreign policy. Perhaps, in view of recent developments, i.e., the [Page 474] initiatives of Paul Hoffman and the President, it is in our interest to have Mr. Nehru maintain this position, at least publicly so that he may use his good offices to bring about some relaxation of tensions when he believes he can be effective.
I have already reported on my talk with Mr. Nehru when I gave him the President’s message, which I thought was splendid.3 I am sure that it made an impression, and I am confident that the fact that he has been taken into the President’s confidence and has shared his thoughts on a number of occasions has not only pleased him but has had an increasingly favorable effect on his attitude toward the U.S. I believe it is very important that we continue the process.
[Here follows a brief personal reference concerning the possibility of a visit to India by Bartlett.]
All the best always.
Sincerely yours,