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

409. Memorandum of Conversation¹

Washington, January 9, 1967.

SUBJECT

• Indian Food

PARTICIPANTS

• Senator Jack Millre
• Congressman W. R. Poage
• Orville L. Freeman, Secretary of Agriculture
• Dorothy H. Jacobson, Assistant Secretary, Agriculture
• Clarence R. Eskildsen, Deputy Asst. Secretary, Agriculture
• Eugene V. Rostow, Under Secretary for Political Affairs, Department of State
• Alan R. Novak, Special Assistant to Under Secretary Rostow
• Walter G. Farr, Jr., Deputy Asst. Administrator, Bureau of Near East and South Asia, Agency for International Development

Mr. Rostow opened the meeting, stating that the Administration was seeking advice on the Indian food problem from members of Congress who had been to India and who were members of the Agriculture Committees. There were a number of questions: When should a Presidential Message be sent to the Congress? Should a resolution accompany the Message? When should there be hearings? When should there be action by the Congress? When should an interim allocation be made to keep the pipeline full? How large should this interim allocation be? Senator Miller thought that it would be better not to send a resolution to the Congress at the time of the Message. He proposed that the President say in his Message that a draft resolution would shortly follow, or perhaps even better, leave it to the Congress to draft an appropriate resolution. Senator Miller said it was important that we avoid specifics in the Message such as the actual figures on a final allocation since this would serve to attract Congressional attention and criticism, which might affect the outcome of the upcoming Indian elections. He recommended that there be no hearings or other Congressional action until after the elections.

Secretary Freeman raised the question of timing of the interim allocation. He pointed out that the pipeline will run out in the middle of March and that ideally an interim allocation should be made by next week. He also raised the question of how big the interim allocation should be. Congressman Poage suggested that the real question was what the President wanted to do. Secretary Freeman agreed and said he thought the President was inclined to try for the minimum interim amount. Senator Miller said he thought an interim allocation of less than 1.8 million tons, assuming 200,000 tons more was contributed by the Soviet Union, would keep the pipeline full until the end of May. Secretary Freeman pointed out that there was an additional problem. The monsoon season would make it impossible to ship in as much grain in June as in earlier months and that the interim allocation might therefore have to be slightly larger to take this into account. He also pointed out that the interim allocation should be large enough to hold us until the Consortium had time to act.

Secretary Rostow agreed, pointing out that the Consortium was unlikely to act immediately, since these countries, like ourselves, also had legislatures to deal with. Congressman Poage addressed himself to the principle of matching in the Consortium. He said it was his understanding, on the basis of last Friday’s² meeting at the White House, that the President wanted matching on a 50–50 basis over the next two fiscal years. Senator Miller agreed. Senator Miller and Congressman Poage both agreed that such matching did not have to start until the second half of calendar 1967 and if we divided the calendar year in half, assuming India needed ten million tons for the year, five million in the second half would have to be matched—2.5 million by the U.S. and 2.5 million from elsewhere. They agreed that in the first six months of 1967 something less than 50–50 would do. But Congressman Poage stressed that he felt that the President was very serious about the principle of 50–50 matching and that if others stopped contributing, we should stop contributing. Secretary Freeman agreed that the President would want to go as far as possible to achieve this goal.

Congressman Poage then asked why we should be optimistic about this Consortium approach and wanted to know what would be its appeal. Mr. Farr stated that we had two objectives here: one was to make food shipments like any other kind of aid—like dollars—and the other was to gain acceptance for this principle in order to get additional burden-sharing from the other members of the Consortium.

Congressman Poage then asked why we should do the begging. Mr. Rostow replied by pointing out that, in the last analysis, if we don’t support India’s diplomatic efforts in what will be a difficult negotiating situation at best, we will find ourselves at the end of the year in the same position that we were at the end of this year, and we will not have achieved our objective. Senator Miller agreed we must help solicit but he stressed his feeling that the Indians should do still more than they have been doing. Secretary Freeman, in summarizing the discussion, said there was agreement that the principle of matching should go into effect in the second half of calendar 1968 and that the Indians must be pressed to work hard at getting additional contributions. It was left that the Congressmen would talk with Congressman Dole, discuss the matter with the leadership of both Houses, and then make recommendations to the President within the next day or two on the basis of the understandings reached at this meeting.

In discussions the following day between Senator Miller and Mr. Eskildsen, it became clear that the Congressional group wanted particularly to keep the interim program amount to a bare minimum. They apparently agreed that there was little likelihood of Congressional and Consortium action and a new agreement by the end of March (which would get foodgrain in volume to India only by very late May). However, they relied upon a document they saw in India to make an estimate of 800,000 tons as the minimum monthly requirement, and as their memorandum³ indicated, they felt matching could begin before July 1. This accounted for a smaller estimate of the interim allocation than that formulated by the Executive Branch.

1. Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Country File, India, India’s Food Problem, Vol. II. Secret. Drafted by Novak.
2. January 6.
3. Document 405.