140. Telegram From the Department of State to the Embassy in the United Kingdom0
6801. Eyes Only for Ambassador. Please transmit urgently following message from President to Prime Minister:
“I am much encouraged by your message of June 19th.1 We too are hopeful that we can shake the Indians sufficiently to get the whole question put into cold storage for a while. However, we are not sanguine at this point that even Desai and Radhakrishnan will be able to match Menon’s inevitable counter-arguments. We need to strengthen the hand of our friends as much as possible at this critical juncture.
Therefore, while I agree with you that we need not reach any irrevocable decisions now about what we are prepared to offer the Indians, I believe that we should dangle a bit more bait before them than Sandys felt able to do. A spoiling offer of this sort seems all the more important to me if we think Nehru is unlikely to buy it. It seems to me that Nehru might best save face by rejecting what both sides have to offer at this point. And even if he ultimately buys MIGs we want to put our friends in India in a position to say in the event of an aid cut or other adverse consequences that Krishna Menon and his supporters brought down disaster on India by pushing through the MIG deal despite the fact of a reasonable alternative.
Galbraith too thinks there is some chance that if we make enough of a fuss about their taking MIGs, combined with a good counter offer, the Indians may end up taking neither in the immediate months ahead. This would be the best outcome by far.
However, Nehru’s response to Sandys confirms our feeling that to offer the Orpheus engine alone would not suffice even for our minimum purposes. Therefore, it still seems important to us that some supersonic fighters be at least tentatively offered as well. The Mirage seems out and we are not able to sell 104’s for rupees at this time. On the one hand, we fear that if the US provided this type of equipment to India for the first time, Ayub would be unable to contain a Pakistani reaction which might endanger our use of the key facilities of which you are aware. On the other hand, Nehru would be least likely of all, from his domestic political viewpoint, to consider an offer of 104’s from us as a real alternative to that from the USSR. We also would have a most difficult domestic problem. [Page 281] Finally, either the Mirage or 104 would involve the same element of subsidy to which Nehru objects. So we are thrust back on the Lightning.
Let me add that Galbraith has just come in from Delhi urging that a plausible alternative beyond the Orpheus remains essential if Menon is not to have a clear hand. As I see it, only Lightnings offer this alternative.
For these reasons, I hope you can agree to indicating to the Indians that if they are interested you are prepared to discuss with them a sale of one squadron of Lightnings on reasonably competitive terms. If the financial side of the package we proposed gives you serious problems, I am prepared to pick up a greater share of the cost, especially if the dollar drain can be minimized; however, I recognize that the Indians might not accept Lightnings in any event.
In the last analysis, you and I share a great responsibility for attempting to forestall an expanded Soviet military presence in the sub-continent. We only press the Lightning offer upon you because a comparable Western alternative to MIGs, even if not accepted, seems so important to keeping up the pressure which we both agree is essential at this point.2
With warm regards,”
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, 791.5622/6-1962. Top Secret; Niact; Verbatim Text. Drafted by Cameron and Komer, cleared by McGhee, and McGeorge Bundy, and approved by Grant. Repeated to Karachi, New Delhi, and Paris eyes only for Rusk.↩
- See footnote 2, Document 139.↩
- Macmillan responded on June 20 that he agreed with Kennedy’s general assessment and had given instructions for re-examination of the possibility of selling Lightnings with a view to formulating proposals for the Indians. (Telegram 6825 to London, June 20; Department of State, Central Files, 791.5622/6-2062)↩