Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume XXV, South Asia

249. Memorandum From the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy) to President Johnson¹

Washington, November 17, 1965, 11:15 a.m.

1. I spoke to Orville Freeman this morning about getting the Indian Agricultural Minister, Subramaniam, over here. Orville is going to an international agricultural meeting in Rome this week, and will be seeing Subramaniam there. He has undertaken to explore the matter fully, and he strongly supports the basic idea of the Subramaniam visit.

2. Orville pointed out that Subramaniam might find it difficult to come if there were no prospect that he could reach any understanding on help for Indian agriculture—because for him to go home empty-handed—as a well-known friend of the United States—might be politically tough. I told Orville that you were not ready to give any blank checks on this, and that I thought he should make his own estimate in the light of all the evidence as to whether it was likely that Subramaniam’s visit would lay a base for a hard-boiled recommendation that limited interim assistance be given in such a matter as, for example, for fertilizer.

3. Orville and I agreed that your own freedom of action should be protected, but I pointed out that you had repeatedly emphasized in the last week that you were looking to the Department of Agriculture for determined efforts to make sure that every single action of the United States in the food aid field was effectively related to agricultural self-help by the receiving country. I said that I thought that since this was your position, you would be prepared to give due weight to a really well-considered and carefully limited recommendation growing out of a Subramaniam visit—if it had the signature of the Secretary of State for policy, the Secretary of Agriculture for food, the Secretary of the Treasury for dollar drain, and the Directors of AID and the Budget from their points of view. I said that the loans in question had no balance-of-payments import that I could see, so that I thought Freeman himself was the key figure.

4. On this basis, Freeman undertook to have a hard talk with Subramaniam in Rome and make a judgment on the visit at that time. We agreed to report this plan to you in case you had any objection to it.

5. I have since talked to Komer about my conversation with Freeman, and he believes that Subramaniam can fairly easily come here for a “planning” visit without taking any commitments home with him, if it seems better to you when the time comes to play it that way. Moreover, Komer thinks that in the light of the very bad Indian harvest, straight food shipments may turn out to be more important right now, both to the Indians and to us, than fertilizer. So I have agreed again with Freeman that he should be sure to give absolutely no assurance that a visit here would lead to a specific prize for Subramaniam.

6. Meanwhile, a cable² is going to Bowles telling him to explain politely to Shastri that while you would like to receive him at any time, and quite understand that he cannot come in December, the dates proposed in the first weeks of January are difficult for the reasons you stated to me yesterday. Bowles is requested to suggest to the Indians that Shastri propose himself for any date that is convenient to him after January 20.

7. We are also going forward to make sure that Ayub knows he will be welcome on agreed dates in December—if indeed he still wants to come then.³

McG.B. ⁴

1. Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Country File, India, Vol. VI, Memos & Miscellaneous, 9/65–1/66. Secret.
2. Telegram 895 to New Delhi, November 18. (National Archives and Records Administration, RG 59, Cental Files 1964–66, POL 7 INDIA)
3. Bundy sent a cable to the LBJ Ranch on November 26 to report that Ayub had proposed a visit to Washington December 14–16, following a speech to the UN General Assembly on December 13. (Telegram CAP 65753 from Bundy to the President; Johnson Library, National Security File, Country File, Pakistan, Ayub Visit, 12/12–16/65)
4. Printed from a copy that bears these typed initials.