The Cold War on the Periphery, by Robert J. McMahon

6. Paying the Costs, 1954-1957

 

SINCE PARTITION, U.S. officials had deliberated endlessly about the prospective benefits and costs of deeper involvement in South Asia. The debate was invariably framed in terms of broader U.S. global interests, interests shaped by the Cold War struggle with the Soviet Union and, after 1949, China. The earliest tendencies had pointed either toward an evenhanded regional approach or toward a policy openly favorable to the subcontinent's major power, India. Following the outbreak of war in Korea and the resultant intensification of American efforts to shore up the Western position in the Middle East, U.S. national security interests in South Asia seemed to point in a different direction. Increasingly, diplomatic and defense officials identified advantages in a policy that tilted toward Pakistan.

The consummation of the mutual security agreement of May 1954 in effect terminated official debate about the potential merits and risks of greater engagement with South Asia. The United States, by virtue of its military alliance with Pakistan, had thrust itself fully into regional affairs. Given Britain's drastically reduced financial and military capabilities, the United States now stood unquestionably as the principal external power in the subcontinent. Nehru's chief complaint about the Pakistani-American military pact rang with the echo of truth: the United States had brought the Cold War to South Asia. Nehru's dream of a region holding itself aloof from superpower rivalries lay shattered; with the creation of the Pakistani-American alliance, the subcontinent could no longer remain on the periphery of world politics. Having made its decision, the Eisenhower administration now prepared to reap the benefits--and pay the costs.

This chapter examines first the immediate consequences of that decision for U.S. relations with Pakistan. It explores the evolution of the patron-client relationship that quickly developed between Washington and Karachi, emphasizing the ambivalence, misunderstandings, tensions, and unfulfilled expectations that plagued that relationship from its inception. The excessively vague strategic vision that had given shape to the Pakistani-American alliance grew ever more clouded during this period, even as the Eisenhower administration tied Pakistan formally into two anticommunist alliance systems. Most troubling for knowledgeable U.S. officials were the conditions of extreme political instability and economic stagnation that wracked Pakistan. Those conditions largely vitiated any potential value that the country might have possessed for the United States while calling into question its very viability as a nation. By early 1957 a growing number of administration officials, including President Eisenhower, viewed the Pakistani-American alliance as a burden and a blunder.

The second section of this chapter traces the impact of Pakistan's alignment with the West on Indo-American relations. Washington's embrace of Karachi initially generated a powerful surge of anti-Americanism throughout Indian society. But that initial wave of anger and resentment, although it never ebbed entirely, receded sufficiently by 1956 that the Eisenhower administration could recover at least some of its lost footing. India's growing need for economic development assistance provided Washington with a major opportunity for repairing part of the damage caused by U.S. military aid to Pakistan. A rapidly changing international situation, shaped especially by Soviet efforts to woo India and other nonaligned nations with enticing aid and trade offers, compelled Eisenhower, Dulles, and other senior officials to reevaluate India's importance to the United States and to reassess the efficacy of a large-scale financial aid commitment. It also forced them, in conjunction with the political and economic disarray in Pakistan, to rethink overall tactics and strategy in the Indian subcontinent.

The United States and Pakistan brought widely divergent hopes, expectations, and needs to their newly established partnership. In the months following the signing of the Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement, those differences burst into the open, sparking charges of bad faith on both sides. At no time during Washington's extended deliberations about arms for Pakistan, according to the available evidence, did any U.S. diplomatic or military official intimate to Pakistani counterparts that they should expect a large military assistance program. Nonetheless, American disclaimers to the contrary, Pakistan's leadership convinced itself that U.S. support would be substantial. Whether those expectations were a product of wishful thinking, cultural misperceptions, preoccupation with the enormity of Pakistan's internal and security needs, a simple blindness to reality, or a combination of all those factors, cannot be determined--at least not without access to Pakistani archives. Regardless of the precise cause, though, a gaping chasm existed between the free-flowing dollars that Pakistani military officers and bureaucrats conjured up as their just reward for open alignment with the West and the modest dollar figures contemplated by Washington planners.

In the spring of 1954, the Pentagon dispatched Brigadier General Harry F. Meyers to visit Pakistan to assess that nation's most pressing military needs. The ensuing discussions did little to stem Pakistan's growing anxieties about the volume and scope of U.S. aid. Ghulam Mohammed joined other Pakistani leaders in venting frustration with the limited nature of the assistance Meyers contemplated. The aid figures alluded to vaguely by the American visitor fell so far below Pakistan's needs, the governor-general complained, that the country now found itself in "the sad predicament" of pursuing a relationship that would bring "many troubles and little help." ₁ Meyers proved unable to answer the cardinal questions posed repeatedly by Pakistani Commander-in-Chief Ayub Khan: namely, what did the United States expect from Pakistan? Where did Pakistan fit in America's global military planning? And how much aid did the United States intend to provide? Upon his return to Washington, Meyers recommended a program far more circumscribed than that anticipated by Ayub. The general urged that $29.5 million in military support be provided to Pakistan from currently available supplies, a recommendation quickly endorsed by State and Defense Department analysts. ₂

In August the administration sent Brigadier General William T. Sexton to Karachi as head of the newly established U.S. Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG). Sexton was responsible for refining the recommendations advanced by Meyers and charged with overseeing and implementing the modest military aid program being planned for America's newest ally. Initial conversations between Sexton and Ayub revealed just how far apart U.S. and Pakistani expectations were. Informed by Sexton that the first year of the military aid pact with the United States would yield just under $30 million, all programmed for military equipment and training, Ayub confessed to Prime Minister Mohammed Ali Bogra that he was "dejected" and "broken hearted." The Pakistani general had been anticipating at least $200-$300 million in aid, money that could be spent as he deemed appropriate rather than funds restricted exclusively to equipment and training support; some of his associates thought in even more grandiose terms. If Pakistan were to receive no more than the sum indicated by Sexton, Ayub said that it would be better for Pakistan not even to be involved in a defense relationship with the United States. ₃ Over the next several weeks, a number of senior Pakistani officials added their voices to the outspoken commander's to protest what they disparaged as a paltry allotment of U.S. military aid. Their grumbles prompted Ambassador Hildreth's candid prediction that Ayub's "unrealistic" hopes will be "a grief to us" later. ₄

