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

75. Memorandum of a Conversation Between the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs (Murphy) and the Ambassador to India (Bunker), Department of State, Washington, June 19, 1959¹

Washington, June 19, 1959

SUBJECT

• U.S. Relations with India

Mr. Murphy opened the substantive portion of the conversation by asking the Ambassador about the new chancery building in New Delhi. Ambassador Bunker replied that the building was a very beautiful one and was a good one from the point of view of utility although it was just barely big enough to accommodate the present staff. He added that the building lacked a few facilities which he felt should have been included for the money that had been spent on it but said that Prime Minister Nehru who had attended the opening ceremony had replied to a question in Parliament that he had been enchanted by the building. Mr. Bunker reported that during the first few days after the building had been opened, it had been visited by great crowds of Indians and that they were still coming on week ends to look at it.

Mr. Bunker said that when he and Mrs. Bunker had arrived in New Delhi, the servants’ quarters for the new staff housing had almost been completed but that he and Mrs. Bunker had found them to be shamefully inadequate, since they provided only one room per family, communal bathing facilities and inadequate cooking facilities with no flues. He said that after a year of fighting, he and Mrs. Bunker had been able to secure an additional appropriation of $104,000 from FBO for the construction of a second story on the servants’ quarters. As a result, the quarters are now adequate and had been commented upon favorably by the Prime Minister and Mrs. Gandhi.

In reply to a question from Mr. Murphy, the Ambassador stated that Prime Minister Nehru was keeping up a terrific pace. He said that the Prime Minister was in his office six and one-half days each week, leaving it at 1:00 on Sunday and that he does most of his dictating between the hours of 9:00 P.M. and 1:00 A.M. In addition, he sees many callers each day and participates in innumerable dedication ceremonies and other public functions.

Mr. Murphy inquired whether the Prime Minister still harbored any thoughts of resignation. Ambassador Bunker replied that Nehru had got out of his system any thought of resignation or retirement and would undoubtedly continue to hold the Prime Ministership until the 1962 elections if his health held out. The Ambassador referred to a conversation which he had had with Dr. Radhakrishnan² at the time of Nehru’s most recent threat of resignation. Dr. Radhakrishnan had indicated that in putting the question up to the Party, Nehru had indicated that he was not sincere in his talk of resignation. Dr. Radhakrishnan had also told Ambassador Bunker that when Rajkumari Amrit Kaur³ had come to him and urged him to step into the breach, he had replied that no vacancy existed.

Ambassador Bunker referred to his farewell call on the Prime Minister, during which Mr. Nehru stated that in his opinion Indo-U.S. relations were good and that the only thing that marred them from time to time was U.S. military aid to Pakistan. Mr. Nehru had gone on to say that, as an example, he had only recently heard that the U.S. has given to Pakistan 400 amphibious vehicles and that obviously such vehicles could not be used against the Soviet Union but only against India. Ambassador Bunker told Mr. Murphy that he had subsequently learned that this report was not true and that we had actually given 40 landing craft to Pakistan. He said that Nehru, being a very vague sort of person, may have distorted the information given him by his intelligence officers. The Ambassador added that General Thimayya⁴ had informed him that the Indian intelligence units could buy any bill of lading covering a shipment into Karachi for 100 rupees. Thimayya had gone on to say that the Indian Government, therefore, was aware of the nature and quantity of our military aid to Pakistan. The Ambassador added that General Thimayya had told him that in comparing the Indian armed forces with those of Pakistan, the question of quality should be taken into account as well as that of quantity. Thus, while it might be true that India had numerical superiority, the modern equipment and training supplied to the Pakistani armed forces by the U.S. should be taken into account. General Thimayya had claimed that the 88 millimeter guns supplied by us to the Pakistanis were of superior range to the 25 pounders of the Indian army. Mr. Murphy commented that India certainly had superiority in the air. Ambassador Bunker said that General Thimayya had admitted this fact but had argued that any conflict between India and Pakistan would be settled not in the air but on the ground. Mr. Murphy asked about the size of the Indian armed forces and Ambassador Bunker replied that the army had approximately 400,000 men and the Navy, 25,000 men. He said that the Indian Air Force had about 900 planes, half of which were jets including about 73 Canberras (minus the one recently shot down by the Pakistan Air Force), some British Vampires and some French Mysteres, and Ouragons.

Mr. Murphy informed Ambassador Bunker of the weekly luncheons held by the Operations Coordinating Board and stated that at the latest one the subject of what the U.S. can do to lessen Indo-Pakistan tensions had come up for discussion⁵ as it had at several previous luncheon meetings. Mr. Murphy said that at the most recent meeting, he had suggested that the OCB invite Ambassador Bunker to attend the next luncheon meeting to participate in a discussion of the question. The Ambassador expressed his gratitude and his regret that he would be unable to accept this invitation because of prior commitments in New York.

