389. Editorial Note
On November 10, 1966, President Johnson told Secretary of Agriculture Freeman that he was disappointed with the memorandum Freeman had sent to him on November 7 (Document 385). In the course of a telephone conversation, Johnson said: “You must’ve had two men write this memo. You gave the best damn arguments I ever saw for not giving it to them. You said they hadn’t kept their agreement on investment and fertilizer. That it’s moving slowly. That they’re jockeying to try to get a deal that’s better for themselves. That they’re delaying. That they don’t have the follow-through necessary to do what they agreed to do… . That they’re easing regulations and controls in the agricultural sector, which we’re concerned about. That the government is using the Foodgrains Corporation to procure them at below market price, discouraging food production rather than stimulating it as agreed to… . Therefore, I recommend we give them 1.2.”
Johnson drew a different conclusion: “That’s going to get me in trouble. I can’t take a recommendation like yours, and Rusk who just says ‘me too’ on any goddamn thing you can dream up. I can’t do that and feed India another year. I’m not going to unless Congress does.” He told Freeman to send his study group to India. “In the meantime, I’d urge we go slowly… . Tell them we can’t act ’til the Congress comes back. And send your man over, and take each thing they agreed to do, and study damn carefully, because these give-away days, they voted them out of office last Tuesday.” He told Freeman to tell Bowles “that we have completed our commitments. That we’ve given them $1 billion. That these billions come hard these days… . And that these matters need checking out.” (Johnson Library, Recordings and Transcripts, Recording of Telephone Conversation Between President Johnson and Secretary of Agriculture Freeman, November 10, 1966, 3:36 p.m., Tape F66.31, Side A, PNO 1)
Johnson did not feel that he could get a balanced appreciation of the situation from Bowles. He described Bowles to Vice President Humphrey as “the Ambassador from India not to India.” (Ibid., Recording of Telephone Conversation Between President Johnson and Vice President Humphrey, November 24, 1966, 9:40 a.m., Tape F66.31, Side B, PNO 336)
Johnson was seriously concerned about “give-aways” at a time when the grain surplus in the United States was depleted and he was facing the prospect of a $135 billion budget. In a follow-up conversation with Freeman on November 11, Johnson said that in future food allotments he wanted to know what the United States was going to get in return for its food. “Usually we just get kicked in the pants. That’s what she [Gandhi] does to us. She’ll call old Tito or somebody else [Page 759] and just give us hell. I don’t want to write her foreign policy, but it looks to me the least they could do, right before our election, is quit kicking us.” (Ibid., Recording of Telephone Conversation Between President Johnson and Secretary of Agriculture Freeman, November 11, 1966, 8:59 a.m., Tape F66.31, Side A, PNO 158)