Given the growing tendency of Pakistan's political and military leaders to look to the United States for answers to their nation's most fundamental problems, this profound disappointment with the limited nature of the initial U.S. aid commitment becomes understandable. As noted earlier, much was riding on the American connection. Pakistan's ruling elite was convinced that substantial U.S. support would not only guarantee the nation's security vis-à-vis India; of equal importance, it would provide the financial and military wherewithal essential to the construction of a viable state. The details of the U.S. military assistance program that emerged from discussions with Meyers, Sexton, and other U.S. representatives fell so short of those weighty goals that alarmed Pakistani military and bureaucratic officials worried that the program might actually exacerbate more problems than it would alleviate. ₅

Finance Minister Chaudhri Mohammed Ali, one of the government's most able and influential civil servants, zeroed in on the basic dilemmas that the proposed U.S. military aid package posed for Pakistan. As long as current tensions with India and Afghanistan continued, Pakistan could not reduce its existing forces. Yet it was experiencing dire financial difficulties with swelling pay, maintenance, and training costs. U.S. aid would only ease the problem partially since the general guidelines governing U.S. military assistance programs restricted aid to equipment and training. Although equipment and training were certainly needed, the finance minister said that the expanded force goals permitted by the military assistance agreement with Washington would inevitably necessitate steadily mounting expenditures by the Pakistani government for payroll and maintenance responsibilities and the various other costs associated with maintaining a sizable defense establishment. Any additional funds for direct or indirect military needs would, unfortunately, have to be squeezed from an already overtaxed budget, and would come at the expense of critical development priorities. Keenly aware that the United States already provided Turkey with precisely the kind of more generalized defense aid Pakistan sought--"defense support" or "direct forces support" in Pentagon jargon--Chaudhri Mohammed Ali requested similar consideration for Pakistan. Otherwise, he lamented, the greater the amount of U.S. aid, the greater the costs would be to Pakistan. ₆

Vocal Pakistani dissatisfaction with the proposed U.S. military assistance program presented the Eisenhower administration with more than just a public relations problem. The complaints issued by Ayub, Ali, and others raised serious issues; they were not simply ploys to extort more dollars from Uncle Sam. The administration's diplomatic, military, and intelligence specialists realized that Pakistan stood at the edge of a precipice; they certainly had no desire to see it fall. Rather, having already made a decision to provide military assistance to a struggling young nation because of its perceived strategic value, the United States groped for ways to make that aid as effective as possible. State and Defense Department experts understood that Pakistan's military, economic, and political problems were tightly interwoven and thus had to be dealt with simultaneously. A sound economic base provided the essential foundation for a strong military. Without that base, Pakistan could never develop adequate forces for internal and external security, no less play a significant role in Middle East defense. Yet Pakistan's foreign-exchange problems daily grew more pressing. The resulting inability of the government to provide basic consumer goods for its populace had important political implications as well, especially in volatile East Bengal.

The Eisenhower administration, aided by data collected by Meyers, Sexton, and an economic survey team headed by corporate executive H. J. Heinz II, gained a reasonably shrewd grasp of Pakistan's considerable economic, political, and security difficulties. Finding an effective, integrated approach to those multiple crises was another matter. Yet the stakes steadily mounted for the United States as its latest protégé in the developing world seemed to lurch from crisis to crisis. A somber State Department analysis, prepared in July 1954, noted that "Pakistan faces problems of political stability which are at this time more critical than at any time since the partition of British India." To the extent that U.S. military aid increased the pressure on Pakistan's already strapped budget, it would have a deleterious impact on the nation's economic performance and would undermine further the authority and stability of the present regime. But how could U.S. aid make a significant dent in such seemingly intractable problems, especially given the budgetary restrictions imposed by Congress? ₇

The Pakistani leadership hoped that it could strengthen its bargaining leverage with the United States by extending its formal ties to the West. Consequently, Pakistan sought eagerly and persistently to gain an invitation to the Manila Conference of July 1954, called by the United States to discuss collective security arrangements for Southeast Asia. Although most American officials saw few advantages in a non-Southeast Asian country such as Pakistan joining the proposed organization, and more than a few disadvantages, it feared the negative consequences of an outright rejection of Pakistan's plea for inclusion. As a result, in September 1954 Pakistan became one of the original members of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO). For Pakistan the treaty simply gave it another claim on American resources. ₈

In October 1954 the Eisenhower administration tried to fit together the various pieces of the Pakistan puzzle. It used the joint visits to Washington of Prime Minister Mohammed Ali Bogra and Armed Forces Commander Mohammed Ayub Khan to unveil a revised military support package as well as a new offer of economic assistance. The total aid package was laid out in an aide-mémoire handed to Bogra on October 21, at the conclusion of his meetings with U.S. officials. With regard to military assistance, it specified that the first objective of the United States was to strengthen existing forces required for Pakistan's own security. To that end, the United States intended to provide Pakistan with $171 million in military aid within the next three and a half years. Assistance programmed for fiscal year 1955 was being increased to $50 million from the original figure of $29.5 million. With regard to economic assistance, the United States promised in excess of $105 million, including $5.5 million in flood relief for East Bengal, $5.3 million in technical assistance, $20 million in defense support funds that could be used for economic development, and $75.6 million in commodity assistance, targeted especially for consumer goods and industrial raw materials. By spelling out finally in plain language the exact purpose and scope of the U.S. assistance program, the aide-mémoire helped check Pakistan's bitter carping about American stinginess. ₉

Even so, Bogra pressed repeatedly for additional support during his meetings with U.S. officials. Dulles responded to a typical such plea by reminding his visitor that Pakistan had chosen alignment with the United States because it was the right policy and not because a certain amount of U.S. aid would be forthcoming, a characteristically self-righteous observation that contributed little to the easing of underlying tensions. The prime minister's talks in Washington and his brief visit to New York nonetheless made clear the basic convergence of views between the United States and Pakistan on broad, global issues. ₁₀

The personable Pakistani received enthusiastic greetings throughout his brief stay in the United States. His itinerary, which included an elk-hunting expedition in rugged Jackson Hole, Wyoming, an appearance on the popular CBS television program, "Person to Person," a trip to Columbia University to receive an honorary degree, and a productive meeting with representatives of the New York business community, gave the energetic prime minister numerous opportunities to spread his central message. Pakistan, he never tired of reminding his American hosts, was a reliably anticommunist ally that abhorred neutralism. During a lunch in his honor hosted by New York Mayor Robert Wagner, Bogra even displayed a sharp sense of humor, joking that the recent victory of the New York Giants over the heavily favored Cleveland Indians in the World Series just "proves that the Indians are overrated." ₁₁ In spite of persistent quibbles about military aid, British Ambassador Sir Roger Makins accurately observed that the Pakistani leader made a very positive impression on his American hosts. "The American/Pakistan relationship," he suggested in a letter to Foreign Minister Eden, "at the moment has the nice, simple, honest, uncomplicated character which the United States would be only too relieved to find in their more complex relationships with some of their more important allies. Pakistan, like Turkey, has stood up and been counted, and is not afraid to say so." ₁₂