Ambassador Bunker then informed Mr. Murphy that he had discussed the question of Indo-Pakistan tensions and what the U.S. could do to alleviate them with both the President and Mr. Gray.⁶ He stated that he had indicated his belief that our greatest hope lies in facilitating a successful solution of the Indus waters question. Mr. Murphy asked the Ambassador whether he shared Mr. Eugene Black’s optimism concerning the prospect of final agreement by India and Pakistan to the most recent proposal of the IBRD. Ambassador Bunker replied that he did but that he believed that we should wait until the present negotiations over the Bank proposal were further along before attempting to discuss with the Indians the possibility of tackling any of the other unresolved questions between the two countries. The Ambassador added that Mr. Nehru had also appeared to be optimistic concerning the Indus waters negotiations and had predicted that if final agreement were reached, the atmosphere might be sufficiently improved so that some further step in relieving tensions might be possible. The Ambassador added that Mr. Nehru indicated that such a further step might be the rationalization of trade between the two countries.

Ambassador Bunker said that since his arrival in Washington he had learned that our Embassies in Karachi and New Delhi had been asked to comment on the desirability of approaching the governments of India and Pakistan in regard to some form of arms limitation. The Ambassador said that he had given his own reaction to this suggestion to SOA officers before reading the replies from the two Embassies because he did not wish his reaction to be influenced by those replies.⁷ His reaction, he told Mr. Murphy, had been that while the goal of achieving some form of arms limitation in South Asia was a desirable one, he did not believe that the time was yet ripe to approach the Government of India on this subject. He felt that the U.S. bilateral pact with Pakistan and the Canberra incident were still too fresh in the minds of the Indians. He also believed that this subject would have to be broached in a very delicate manner to Mr. Nehru. Furthermore, he believed it would be wise not to do anything which might divert attention from or interfere with the Indus waters negotiations.

Mr. Murphy asked the Ambassador about the Indian reaction to recent events in Tibet and the Ambassador replied that the Indian reaction had been very strong but that we should not expect the Tibetan events or any other similar incidents to divert the Government of India from its firm policy of non-alignment. Mr. Murphy agreed but asked Ambassador Bunker whether Mr. Nehru’s attempt to secure a reconvening of the ICC in Laos was not an attempt on Nehru’s part to assuage in some small measure the Chinese Communists, following his rather strong statements against them during the Tibetan crisis. Mr. Murphy stated that some of the statements made by Mr. Nehru in his recent letter to UN Secretary General Hammarskjold on this subject appeared to him to be rather bad from our point of view. Ambassador Bunker stated that he had not seen the Nehru letter. At Mr. Murphy’s request, Mr. Fleck stated that he would see to it that a copy was made available to Ambassador Bunker.

Mr. Murphy then asked for the Ambassador’s opinion of recent events in Kerala. Ambassador Bunker then reviewed the two years of Communist control of the state since the Communists came to power in the 1957 general elections. He stated that he thought the Congress high command had been correct in following a policy of permitting the Communist government to remain in office to commit mistakes and to demonstrate to the people of the state that it was unable to fulfill its campaign promises. The Ambassador added that he believed the current agitation in Kerala for the overthrow of the Communist Government was premature inasmuch as the Congress Party in Kerala was not yet able to form an alternative government. However, he said the Congress had been caught up in the popular resentment against the education bill. He said that there was some hope that the new President of the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee, Mr. Sankar, would be able to reorganize and revitalize the Kerala Congress.

The Ambassador also stated that he felt that Mrs. Indira Gandhi was a considerable improvement as President of the Congress Party over her predecessor, U.N. Dhebar. The Ambassador said that Mr. Dhebar, like a good many other Indian politicians, had inherited the philosophy of non-violence from Gandhi but did not possess Gandhi’s political acumen. He said that the Congress Party was suffering from many of the ills which commonly beset a political party which has been in power for a long time. In spite of these weaknesses, the Ambassador continued, the Congress Party’s popularity, as measured by the results of the 74 parliamentary by-elections which had been held since the 1957 general elections, had not materially decreased. In fact, he added, the percentage of popular vote polled by the Congress in these by-elections was greater than that which the Party had obtained in the general elections. The Ambassador concluded by saying that he was somewhat more optimistic about the outlook for India than some other observers tended to be.

1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 611.91/–1959. Confidential. Drafted by Fleck. For additional documentation on Bunker’s consultations in Washington, see Documents 232–234.
2. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, Vice President of India.
3. Member of the Indian Council of States.
4. General Kodandera Subayya Thimayya, Commander in Chief of the Indian Army.
5. Reference is to the May 20 meeting; see Document 70.
6. No record of these discussions has been found.
7. See Document 73 and footnote 6, Document 355.