Office of the Historian

267. Telegram From President Kennedy to the Ambassador to India (Galbraith)0

Washington, March 22, 1963, 10:45 a.m.

For Ambassador Galbraith From President.

I’ve just caught up on current status of Kashmir, and am worried lest the Indians have lost their sense of urgency over settlement. Of course, the Paks asked for trouble by Bhutto’s trip to Peking, but I gather the Indians did nothing else but play this record during the Calcutta round1 instead of moving the ball forward even an inch. At any rate, we can’t let them hide behind this issue any longer.

I’m also concerned lest the Indians got the idea from my press conference statement on 21 February,2 and Rusk’s on 8 March,3 that we’ve already decided to go ahead on longer term military aid, so they can relax [Page 524] on Kashmir. Clay Report4 may add to this impression. Since the prospect of our aid is still our chief leverage, even though it may be a wasting asset, keep pressing on them that a Kashmir settlement or at least an all-out Indian effort to get one is central to my ability to secure them the massive aid they want; and this is all too true. To add this burden on top of the already staggering economic assistance we give to India may be well-nigh impossible for me to sell the Congress, unless I can point to concrete evidence of India’s own seriousness of purpose. We’ll have to move fairly soon on the air umbrella and the other Indian military requirements, so we don’t have too much time before this leverage on the Indians will no longer be as useful.

I am counting on you to get these matters moved forward. Remember that you are still my Ambassador until August or so, which time you can become critic rather than executor of our policy, and let GATO5 go by the boards. Instead of GATO let’s settle for a Kashmir solution as the crowning monument to Galbraith in India. Chester can then move on to grander strategy.

  1. Source: Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Countries Series, India, Ambassador Galbraith, Special File, Miscellaneous Messages, 1/63-7/63. Secret; Eyes Only. Handwritten notes on the source text read: “Send via CIA channel,” and “cite CAP 63143.”↩
  2. The fourth round of Ministerial talks on Kashmir took place in Calcutta March 12-15 without achieving any progress toward a settlement.↩
  3. For the text of Kennedy’s statement on the issue of air defense support for India, see Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1963, pp. 204-205.↩
  4. Rusk’s comment in his March 8 press conference on the question of additional military aid to India is printed in Department of State Bulletin, March 25, 1963, p. 439.↩
  5. Reference is to the March 20 report to President Kennedy from the Committee To Strengthen the Security of the Free World. The committee was chaired by Lucius D. Clay, and the report dealt with the scope and distribution of U.S. military and economic assistance programs. The recommendations of the report are printed in American Foreign Policy: Current Documents, 1963, pp. 1148-1163.↩
  6. In a January 9 telegram to Galbraith, sent by the same channel, Kennedy referred, with a trace of humor, to Galbraith’s “grand design for the subcontinent,” which Kennedy styled “GATO—Galbraith’s Allpurpose Treaty Organization.” (Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Countries Series, India, Ambassador Galbraith, Special File, Miscellaneous Messages, 1/63-7/63)↩