In fact, the relationship was never quite that simple and uncomplicated. Bogra's visit to the United States occurred against the backdrop of a simmering political crisis within Pakistan, perhaps that nation's most severe to date. American officials were acutely aware that they were negotiating with an individual who, although America's "favorite Pakistani" according to the New York Times, might soon become Pakistan's ex-prime minister. ₁₃ Consequently, they wanted "to avoid having United States policy become tied to the person of Mohammed Ali." ₁₄ In the weeks prior to his arrival in the United States, a flurry of telegrams between the State Department and its embassy in Karachi explored the tentative nature of the prime minister's current position and speculated about the likely consequences for the United States of his fall from power. On one point American analysts were agreed: all signs pointed "toward increasing instability." Under the circumstances, the embassy advised, caution must be exercised before deepening the American investment in Pakistan. At the same time, "we should avoid dealing [a] psychological blow which might hurt supporters of close relations with [the] United States." ₁₅ The uncertainty surrounding Bogra's political future--and Pakistan's as well--lent an extra degree of tension and confusion to his Washington sojourn.

Bogra had no one to blame but himself for the latest crisis. Before departing Karachi, the prime minister had made a bold power play. At his insistence, on September 20 Pakistan's Constituent Assembly approved a series of constitutional amendments to the India Act of 1935, the law which still served as the nation's constitution. The amendments were designed to undercut the power of the governor-general and to establish the supremacy of the prime minister and his cabinet within the governmental structure. Bogra, at odds with a governor-general who increasingly held him in contempt, engineered what amounted to a constitutional coup d'état in order preempt any effort by Ghulam Mohammed to dismiss him, the fate that had earlier befallen Nazimuddin. He was joined in his ploy by a hodgepodge of disgruntled politicians from East Bengal and other non-Punjabi provinces. It was an alliance of convenience held together by common resentment toward the predominantly Punjabi bureaucratic-military axis that controlled most of the levers of state power. ₁₆

Bogra badly underestimated his opponents. On October 21, in the middle of his Washington talks, Ghulam Mohammed summoned the scheming prime minister to return home immediately. Bogra's early departure left his perplexed hosts pondering precisely how this latest turn of events would affect the carefully crafted package of military and economic assistance that they had just unveiled and, more broadly, the future course of U.S.-Pakistani relations.

They were not held in suspense for long. Ghulam Mohammed and his allies wasted little time in reasserting their power. Defense Minister Mirza met Bogra at the London airport with a chartered jet that took the chastened prime minister directly to Karachi. In the Pakistani capital, he was met by an armed guard that transported him immediately to the governor-general's residence. Although suffering from an advanced stage of the illness that would soon take his life, Ghulam Mohammed quickly asserted his control. He offered Bogra a stark choice: either agree to dismiss the Constituent Assembly and cooperate with the governor-general and the army or risk martial law--or worse. "Now I know how [Egyptian King] Farouk felt when the British put tanks around his palace," the shaken prime minister quipped later that evening. ₁₇ A practical man, Bogra accepted Ghulam's terms and on October 24 he dismissed the Constituent Assembly. A reconstituted cabinet retained Bogra as prime minister, largely because Ghulam valued his good relations with key American officials. Ayub assumed the position of defense minister, Mirza was transferred to the post of interior minister, and Chaudhri Mohammed Ali retained the finance portfolio. With Pakistan's volatile system of parliamentary democracy temporarily suspended, and the first significant challenge to their dominance effectively stifled, Ghulam, Ayub, Mirza, and their associates had reason to be pleased. Power in Pakistan, the State Department observed in a succinct and accurate analysis, now rested "firmly in the hands of the westernized, progressive-minded clique dominant in the country since the spring of 1953." ₁₈

Although dismayed by this continued evidence of political ferment and instability in Pakistan, Eisenhower administration analysts calculated that the latest crisis "did not seem likely to bring about a change in Pakistan's policy of cooperation with the U.S." ₁₉ A State Department assessment conceded that the struggle for power did not bode well for the development of a stable political system. The "achievement of our ultimate goal--a stable, democratically oriented Pakistan making real material progress--was affected adversely by the continued lack of a positive and dynamic political force within the country," it noted. Still, the outcome of the crisis "appeared for the moment to be about the best that could have been hoped for. All those in positions of real power were anxious to continue close association with the U.S." ₂₀ The intelligence community offered a similar assessment in a national intelligence estimate of March 15, 1955. The report deplored the "lack of organized political and popular support" for the regime in Pakistan and worried about the "thinness" of the top leadership cadre, a problem exacerbated by Ghulam Mohammed's deteriorating health. At the same time, it predicted that the ruling group would be able to maintain its hold on power for the foreseeable future and saw no imminent threat to American interests in Pakistan. "Under the present or any similar regime," the estimate concluded, "Pakistan will almost certainly continue to cultivate close ties with the US, if only because of Pakistan's urgent need for US economic assistance and its desire for US military and diplomatic support to strengthen its position against India." ₂₁

Those assessments pointed correctly to Karachi's growing dependence on Washington. Pakistan's great need for economic and military support certainly created the strong likelihood that its leaders would cultivate close ties with the United States, regardless of the internal constellation of political power within Pakistan. By the same token, that dependence could breed suspicion, disgruntlement, or even outright hostility if American assistance failed to match the needs identified by Pakistan's leaders--or if a gap appeared to develop between the promises and the performance of their new patron.

