Office of the Historian

71. Telegram From the Embassy in India to the Department of State0

New Delhi, December 13, 1961, 4 p.m.

1730. Following telegram 145 from Karachi repeated for your information:

For Timmons.

Would you deliver to Nehru’s office the following letter to Nehru signed by you as Charge:1

“Dear Mr. Prime Minister:

The President has asked the Embassy to tell you of his concern over the spreading rumors that India will resort to force to solve the Goa problem. He is strongly hopeful that India will not follow such a course with its grievous example for the world.

The President has expressed his approval of Ambassador Galbraith’s letter2 with the importance it attaches to separating the use of force from the colonial issues involved in the Portuguese presence.”

[Page 157]

Advise Washington and Karachi when message delivered and repeat exact text to Washington.

Timmons
  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 753D.00/12-1361. Secret; Niact. Repeated to Paris and Lisbon.↩
  2. The substance of the President’s message was sent to Galbraith in Karachi, where he was meeting with Rountree and Ayub, for his concurrence. (Telegram 1154 to Karachi, December 12; ibid., 753D.00/12-1261) Galbraith drafted the text of the letter and forwarded it to New Delhi.↩
  3. See footnote 3, Document 70.↩