311. Memorandum From Secretary of State Rusk to President Johnson1
SUBJECT
- Food Assistance for India
I strongly endorse the amounts and types of food assistance to India listed in your message to the Congress.2 India has an urgent need for this help. It needs it soon: the next allocation of food grains should be made by April 15 at the latest if the pipeline is to be kept full.
While the Indian Government is confident that it can stay on top of a very difficult supply problem if the rate of grain arrivals is maintained, delays will cause an acute crisis for Mrs. Gandhi. Her Government has not yet consolidated its position and is beset by serious internal problems, only one of which is food. Inability of the Indian Government to feed its people (especially in Kerala and the major cities such as Calcutta where rioting has already occurred) would undermine the Government’s ability to maintain order during the coming election year. This could deter Mrs. Gandhi from moving ahead to solve her longer-run economic problems.
- Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Country File, India, India’s Food Problem, Vol. I. No classification marking. A handwritten “L” on the memorandum indicates that it was seen by the President.↩
- President Johnson’s March 30 message to Congress addressed the pressing problem of drought and famine in India. Johnson noted that the United States had supplied 6 million tons of food grain to India during the previous fiscal year and 6.5 million tons during the current fiscal year. India needed an estimated 6 or 7 million tons of grain to meet its minimal requirements through December 1966. Johnson proposed that the United States provide 3.5 million tons of that total, with the remainder to be provided by other contributing nations. For text of the message to Congress, see Department of State Bulletin, April 18, 1966, pp. 605–607.↩