During the early months of 1955 that is exactly what happened. Exceedingly slow delivery of the aid and equipment promised in the aide-mémoire of October 1954 irked Pakistan's military and civilian leaders. Admiral Arthur W. Radford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, heard a chorus of complaints during a brief visit to Pakistan. The admiral subsequently informed the National Security Council that he found U.S. economic and military assistance programs "very badly snarled." ₂₂ During a meeting with State Department colleagues the next day, he decried the "red tape hampering our military aid program" and said that Ayub, who had left Washington "feeling fine" after his October visit, now voiced concern about how U.S. money was to be made available. Describing U.S.-Pakistani differences over implementation of the military assistance agreement as "acute," Radford worried that the United States could "lose any good will we might have gained by instituting the program in the first place." ₂₃

Slow delivery time was not the only problem plaguing the military assistance program during this early stage. Pakistani officials also complained that the Eisenhower administration's commitment failed to make clear the use to which counterpart funds could be put. The issue, although quite technical in character, carried important implications for Pakistan's budgetary allocations for military and development priorities. The aide-mémoire promised Pakistan over $75 million in excess U.S. agricultural commodities. Those commodities, supplied under the terms of Public Law 480, could be sold by the Pakistani government, allowing it to generate a significant amount of local currency--counterpart funds, as they were termed. Aid supplied under the mutual security program also generated a significant amount of counterpart funds. Were these rupees to be used exclusively for military requirements, for such purposes as the direct support of Pakistani forces? Or were they to be used primarily for economic development needs? The answer to that question, and the extent to which the United States would seek to exercise control over Pakistani expenditures of counterpart funds, bore important consequences for the future balance between Pakistan's economic and military spending. The nub of the matter for the United States, Hildreth informed Washington, was how to coordinate the military program for Pakistan with its client's economic development needs so that "we end up with [a] military establishment useful [to] United States objectives [in] this area and substantially within [the] ability of [the] Pakistanis to support." ₂₄

A related problem, but one that cut even deeper, stemmed from the lack of clarity about America's long-term intentions for the Pakistani military. During the lengthy deliberations preceding actual negotiation of the mutual security agreement, Truman and Eisenhower administration planners repeatedly cited Pakistan's projected role in the defense of the Middle East as the chief rationale for such a pact. In the months following the signing of the agreement, however, U.S. embassy and MAAG personnel in Pakistan received no guidance from Washington regarding the relationship between the initial U.S. military commitment and that broader goal. Assistant Secretary of Defense H. Struve Hensel, following a brief trip to Pakistan in February 1955, reported that no member of the various U.S. diplomatic, military, intelligence, and foreign assistance missions stationed there "had any clear idea of the part Pakistan was expected to play in the defense of the Middle East or whether that role would be developed into an important one." Several officers referred to Radford's support for increased military strength in Pakistan, "but no one seemed to know precisely why except that Pakistani[s] obviously make reliable fighting soldiers." In a message forwarded to Dulles, the assistant defense secretary suggested that some time would elapse before Pakistan's military achieved sufficient strength to deploy troops beyond its borders. Consequently, he urged that "some plan be developed which will outline the military role expected of Pakistan and permit us all to move in that direction." ₂₅

A crucial report to the Joint Chiefs of Staff by their Joint Strategic Plans Committee, completed in March 1955, addressed those concerns directly. It acknowledged with refreshing candor that a wide gap separated Pentagon strategists' original hopes for Pakistan and their current assessments. The immediate effect of the regional pact between Pakistan and Turkey, the committee admitted, was "primarily political and psychological rather than military." The report foresaw no realistic prospect for Pakistan contributing significantly to Middle East defense efforts in peacetime or wartime. Indeed, the broader northern-tier strategic concept that had given birth to the Pakistani-American alliance could not be expected to "result in any significant reduction of the area's military vulnerability." And Pakistan's woeful military and economic fragility precluded it indefinitely from deploying troops beyond its own borders. Increasingly, defense officials justified aid to the Pakistani military not in terms of Middle Eastern defense, but in terms of the need to provide internal security and to maintain in power a pro-Western government. Hensel, who assumed that Pentagon planners were counting on Pakistan to help defend the Khyber Pass or eastern Iran against a Soviet onslaught, or at least to assist with minesweeping and convoy operations in the Persian Gulf should global warfare break out, must have been taken aback to learn that senior military analysts no longer believed that Pakistan could assume even a modest regional defense mission. ₂₆

Unaware at the time that defense planners were developing a more circumscribed appreciation of Pakistan's military value to the United States, U.S. embassy and MAAG officials grumbled about the absence of overall program guidance from Washington and expressed sympathy with Pakistani complaints about delays in the delivery of promised military supplies. U.S. representatives found themselves caught uncomfortably between the urgent demands of a desperate ally and the excessive caution of a bureaucracy in Washington that not only moved at a snail's pace but failed to provide them with specific guidance regarding the broader purpose of the program they were charged with overseeing. Their frustration derived also from an unresolved ambiguity embedded in the October 1954 aide-mémoire. According to that document, the United States agreed to provide Pakistan with support for the deficiencies in five and a half Pakistani divisions over three and a half years at the cost of approximately $171 million. The program, in short, contained three components: a force goal, a time goal, and a dollar commitment. If they came into conflict--if, say, the force goal of five and a half fully supplied Pakistani divisions wound up exceeding the cost estimate of $171 million--then which goal should assume precedence?

The Pakistanis, naturally, argued that the force goal was primary and almost from the inception of the program sought ways to stretch America's financial commitment beyond the $171 million limit. Ayub even tried to increase the size of the average Pakistani division in the hopes that that ploy would enable him to raise the program's dollar ceiling. Hildreth, whose stature within Pakistan assumed almost proconsular proportions, had developed an unusually close working relationship with Pakistan's leaders; the recent marriage of his eldest daughter to Mirza's son added an important personal tie as well. Even so, tensions endemic to any patron-client relationship occasionally burst to the surface. On March 28, during a testy exchange with Ayub and Mirza at a dinner party, an exasperated Hildreth told the defense minister he "was trying to squeeze too hard" and would risk the cooperation he had received to date if he kept up the constant pressure to enlarge the program. The ambassador's frank remark only drew scornful laughter from Ayub. ₂₇ During another meeting, Hildreth again came right to the point. "It was time we stopped chasing our tails" and ended the incessant "scrapping" about the shape and volume of the program, he exclaimed. ₂₈

Despite the best efforts of Hildreth, Sexton, and their subordinates, by the summer of 1955 quarrels about the extent of U.S. aid and the pace of deliveries had not ceased. Rather, they had intensified. On June 30 Hildreth informed the State Department that Pakistani criticism of the U.S. military assistance program was both "strong and widespread," with some journalists accusing the government of selling Pakistan for a "mess of porridge." In that cable, and in subsequent messages, the ambassador reported that embassy and MAAG officials were increasingly concerned with an apparent slowdown in the delivery of military materiel. They feared that any perceived failure by the United States to live up to its promises might undermine the position of Pakistan's pro-American leadership, a particularly delicate matter in view of the country's continued political and constitutional turmoil. ₂₉

