Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Volume XIX, South Asia

35. Memorandum of Conversations⁰

New Delhi, August 8 and 9, 1961.

SUBJECT

• Berlin, China, Tibet, Belgrade Conference, Congo, Latin America

PARTICIPANTS

• Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru (India)
• Under Secretary Chester Bowles

During my four days in New Delhi I saw Nehru on three occasions: once in his office with Ambassador Galbraith, that same night at a small dinner at his home with Mrs. Bowles, Ambassador and Mrs. Galbraith, Mrs. Indira Gandhi, and Foreign Secretary Desai; and, finally, at a small dinner given by Ambassador Galbraith the night before we left for home.

On all three occasions the Prime Minister was in excellent spirits. It was clear that his relations with Ambassador Galbraith were more than normally cordial and that he has already developed great respect for the Ambassador’s judgment not only on foreign policy questions but also on matters of India’s economic development. This relationship will be invaluable to us in the future.

As Ambassador Galbraith has undoubtedly reported, our first visit dealt largely with Berlin but also touched on a variety of other subjects.

I underscored the vital importance we attach to the right of the people of Berlin to self-determination and our concern over the willingness of the Soviets to provoke a crisis on this issue. I stressed that the Russians had been considerably more threatening in private than in public and described two difficult personal meetings with Menshikov, whom Nehru knows as a former USSR ambassador to India whom he dislikes.

I expressed surprise that the Indians showed so little public interest in Berlin. Nehru suggested that this was partially due to a sense of fatalism in that the decisions rested with the great powers over whom India could exercise but little influence and partly because the situation was geographically remote as well as complex.

I expressed the view that two quite different dangers flowed from the Berlin situation:

1. Through a miscalculation in Moscow we might stumble into a nuclear war.

2. The likely intensification of the Cold War growing out of a prolonged Berlin conflict would have implications both for U.S. and Soviet policy all over the world, with destructive results for everyone concerned.

I suggested that the difficulties which Khrushchev faced in central Europe stemmed in large measure from the utter failure of the East German government under Ulbricht.

Khrushchev has repeatedly asked for a peaceful competition between two economic systems, a competition in which he has assured the world the Communists would eventually triumph. Actually such a competition had been in effect between the two zones of Germany for the last fifteen years and anyone who has visited these knows that the Communists have suffered a disastrous defeat. Right now 5,000 of their ablest people are fleeing the socialist “paradise” of East Germany each week to live in the capitalist Western zone.

I believe we were able to convince Nehru of our determination not to be pushed out of Berlin, that the struggle there is for self-determination of the people of Berlin and not purely to assure our legal rights, that if we should abandon our commitment the implications would become global and that India would be deeply affected and finally that while standing firm on the Berlin question itself, we were willing to negotiate in good faith on the many open questions which involve U.S. and Soviet interests in Central Europe and throughout the world.

We then touched on a variety of subjects including a discussion of African problems, particularly Angola, the progress India has made since my last visit, etc.

That evening after dinner I talked with Nehru alone for forty minutes in his living room. This conversation turned immediately to the question of China. The following points emerged from this discussion.

1. Nehru stated that China was in an arrogant mood and the greater her internal difficulties the greater her arrogance was likely to become. He described with considerable bitterness Peking’s refusal to negotiate the border question in spite of the fact that Chinese forces had pushed 150 miles within Indian territory. As in my talk with him last September in New York he referred with considerable awe to Mao Tse-tung’s boast that China could absorb 300 million casualties in a nuclear war and still survive as a nation.

Nevertheless, Nehru felt as did U Nu that the Chinese Communists were unlikely to provoke a war in Mao’s lifetime. They would press forward wherever possible, but it was unlikely that they would undertake any massive military moves.

2. We discussed for several minutes the crucial differences between the Chinese and the Indian agricultural problems. With roughly double the arable land per family, India is producing only half as much per acre. This means that China has far less elbow room in which to expand her food production than India.

Moreover, as a free nation India is able to secure food in large quantities from abroad through P.L. 480 or by direct purchase. China, on the other hand, is inhibited not only by the lack of foreign exchange but also by her reluctance to become dependent on capitalist wheat and powdered milk.

3. I suggested that during the coming years the U.S. might be faced with a critical choice between two courses of action:

If the climate permitted:

A. We could relieve the Chinese agricultural shortages by making food available in considerable amounts. Although this would relieve much of the pressure on the Chinese economy it would also help assure the success of the Communist industrial program.

B. We could deny the Chinese such food supplies on the gamble that acute and continuing shortages might bring about the collapse of the Peking regime. If this gamble failed, we could expect a massive movement into Southeast Asia to seize control of rich, relatively underpopulated areas from which China’s food deficit could largely be met.

After pondering these alternatives at some length, Nehru while admitting that the question was a difficult one said that on balance the wisest course of action would be to help China to close its food gap, if the Peking government gave us the opportunity to do so, in return for an agreement not to indulge in either overt or covert acts of aggression against their neighbors. Although such an agreement might not be adhered to, it offered whatever hope there might be for a greater measure of stability.

4. I then said that although he did not believe the Chinese Communists would move militarily under present circumstances, the possibility of such a move in the next ten years could not be denied. Although India and America might be unable to cooperate fully in planning to cope with such a possibility, we should at least be able to discuss the subject in confidence and to understand each other’s limitations and potentials.

I assured him that if China sought to expand into South or Southeast Asia by military power we would oppose this effort with whatever allies we could persuade to cooperate with us. At least we could count on the Australians, New Zealanders, British, Canadians and those Asians under direct attack.

However, in Southeast Asia the military advantages we had in the Korean war, where we were fighting on a narrow front with a strong and powerful base at our rear, were lacking. Moreover, it would be wishful thinking to assume that the Chinese would limit their attack to a force which we could block with our readily available resources.

