256. Telegram From the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy) and Deputy Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Komer) to President Johnson in Texas1
CAP 65788. We’ve landed Shastri too. His private secretary has asked Bowles if the first week in February is convenient to you. This is in response to our suggestion that mid-January, as he earlier proposed, was bad for you but that any time after the 20th would be fine.
Shastri has apparently been maneuvered (by Ayub’s acceptance) into going to Tashkent at the end of the year.2 This is an added reason for his eagerness to sign up with you first lest we misunderstand. In fact, however, Tashkent may prove a blessing in disguise. When Ayub hits you on Kashmir, you can say work it out with Shastri at Tashkent. If (remote chance) the Soviets do work out a Kashmir deal, we’ll gain as much from it as the Soviets. More likely, the Soviets will find themselves in the same box we’ve been in.
We suggest you take up Shastri visit with Rusk tomorrow, and decide on a firm date.
On Indian food, it looks as though a combination of the short rein strategy, Freeman’s recent prods, and India’s own desperate straits have finally made them think big. We like Freeman’s strategy, but suspect that you’ll want to keep Indians on a short rein tactically till you and Shastri strike the bargain. This is do-able, provided that our monthly interim shipments are big enough to keep India afloat till then. So we’d again argue for a quick monthly OK of as much as Freeman thinks desirable (plus the interim fertilizer loan—which we’d see as shrewd but not essential).
- Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Country File, Pakistan, Vol. V, Memos, 9/65–1/66. Secret.↩
- According to press reports from New Delhi, Shastri announced on December 1 that he had agreed to meet Ayub at Tashkent in late December or early January. (Telegram 1401 from New Delhi, December 2; National Archives and Records Administration, RG 59, Central Files 1964–66, POL INDIA–PAK)↩