Neither Ghulam Mohammed's cabinet reshuffle of October 1954 nor his abrupt dismissal of the querulous Constituent Assembly succeeded in curbing Pakistan's endemic internal strife. Following those bold actions, the governor-general's struggle with his political opponents simply moved to another venue: the courts. A provincial court in Sind ruled that Ghulam had exceeded his authority with the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, only to have a federal court overturn that decision on narrow jurisdictional grounds. On June 26, in the midst of this bewildering legal squabble, elections were held for a new Constituent Assembly. The results proved a mixed blessing for the government. The founding Muslim League, to which Ghulam, Mirza, and Bogra all belonged, suffered a further diminution of its political strength. It won only 25 of the 80 seats in the new legislative body, making some form of a coalition government necessary. After considerable jockeying for position, and more of the political intrigue for which Pakistan was fast becoming infamous, a Muslim League-United Front coalition was patched together with Chaudhri Mohammed Ali replacing Bogra as prime minister on August 11. Ghulam's poor health forced him to the political sidelines as well. Mirza, increasingly the key power broker within the country, became the acting governor-general upon Ghulam's retirement, a position he assumed on a permanent basis in October. ₃₀

American analysts watched with dismay as these Byzantine political maneuvers unfolded, rendering the prospects for genuine stability within Pakistan more problematic than ever. In September 1955 U.S. representatives in Pakistan received an additional dose of disquieting news. They learned that an array of funding and delivery problems precluded fulfillment of the initial military assistance program in anywhere near the promised three and a half years. In fact, MAAG experts estimated that at the current pace the program could not be completed for another six, or even eight, years. Even worse, the Joint Chiefs of Staff determined that meeting deficiencies in five and a half Pakistani divisions, as the United States had promised, would require $301.1 million, rather than the initial estimate of $171 million. Yet, in view of America's global military commitments, funds for Pakistan in excess of the $171 million commitment could not be provided at that time. ₃₁

Embassy and MAAG officials warned that the impact of those decisions on Pakistan's fluid political situation could be extremely damaging. The pro-American military and bureaucratic elite that had brought Pakistan into open alignment with the United States remained in a central position, "but their effective power has been reduced" by recent developments. "And they are vulnerable to attack in the event the MDA [Mutual Defense Assistance] Program should fall appreciably short of expectations." ₃₂ Formal notification that a firm program ceiling of $171 million had been established would surely generate friction, a joint embassy-MAAG telegram of September 19 warned. There was a "strong likelihood," moreover, that such "friction will be sufficient to kindle sparks, and in [the] explosive political situation here, these [are] very hazardous." ₃₃

News about the monetary ceiling on the military assistance program generated more than sparks in Pakistan. Ayub could not contain his fury with an ally he accused of breaking faith. The general told Ernest Fisk, the U.S. consul-general in Lahore, that he was "thoroughly fed up" with the military assistance program. American aid was inadequate and people throughout the Middle East will now know that they "cannot trust the Americans' word." An aid allotment of $171 million, he complained, would support only one and a half divisions, not the five and a half stipulated in the aide-mémoire of October 1954. When word of this limitation leaked out, "I personally would lose my trousers," the frustrated commander stormed. "I've stuck my neck out for the Americans. But now I can't go on doing it, because you've gone back on your word." ₃₄ Ayub repeated those accusations to a New York Times correspondent and a visiting American congressional delegation. In a blistering personal letter to Radford, he characterized the original U.S. commitment to support five and a half Pakistani divisions bitterly as a "handful of dust designed to be thrown in our eyes." Ayub described himself as saddened by a decision that "does not auger well for [a] future good relationship." ₃₅

With U.S.-Pakistani differences over the military assistance program rapidly assuming crisis dimensions, the Eisenhower administration capitulated. Following a series of urgent meetings in Washington, Ambassador Hildreth managed to convince key officials at the Pentagon and the State Department to raise the $171 million program cap. Budget-conscious defense officials at first resisted Hildreth's pleas, arguing that additional money for Pakistan could only come through a reduction in other military assistance programs judged of equal or greater importance to U.S. policy objectives. Several counterarguments ultimately proved persuasive. Any perceived reduction in the original U.S. commitment would surely undermine the standing of Pakistan's pro-Western ruling elite and thus further impede Pakistan's search for political stability. The "extremely powerful" General Ayub, moreover, "may be strong enough to bring about, if he chooses, a general feeling of disappointment and frustration toward the United States by asserting that we have failed to keep our promise to Pakistan." Such charges of bad faith, whether warranted or not, would also have adverse repercussions for the American position throughout Asia and the Middle East; other allies or potential allies might begin to question the credibility of American commitments. The change in the U.S. position, then, owed everything to a series of bleak projections about the likely political fallout in Pakistan and throughout the region from a rigid adherence to the original dollar commitment. It was most certainly not based on any reevaluation of Pakistan's intrinsic importance to the United States. ₃₆

The American reversal succeeded in placating, at least temporarily, its agitated ally. On December 6, upon his return to Karachi, Hildreth informed Prime Minister Chaudhri Mohammed Ali that the U.S. military assistance program was no longer bound by a $171 million limitation. Rather, Washington would honor its agreement to support five and a half Pakistani divisions "as rapidly as we can," regardless of the costs. The only caveat he added was that as the cost estimate for that force goal escalated the administration would need to secure new congressional appropriations. The prime minister reported his "complete satisfaction" with the new understanding, a feeling seconded by Ayub, whose pressure tactics had been so instrumental in turning the tide. ₃₇

Pakistani leaders had every reason to be pleased with this new, more open-ended commitment. In many respects, it represented a critical turning point in Pakistan's developing relationship with its military patron. Force goals, rather than cost limits, would now drive the American military assistance program, a shift that carried far-reaching implications for U.S.-Pakistani relations. As cost estimates for arming and equipping five and a half Pakistani divisions rose, as they almost inevitably would, so would the amount of military assistance the United States was committed to provide. By March 1956 those costs had spiraled to $350 million, more than doubling the original dollar commitment; two months later revised estimates placed those costs at over $400 million. ₃₈ Pakistan, which played its cards exceedingly well in this affair, was learning an important lesson in alliance politics: the weaker partner can often exercise considerable leverage over its stronger associate.

