Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958–1960, South and Southeast Asia, Volume XV

45. Telegram From the Department of State to the Embassy in India¹

Washington, June 11, 1958—8:28 p.m.

2868. Re New Delhi 3136² and 3137³ repeated Karachi 276 and 277 and London 147 and 148. Department disappointed at apparent substance Nehru’s letter of June 7 to President. Ambassador Bunker’s handling of presentation to Nehru, including his amplification memorandum of May 27,⁴ greatly appreciated.

New Delhi’s and Karachi’s joint recommendations requested regarding basic position to be incorporated in President’s reply to Nehru and, flowing therefrom, next steps to be taken in both New Delhi and Karachi. Since impracticable at this time to invite Ambassadors to Washington for consultation, Department suggests possibility Maffitt going Karachi or Knight to Delhi in order develop quickly these recommendations.

Department’s preliminary reaction to substance Nehru’s letter and Ambassador Bunker’s conversation with Pillai and Desai is to concentrate on last sentence Nehru’s penultimate paragraph and tenth paragraph New Delhi’s 3137; i.e., to assume Nehru has not rejected President’s proposal out of hand, but rather has suggested at least for the present a different procedure for implementing it. This procedure apparently designed both a) enable Nehru tell his Cabinet USG not “intervening” between GOI and GOP, but simply talking GOI and b) thus delay coming to grips with substantive decisions until perhaps after Pak elections. We understand this is also London’s assessment of situation. A direct way in which to test this assumption could be to instruct Ambassador Bunker, when delivering President’s reply which would be couched in less specific terms, to seek from GOI amplification of Pillai’s statement that “if, in connection say with any approach to settlement of canal waters, this proposal (settlement of Kashmir issue approximately along cease-fire line, with some adjustments) could be revived, it might be possible to make some concrete progress.” What we would ideally like to have from GOI would be indication: a) whether cease-fire line partition would still be considered by GOI as basis for negotiation and b) if so, what “adjustments” GOI might have in mind. USG would assume that these adjustments relate to facilitating canal waters settlement.

Department appreciates comments in penultimate paragraph New Delhi Presidential Handling 3137 and New Delhi’s Presidential Handling 3164⁵ repeated information Karachi 281 and London 149 and realizes that above “testing” of Department’s basic assumption as to meaning of Nehru’s letter might give impression USG is trying to “pressure” Nehru. If this true and if it would therefore risk closing door completely, alternative, but less decisive approach could, in first instance, merely be for Ambassador Bunker to secure from Pillai clarification that Nehru’s letter does not mean rejection President’s basic principle of “package” approach, but that Nehru speaking for GOI is proposing a method of studying its possibilities. Until USG has at least this clarification, it would not appear proper for USG to discuss substantive problems bilaterally with GOP or indeed to attempt to interpret to GOP what Nehru’s reply to President’s proposal really means. Since GOP may learn through its own channels that Nehru has replied to President, we should, in order maintain our good faith with GOP, do our best be able soonest inform GOP what Nehru said and our interpretation of it. Department therefore hopes it can receive joint recommendations requested herein as soon as possible.

Observe Presidential Handling.

Note: As in the past, you should continue to caption messages on this subject “Limit Distribution” except as in this case where they deal directly with the President’s correspondence and need to make reference to previous Presidential Handling messages, in which case “Presidential Handling” is appropriate.

Dulles

1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 690D.91/6–858. Secret; Priority; Presidential Handling. Drafted by Bartlett and approved by Rountree. Also sent to Karachi and repeated to London.
2. See footnote 1, Document 43.
3. Supra.
4. See Document 41.
5. See footnote 6, supra.