230. Editorial Note
On May 28, at the 408th meeting of the National Security Council, Allen Dulles discussed India’s financial problems during his survey of significant world developments affecting U.S. security:
“Lastly, Mr. Dulles said that in view of the subsequent item on the agenda, he wished to discuss briefly the situation in India and South Asia with specific emphasis on India’s financial and economic problems. He thereupon presented statistics concerning India’s three Five Year Plans. He pointed out that the Indians were very fearful of falling further behind Communist China in terms of their rate of economic progress. He thereafter described the objectives of the three Five Year Plans including the third and last such Plan which was now being drafted. The last Plan was much the most ambitious of the three despite the fact that the Second Plan would probably be only about 90 percent successful. Mr. Dulles also pointed out that ambitious as was the last Five Year Plan, there was no assurance that even if it were successfully carried out that India could succeed as a democratic nation for the reason that by no means all of India’s problems were economic. He added that the Intelligence Community was very much concerned about the gradual erosion of the power of the Congress Party in India.” (Memorandum of discussion by Gleason; Eisenhower Library, Whitman File, NSC Records)
Following Allen Dulles’ intelligence briefing, the Council discussed an OCB progress report on NSC 5701. The progress report is not printed. (Department of State, S/S-NSC Files: Lot 63 D 351, NSC 5701 Series) NSC 5701, “U.S. Policy Toward South Asia,” was approved by the President on January 10, 1957, and is printed in [Page 494] Foreign Relations, 1955–1957, volume VIII, pages 29–43. One of the issues raised in the OCB paper and discussed at length by the NSC at this meeting was India’s role in Asia and the basic objectives of the United States with respect to India. For a memorandum of this discussion, see Document 2.