The Pakistani-American alliance, though still in its infancy, was fast proving itself an extremely expensive proposition for the United States. After joining the American-sponsored Baghdad Pact in September 1955--a loose grouping that included Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and Great Britain--Pakistan had become the only Asian nation belonging to two separate Western defense systems. It now ranked, according to some pundits, as "America's most allied ally." By the middle of 1956 the Eisenhower administration commissioned a series of wide-ranging reassessments, designed both to pinpoint the precise nature of the U.S. commitment to Pakistan and to gauge the value of the alliance in relation to its costs. Those studies proved sobering. An interdepartmental committee, chaired by Deputy Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs Herbert V. Prochnow, reported to the NSC in June of that year that the original commitment to Pakistan for supporting five and a half divisions would require a minimum aid allotment of $505 million before the program's likely completion in December 1959. Looking beyond that original commitment, the committee raised a host of troubling questions about future U.S. responsibilities for maintaining the military equipment it supplied. It estimated that if the United States accepted responsibility for "the maintenance costs implicit in sustaining an effective force," the military assistance program for Pakistan would cost a total of between $765 million and $1.1 billion during the 1958-1960 fiscal years. Average costs per year after fiscal year 1960 would continue to run between $130 million and $235 million. Yet the report saw no alternative to this continuing financial burden. "If Pakistan found it necessary to rely entirely on its own resources after the military build-up it would be unable to maintain the military establishment or to develop its own economy. It is likely that the military situation or the economic situation or both would deteriorate." ₃₉

The basic problem, stated so clearly in this expert analysis, defied easy resolution. Economic realities in Pakistan underscored the logic of reducing the Pakistani military to a level in which "the continuing costs would be more consistent with Pakistan's economic capabilities." The escalating burden Pakistan was imposing on the U.S. treasury pointed in the same direction. Political realities, however, pointed in a different direction. The interdepartmental committee cautioned that any signal to the Pakistanis that the United States wanted to renegotiate the original commitment to a lower level might have "a seriously adverse impact on U.S.-Pakistan relations. A reduction of military aid to a level below U.S. commitments would probably create critical political problems." ₄₀ The Pentagon fully concurred with that assessment. Secretary of Defense Wilson declared that "overriding political considerations existed in connection with assistance to Pakistan." ₄₁

The National Security Council wrestled with those issues during a meeting of October 26, but reached no resolution. The focus of the discussion was the Prochnow committee report which, in addition to Pakistan, also evaluated U.S. military assistance programs in Turkey, South Korea, Iran, Taiwan, and South Vietnam. It found that all six of those Third World allies were receiving U.S. military aid that was well beyond their ability to absorb. Economic growth, even with U.S. support, had been slight. Eisenhower, who presided over the meeting, voiced concern with this state of affairs and called for additional study aimed at reducing the military assistance programs in Pakistan, Turkey, South Korea, and Taiwan to more appropriate force levels. ₄₂

Eisenhower displayed less patience and more candor when the same issue came before him two months later. On January 3, 1957, the NSC engaged in a wide-ranging discussion of the military assistance program in Pakistan as part of its broader consideration of a new policy paper for South Asia. Military aid for Pakistan evoked more controversy than almost any other issue covered by the paper. As often occurred during the Eisenhower administration, the bureaucratic task of revising a formal statement of policy brought to the fore conflicting interagency perspectives that could only be resolved at the highest level. The Bureau of the Budget had proposed the insertion of a paragraph in the new policy statement that called for the early initiation of conversations with the Pakistani government aimed at achieving agreements for U.S. aid programs "which will be more moderate in their demands on U.S. resources and on the Pakistan economy." After listening to the rationale underlying the Budget Bureau's proposal, based in good part on the earlier Prochnow report, Eisenhower grumbled that "we had the same damned problem with Turkey." The president said he felt that "our tendency to rush out and seek allies was not very sensible." He voiced concern that "we were doing practically nothing for Pakistan except in the form of military aid." The military commitment to Pakistan was "perhaps the worst kind of a plan and decision we could have made," Eisenhower lamented. "It was a terrible error, but we now seem hopelessly involved in it." ₄₃

At the same time, Eisenhower confessed that he did not know quite what to do about the program for Pakistan. He worried that acceptance of the Budget Bureau proposal "might have severe repercussions on our relations with Pakistan, and might even destroy the Baghdad Pact." After an extended discussion, State, Defense, and Budget representatives agreed with the president that U.S. interests would best be served by moving toward some reduction in the military assistance program for Pakistan. The fundamental dilemma concerned how to accomplish that goal "while avoiding serious political repercussions." None of the participants at the meeting moved the administration any closer to a resolution of that vexing problem. Instead, the president closed the discussion with a rather lame directive that the State Department "review with Pakistan at an appropriate time a minimum level of desired military assistance." ₄₄ But who was to determine when the "appropriate time" was at hand?

Pakistan's unsettled political picture certainly militated against broaching such a potentially explosive issue. "To imply any weakening of US support for [the] military program at this time," argued Hildreth, "might have [a] seriously adverse effect on [the] position [of the] leadership on which we depend for [a] pro-US policy." ₄₅ Although Mirza remained Pakistan's strongman, having assumed the new position of president under the constitution finally adopted in March 1956, and Ayub remained the dominant figure within the military, the country was anything but stable. On September 8, 1956, the Chaudhri Mohammed Ali ministry fell after being rocked by a series of popular demonstrations against the regime's pro-Western policy. The international crisis that followed Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser's nationalization of the Suez Canal in July had unleashed a torrent of latent popular resentment against the central government's foreign policy orientation, making Ali's continuance in office untenable. Over 300,000 protesters attended one angry meeting at Lahore, the largest such gathering since partition, and much to the dismay of U.S. analysts called for the withdrawal of Pakistan from the British Commonwealth, SEATO, and the Baghdad Pact. ₄₆

American experts paid close attention to these signs that the forces of neutralism were gaining strength in Pakistan. "Alignment with the West," a State Department report cautioned, "cannot be taken entirely for granted." ₄₇ Rather, an interdepartmental intelligence estimate predicted in November 1956 that the government "will be under increasing popular pressure to de-emphasize its ties with the West and demonstrate its independence of `Western domination.' " ₄₈

The same report offered a grim assessment of Pakistan's future prospects. "At least over the next few years," it predicted, "Pakistan will remain basically unstable, plagued by serious differences of interest and outlook between the two parts of the country, by a dearth of responsible leaders, by weak political institutions, and by widespread frustration and discontent, particularly in East Pakistan." Given Pakistan's highly charged domestic scene, most U.S. specialists concurred that any reduction in the U.S. military commitment might serve only to feed the flames of discontent and resentment toward a leadership whose open alignment with the United States had brought little in the way of tangible material reward to most of the populace. ₄₉

Only a few years after the inception of its military assistance program in Pakistan, then, the Eisenhower administration found itself supporting not a true nation in any meaningful sense but a ruling group, and one whose base of support remained as shaky as it was narrow. The gulf between rulers and ruled, not an unknown phenomenon in the developing world, assumed staggering dimensions in Pakistan. Inheriting responsibility for the construction of a modern state from the most unpromising beginnings, Pakistan's leadership cadre faced obstacles that almost certainly dwarfed those experienced by other developing societies. Divided into two distinct halves that were separated by over one thousand miles of a hostile neighbor's territory, with a bewildering array of ethnic, provincial, linguistic, and religious cleavages on top of its massive refugee and security problems, Pakistan's rulers faced a nation-building struggle of epic proportions. Pakistan's quest for stability and cohesion--for viability as a nation, essentially--turned in great measure on its leaders' ability to provide a sense of national purpose while simultaneously building a state structure that would meet the divergent needs of a population that shared little beyond a common religious affiliation. And Islam, as the Pakistani elite and Western specialists alike realized, could not by itself provide Pakistan with a raison d'être.