If, as we must assume, the Chinese should bring their full military resources to bear, we would be forced to choose among using all our available weapons, including nuclear power, an ignominious defeat, or withdrawal.

I stressed that it was important that this situation be clearly understood not only by India but by Japan and other Asian nations so that they could calculate their own most effective course of action.

The only other long range hope of controlling Chinese pressure that I could see was through the development of an indigenous Asian power balance which would depend only indirectly on the United States military. Such a balance, as I had suggested to him on other occasions, could be provided over the long haul only by India, Pakistan and Japan.

I agreed that it was no more possible for the Indians and the Japanese under the present circumstances to accept a formal alliance with us than it would have been for the United States to accept the alliance with the British which Lord Canning proposed in 1823 at the time of the Monroe Doctrine.

Moreover, I recognized the almost insurmountable problems that grew out of India’s differences with Pakistan, India’s reluctance to expand her military commitments beyond Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim, and possibly Burma, the built-in pacifism of many Japanese, and the restrictions of the Japanese constitution.

Nevertheless, the subject was critically important, the threat was great and likely to grow, and it seemed to me essential that he carefully consider its implications.

I stressed that we were keenly sensitive to his own difficulties and those of other neutral states in Asia and that we had no desire to embarrass him or them publicly or in any other way. Nevertheless, there were certain hard facts which must be faced and I hoped in future years that progress could be made in developing the necessary Asian power balance which would enable U.S. military forces to remain more unobtrusively in the background.

I added that I had covered this subject in detail with U Nu who said he would discuss it further with Nehru in Belgrade.

5. I asked Nehru about Chinese progress in Tibet. He replied that he had mixed reports, but that he was inclined to feel that the Chinese hold had been pretty well established, that the Khamba revolt had largely been suppressed, (although sporadic fighting continued in some areas) and that there had been some relaxation in regard to the Chinese control of the monasteries.

He said the Chinese had built a network of roads which had greatly improved their military position. Nevertheless, he doubted that the Chinese would attempt to break through in this area. If this should occur, he felt that the Indians and the Pakistani (who regardless of present differences would be forced into some degree of cooperation) could provide formidable opposition.

The much greater danger, he agreed, came from the East. On India’s northeast frontier a well developed line had been created with heavily guarded check points at relatively frequent intervals.

After dinner the following evening, a similar exchange began with the Belgrade conference. Nehru told me that he had not wanted to go, but had felt that if he and a few others failed to attend the conference would be taken over by “extremists.” He questioned me about Tito and seemed hopeful, although by no means confident, that he might help provide a moderating force, particularly in regard to Berlin.

I suggested relative to the Belgrade conference that we were now witnessing a unique development in foreign affairs, the dim beginnings of what might be called a world conscience. Evidence of this could be seen in the reluctance of the nuclear powers to embark on further tests in the atmosphere which would create fall-out over large areas of the earth. I added that while many Americans often disagreed with him, it was felt that he had contributed more than any other individual to the development of this new power of world opinion.

I then suggested that the conference in Belgrade would indicate the extent to which this new force could bring effective pressure to bear on a given situation. For instance, certain kinds of resolutions would further increase the present tension, create bitterness in the United States, and strengthen the elements which are most opposed to a rational, responsive American foreign policy in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

On the other hand if a majority of the conference members showed a sober awareness of the complexities of the problems we face, those forces in the Western world which were constructively working to create partnership with the peoples of the under-developed areas would be greatly strengthened.

Although Nehru was noncommittal as to specifics, he appeared interested in this line of discussion.

I then congratulated Nehru on the crucial role India had played in regard to the United Nations. In the Congo following Lumumba’s death there had been a rush by several nations to withdraw their troops and indeed many were actually being pulled out. If this trend had continued, the whole United Nations effort in the Congo would have collapsed. Nehru retrieved the situation, however, by his offer to send 4,500 additional Indians.

History may record this act as the crucial turning point in our efforts to build the United Nations into a positive instrument for world stability. The importance of what he had done was now demonstrated by the marked improvement in the Congo situation which would have been impossible without Nehru’s timely assistance.

As Nehru rose to leave he remarked that he had never been to Latin America, that he was considering a very brief visit there following his trip to Washington, and did I have any suggestions.

I replied that a visit could be most helpful but that Latin America was big and complicated and a visit to one country such as Brazil would bring heavy pressures to visit others. The most practical way out if his time was really limited would be to fly from Washington to Mexico City and spend a few days there. This would give him something of the flavor of Latin America with a minimum of complications.

Moreover, he could then return to India via Japan, where he might find it profitable to discuss India’s and Japan’s common interest in creating a more favorable Asian power balance.

He smiled and remarked that no one could charge us with lack of perseverance, since I had been pressing this same point ever since we first met in 1951.

Comment: Nehru seemed in excellent spirits, confident, ready and anxious to exchange confidences, very favorably inclined toward the United States, while frankly concerned that we would again become so absorbed in Europe that Asia would receive less attention.

I had assumed that the question of Pakistan-India relations would come up naturally. But it was not mentioned, and I did not think it wise to introduce the explosive question of Kashmir.

In discussing our efforts to persuade the USSR to agree to a nuclear test ban and our concern that the Soviet might already have resumed testing under ground, Nehru expressed surprise and even disbelief that under-ground testing unlike atmospheric testing would create no fallout problem.

Since Nehru has a keen interest in science and is normally very well informed, this suggests both the difficulties and the importance of our informational program on this subject.

0. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 611.91/8-961. Secret. Drafted by Bowles and approved in U on August 17. Bowles was in New Delhi August 7-10 to chair a regional conference of U.S. Ambassadors accredited to South Asian countries.