410. Memorandum for the Files1
SUBJECT
- India discussions in late 1966 and early 1967
On Friday, December 2, the President called me by telephone to discuss the India situation in regard to grain exports. Marvin Watson or Jake Jacobson also called on or near the same day. The President suggested the possibility of exporting half-million tons of wheat and half a million tons of grain sorghum in late December and wanted to know how this could be handled.
On December 3, Saturday, I met for most of the morning with Eskildsen, Jaenke, and Moseley to put together a memorandum detailing the amount of wheat and sorghum that were in position to be exported and also the estimated India arrivals in January, February, and March based upon a possible million-ton authorization from the U.S., plus old authorizations not yet fully shipped.
I was instructed, on Sunday morning by telephone from Texas, to send this memorandum to the President as fast as possible. I did this by wire2 thru the situation room and found later some impatience on the part of the President’s staff that “some eyes in the situation room might have seen the memorandum”. About mid-afternoon on Sunday, December 4, I was called by the President who again reviewed the situation including a lot of the material that was in the memorandum which he apparently had not seen although I had delivered it personally to the White House about 12:00 noon. It was in this conversation that I pointed out to him the great difficulty of locating ships that could be loaded quickly with cargos for India when decisions to authorize additional grain to India are made at a very late date. I explained the problem of the U.S.S. Manhattan which was known to be leaving India about December 4, and which was available to be booked but might within a few days head for the Middle East to pick up a cargo of oil. The President by telephone authorized me to take an option on the U.S.S. Manhattan which I did by calling Eskildsen who by late evening of the same day told me that the Manhattan was in the Bay of Bengal and it had been arranged that she would arrive on the West Coast about Christmas Day.
[Page 796]Also in this telephone conversation with the President, we reviewed January arrivals which were represented to be 964,000-tons including 714,000-tons from the United States and some grain from Canada and Australia. (Looking back, it’s now clear that this should have been 564,000-tons, not 714,000-tons. We did some double counting, thus bringing the January arrival figure to about 150,000-tons higher than could be realized.)
The President also asked about the crop conditions in the Southwest and spoke of the drought in Texas.
He instructed me to call a message to Miss Fehmer later that day recapping the January arrivals expected in India and telling him what the highest rates of unloading ever achieved in India were in the past. By the time I called Miss Fehmer she had some additional questions from the President which I responded to but made no record of.
On December 6, I recapped all this material in a confidential memorandum to the President.3 Either On December 5 or 6 in telephone conversations with the President and with Marvin Watson, and Jake Jacobson, I indicated in response to their questions that I preferred December 15 as the date for a final decision on additional allocation to India. I pointed out that with a Congressional team arriving back in the United States on the 21st or 22nd, I understood it would be rather difficult to make a decision on the 15th while the Congressional team was in India.
Also on December 5, I talked with Watson and Jacobson about using Sen. McGee as a substitute for Sen. Mondale who could not make the trip to India with Mr. Poage, Dole, and Sen. Miller of Iowa. The White House staff specifically concurred with the appointment of McGee even though he was in a different time table. I cabled McGee in Delhi4 asking him to look at the agricultural situation to the extent possible while he was in India.
His cable5 came back on December 6, indicating that he had already done this.
On December 14, we briefed the Poage mission before they headed for India.
On December 16, in a telephone conversation with the President I again reaffirmed the need for a one-million ton decision at the earliest possible date, and again reviewed the difficult shipping situation with him. It was at this time that the President agreed that we should proceed [Page 797] to option some ships even though this was a matter which India usually handled. The next day, December 17, which was a Saturday, Ray Ioanes reported to the Secretary and me at noon that they had optioned about 100,000-tons of shipping on a 72-hour basis and that it could be “rolled over” for several days, although some ships might be lost in the process.
On December 20 we learned that the Poage report6 would recommend that the President go ahead with an interim allocation to India. We also made tentative arrangements with Watson and Jim Jones for a personal report to the President on the 22nd. These later collapsed when we learned that they had issued a brief press statement in Delhi before departure and that Dole would be bringing back a written report7 from the team.
About December 20, after staff meeting, I authorized Ioanes and Jaenke to load the Manhattan completely, even though this would delay her departure by several days. Originally it had been planned to load only 77,000-tons on this ship which carried 102,000-tons. Actually we felt very good about the fact that the Manhattan had slipped only about a week from the original plan for arrival in India—from about January 30 to February 6.
January 6, I met with Minister Kaul at the request of Ioanes and Eskildsen to review the arrivals of grain to India and the departures from the United States. By this time it had become clear that arrivals in January were slipping to approximately 750,000-tons and that arrivals in February could not quite reach the 1-million ton mark. The Secretary directed that everything possible be done to make arrivals February reach the million ton mark (I have dictated a separate memo8 on that.)
Also on late Friday, January 6, the President met with the Secretary, Poage, Dole, and Sen. Miller to review the India situation, following a week of discussions within the Executive Branch on the kind of message that ought to be sent to the Congress on India.
- Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, NSC Histories, Indian Famine, August 1966–February 1967, Vol. V. No classification marking. Drafted by John Schnittker.↩
- Reference is to telegram CAP 661170 from the White House to the LBJ Ranch, December 4. (Ibid., Vol. III)↩
- Not printed. (Ibid.)↩
- Telegram 47019 to New Delhi, December 5. (National Archives and Records Administration, RG 59, Central Files 1967–69, LEG 7 MCGEE)↩
- Telegram 8204 from New Delhi, December 6. (Ibid.)↩
- See Document 404.↩
- Document 405.↩
- Not found.↩