The principal strategy adopted by Pakistan's ruling group as it sought to navigate the treacherous shoals of state formation was the cultivation of a powerful external patron. With the conclusion of the mutual defense agreement with Washington in May 1954, that strategy was of course crowned with success. A more fundamental question must be asked, however, about the relationship between the alliance with the United States and the process of state building in Pakistan: did the infusion of American military and economic support hasten to any significant degree the establishment of stable and effective institutional structures in Pakistan? Substantial evidence points, in fact, to the opposite conclusion. During these early years, American aid, rather than facilitating the creation of a viable nation in Pakistan, may actually have impeded the process.

U.S. military assistance privileged one sector of a developing society--the armed forces--at the expense of all others; it encouraged excessive spending on military equipment, troop support, and defense infrastructure out of all proportion to the nation's real security needs; and it generated irresistible internal pressure for still greater military spending, spending which inevitably came at the expense of crucial economic development priorities in one of the world's poorest countries. The military aid program also emboldened Pakistani leaders to ignore or postpone domestic and security dilemmas that they might otherwise have been forced to address. In foreign affairs, any possibility of a rapprochement with India and Afghanistan, however modest, became increasingly less likely after the mutual assistance agreement with Washington. Yet such an easing of tensions could in turn have lessened Pakistan's crippling military burden, thus enabling its policymakers to invest more resources in the economy. Internally, the pact with the United States allowed Pakistan's rulers to neglect indefinitely some of the nation's most fundamental problems, especially the relationship between the western and eastern sections of the country. Until the conflicts inherent in such an unprecedented national arrangement could be resolved to the mutual satisfaction of each of the country's geographically, ethnically, and linguistically diverse halves, the issue would hang like a lethal sword threatening Pakistan's very survival as a nation. American aid, which bolstered the position of the predominantly West Pakistani bureaucracy and military, just worked to exacerbate rather than ease that basic underlying tension. ₅₀

To a surprising degree, U.S. officials themselves recognized many of the pitfalls inherent in the American aid programs for Pakistan. The Prochnow committee exercise, numerous embassy, MAAG, and International Cooperation Administration (ICA) reports, and various NSC debates testify to a keen awareness on the part of a growing number of administration officials that U.S. economic and military aid brought a range of undesirable consequences for Pakistan--and for the United States. An unusually detailed assessment by the ICA, circulated on February 1, 1957, summarized these adroitly. "Present military and economic aid programs are out of balance," it noted bluntly, "and are not satisfactorily designed to accomplish our purposes." The United States was supporting a large military establishment in Pakistan, numbering over 180,000 men, that was proving counterproductive to the establishment of a viable state structure. "The armed forces presently consume nearly 70 percent of current central government revenues," the report estimated, "and monopolize a disproportionate share of the country's talents and skills, which are thus unavailable to the nation-building program." As a result, the military did not contribute positively to Pakistan's nation-building effort. To the contrary, "overemphasis on the size and equipment of the armed forces threatens the development of the longer-range political, economic and even military strength of the country." The ICA acknowledged that the United States, which had encouraged Pakistan to develop military strength beyond its capacity to support, bore considerable responsibility for this unfortunate state of affairs. ₅₁

American aid, moreover, had done little to alleviate the grinding poverty from which most Pakistanis suffered. Indeed, the report noted that per capita income in Pakistan amounted to a mere $53 per year, just over 2 percent of the per capita income enjoyed by the United States. American officials needed to realize that in a country plagued by such desperate economic conditions, in which average life expectancy stood at only thirty years and in which human and material resources were severely circumscribed, U.S. aid was contributing only marginally to the material advancement of the average Pakistani. The ICA appraisal concluded that major modifications in American assistance programs were required, including the sharp reduction of U.S. defense support, but it added that the "maximum application of U.S. political and diplomatic influence" would be necessary to gain Pakistani acceptance of those changes. ₅₂

Any balance sheet on the Pakistani-American relationship must of course also consider the other side of the ledger. The alliance with Pakistan, for all of its problems and contradictions, was not without benefits to the United States. Sorely in need of reliable allies in the Third World, Washington could almost always count on Pakistan following its lead on matters of international consequence. During the Bandung Conference of nonaligned nations in April 1955, Prime Minister Mohammed Ali Bogra earned Washington's gratitude by stoutly defending the United States against all attacks from more hostile quarters. Pakistan voted with the United States consistently in the UN and other international forums, offered repeated public backing for the broad goals of American foreign policy, and stood by the United States during such critical periods of international tension as the twin Hungary-Suez crises of mid-1956. It did so even when, in the case of the latter dispute, Pakistan's leaders found themselves sharply at odds with popular sentiment. Karachi's adherence to two U.S.-sponsored alliance systems designed to contain Soviet power--SEATO and the Baghdad Pact--also won it admirers in Washington. Even if both alliance systems were more symbolic than substantive, Pakistan's willingness to "stand up and be counted" at a time when so many developing states in Asia and the Middle East shunned identification with the United States bolstered its stature among many American planners. ₅₃

But the burdens imposed by the Pakistani alliance during these early years far outweighed any tangible benefits that it provided. Eisenhower's characterization of the military commitment to Pakistan as a "terrible mistake," although unusual in its bluntness, is most telling. Nearly all administration analyses of the military assistance program in Pakistan during 1956 and the early months of 1957 concluded on the same note: that the costs of the commitment strained American resources without yielding any significant dividends for the United States. The original rationale for concluding a defense agreement with Pakistan had long since proved a mirage. Only during ritualistic appeals to Congress for a continuance of the military assistance program did administration spokesmen even make reference to plans for Pakistan supplying troops to help defend the Middle East. Admiral Radford sounded less than convincing when he told a skeptical Senator J. William Fulbright in May 1956 that "if we had an invasion in the Middle East by the Russians, the Pakistani troops would undoubtedly be an important part of the defensive force in that area." ₅₄ It is doubtful that Radford or any other Pentagon planner truly took the idea seriously at that time.

