288. Editorial Note
President Johnson had a long telephone conversation with Secretary of Agriculture Freeman on February 2, 1966, in anticipation of Johnson’s meeting later that day with Indian Ambassador Nehru. In the course of that conversation, Johnson touched on the problems he found in managing the direction of policy toward India, as well as the course he wanted that policy to take.
“I’m getting awfully skittish on the India thing because I get any contact—a burnt child dreads the fire—and any contact I have on it I’m misunderstood. I’m by implication committed to underwrite the famine, by implication committed to give them 10 million tons, by implication committed to do it all between now and the first of May. Then I get 14 memos from everybody in the government. It starts with Bowles, and then it goes to State, and then it goes to every Indian lover in town, and then it goes to all the do-good columnists, and then to Agriculture, and then Bob Komer, and then Bundy, and so on and so forth. Now I don’t want to do it that way. And that makes me just [Page 554] immediately, just to save myself, feel like they’re getting ready to rob my bank. I have to put up the bars and close the doors, and wait til it dies down, or until I can get it started. Now what I want to tell Nehru today is very simple. I’m not going to make any big commitments, I’m not going underwrite anything. I’m going to say to him today just what I said a long time ago. I’m waiting to see what kind of a foreign policy we can have with your people. It’s not going to be a one-way deal. I’m not going to just underwrite the perpetuation of the government of India and the people of India to have them spend all their goddamn time dedicating themselves to the destruction of the people of the United States and the government of the United States.”
Johnson sketched the kind of discussion he intended to have with Ambassador Nehru.
“Now we’re going to sit down and have a good free discussion. I’m ready to do it for Shastri. I’m pretty sensitive about your trying to bludgeon me on account of the visit. You were wrong on that and I don’t like it. And you didn’t help yourself a damn bit with it. And if you want to go to Russia, there’s nothing I’d welcome more. I’d just give you a certified check and publicly applaud it. Just like I did the Tashkent agreement. I’m not in the slightest concerned about your getting help from Russia. Get every damn dime of it you can. This business of ‘the Communists might help you a little therefore I’ve got to give you everything I’ve got’ doesn’t appeal to me. Now maybe I’m wrong. But if I am I’m going to be wrong for three more years, and that’s that.”
Johnson went on outlining the hypothetical conversation.
“I do think you got a problem. I do think you need help. I do want to help. But it’s not going to be a unilateral thing when I do it. When I do it I’m going to say to Congress that I think they have a food situation here, and I think these people need help.”
But Johnson resisted the notion of massive assistance to India without any tangible return on the investment.
“All we’re going to do, as far as I’m concerned, we’re not going to make all these economic grants that we’ve been making, we’re not going to make these loans. We’re just going to sit here until they find it to their interest to come and discuss and negotiate, to outline what it is they want us to do. And if all they got to propose to me is a way for me to deliver some money to them, then I’m not going to be interested in it. I’m interested in their helping us too. How can they help us? What can they do to help us?”
The theme runs throughout the conversation.
“But I want to see how this balances out on the scale. When I put my wheat down here, and it costs me a few hundred million, I want [Page 555] to see what you’re putting on the other side. And if it’s just a bunch of bullshit and a lot of criticism of the President that’s a different thing.”
Johnson was particularly sensitive to Indian criticism of his policies in Vietnam.
“I would think they could help us if they could understand our objectives in the world and our viewpoint, and try to be a little more sympathetic in recognizing them. I don’t say just rubber-stamp anything we do, but I don’t think they need to denounce us every day on what we’re doing in Vietnam.”
Johnson nonetheless was willing to address the food crisis in India.
“I’d like to have a message written to the Congress and a bill introduced and passed, which will be known as the Indian food bill, Indian relief bill, for the relief of the Indian nation, or something of that kind.”
But Johnson was not prepared to go forward with a food bill for India until after he had met with Prime Minister Gandhi.
“I asked her to come. I thought she’d come in the last part of January. There’s some indication she’s coming in the early part of February. I’d like to add it today. But I don’t want to set it up until I get some kind of agreement out of them. What are they going to do for the United States?” (Johnson Library, Recordings and Transcripts, Recording of Telephone Conversation Between President Johnson and Secretary of Agriculture Freeman, February 2, 1966, 10:01 a.m., Tape F66.03, Side B, PNO 1)