American planners had, since the late 1940s, identified Pakistan as a potential strategic asset for another reason. They calculated that Pakistan's geographical proximity to the Soviet Union could make it a valuable site for the establishment of military bases or intelligence facilities. But Pakistan had resisted all overtures by U.S. officials in this regard during the original negotiations about the terms of the mutual security agreement. Whenever American representatives broached the subject in subsequent years Pakistani authorities made it clear that political circumstances would not permit negotiations regarding U.S. bases. American defense and intelligence officials found it hard to take no for an answer. The development by mid-1956 of the U-2 reconnaissance aircraft raised anew, especially within the intelligence and defense communities, the possibility that Pakistan's geographic location might render it a superb site from which to launch aerial surveillance of the Soviet Union. Much critical evidence relating to this sensitive subject remains classified; available information, however, suggests that Pakistani leaders discouraged any such overtures until early 1958. ₅₅

By the middle of 1957 the Pakistani-American alliance seemed less a strategic or political asset than a blunder and a burden. That judgment appears sound when the alliance is viewed purely in a bilateral context. When the angle of vision is broadened to include the impact of the alliance on the American position in South Asia as a whole, and especially on U.S.-Indian relations, such a negative assessment becomes almost unavoidable.

Eisenhower, Dulles, and other senior administration officials fully recognized that the decision to provide Pakistan with military assistance would precipitate a further deterioration in Indo-American relations. They were right. The months following announcement of the aid decision were punctuated by a series of minor and not-so-minor irritants. As already noted, Nehru angrily demanded the immediate withdrawal of U.S. personnel from the UN's peacekeeping mission in Kashmir. He also refused permission for U.S. aircraft engaged in an airlift of supplies to embattled French forces in Indochina to utilize air facilities in, or to overfly, Indian territory. The biting sarcasm in the prime minister's public comments about the United States, long a cause of consternation for Americans inside and outside the government, intensified. He blasted the United States repeatedly for its militaristic approach to world affairs, a charge repeated and embellished in the increasingly venomous Indian press. Even so routine an event as a visit to India in the summer of 1954 by Vice-Admiral Jerauld Wright, commander of U.S. naval forces in the eastern Mediterranean, engendered petty displays of pique. Ambassador Allen told Wright that Indo-American relations were not sufficiently friendly to warrant his requesting the Indian government's clearance for the entry of the USS Pittsburgh, Wright's flagship vessel. The State Department subsequently noted that the vice-admiral "received only the bare minimum of the customary courtesies from the Indian officials he encountered." ₅₆

On April 9 a State Department analysis expressed the hope that "the acute phase of Indian mistrust gradually might subside as the various ill effects of U.S. military aid to Pakistan feared by Indian opinion failed to materialize." It identified India's continuing interest in U.S. economic aid as a key barometer which indicated that the present chill in relations might be but a passing storm. ₅₇ That assessment echoed an estimate issued by the intelligence community three months earlier which predicted that military aid for Pakistan was unlikely to cause any permanent damage to the Indo-American relationship. India "would almost certainly seek to avoid a clear-cut break with the US and its allies," the intelligence services had asserted confidently, since India depended on the West for markets and economic aid. Moreover, for idealistic and self-interested reasons New Delhi would almost certainly continue to follow a foreign policy of nonalignment; U.S. experts ruled out the possibility that India might seek common cause with the Soviets or Chinese. ₅₈ In short, leading administration specialists were agreed in the period preceding the military commitment to Pakistan, and in the months following the decision, that a certain degree of Indian indignation and fury not only should be expected but could be tolerated--without inflicting any mortal wounds on an already troubled relationship. "We can ride out the storm," Dulles had assured Eisenhower, "without fatal effect on U.S.-Indian relations." ₅₉

By the end of 1955, however, almost two years after Eisenhower notified Nehru of the impending U.S.-Pakistani military agreement, the storm showed few signs of subsiding. If anything, it seemed to grow in intensity, beclouding all aspects of Indo-American relations. The negotiation of an air-transit agreement that would allow U.S. commercial carriers continued access to Indian airspace, ordinarily a routine diplomatic matter, dragged on inconclusively throughout 1954 and 1955. More seriously, Nehru attacked American-sponsored collective security pacts "with unusual bitterness." The Asian countries that joined SEATO degraded themselves by becoming camp followers of the United States, he exclaimed. The Baghdad Pact's members were similarly duped by the United States into joining an organization that would only promote regional "discord and conflict." ₆₀

Early in 1955 U.S. and Indian officials locked horns on yet another emotionally charged dispute, centered this time on the activities of the U.S. Information Agency (USIA) within India. That agency, according to guidelines set down in Washington, sought to promote cultural understanding between the two nations and to explain and generate support for U.S. foreign policy through a series of educational and informational programs. Nehru found the line between education and propaganda exceedingly thin. He accused the Eisenhower administration of subsidizing individuals and newspapers in India that criticized openly the government and its policies, a charge with some foundation. Through a spokesman, the prime minister complained to Ambassador John Sherman Cooper, Allen's successor, that the United States purposely sought to undermine him before the Indian people. The tempest soon blew over, as the amiable and astute Cooper, a former Republican senator from Kentucky, deftly managed to ease some of Nehru's more exaggerated suspicions. Nonetheless, the Indian leader refused to retract his accusation entirely and ordered that all USIA posts outside the major cities of New Delhi, Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras be closed down. Indian experts in Washington realized that the flap bespoke a deeper problem; it grew from the "difference between US and Indian foreign policies and [the] Prime Minister's resentment [of] US efforts [to] spread knowledge in India of [the] basic assumptions and tenets [of] US policy." ₆₁

A State Department review of mid-1955 described U.S.-Indian relations as "rather low" in comparison to those obtaining with other noncommunist countries. The persistence of nettlesome bilateral disputes troubled the department's specialists in NEA and SOA, some of whom began to wonder if the United States had not underestimated the likely fallout from the arms deal with Pakistan. Of greatest concern to India-watchers at Foggy Bottom, however, were the mounting indications that New Delhi might be shifting its international orientation in the wake of the U.S. military agreement with Pakistan. ₆₂

U.S. officials, who monitored closely India's relations with China and the Soviet Union, found ample evidence to support the view that such a shift was indeed underway. Throughout 1954 and 1955 they expressed grave concern with what seemed to be unmistakable signs that India was forging closer ties with both communist states. New Delhi and Beijing resolved their differences over Tibet with the conclusion of a Sino-Indian treaty in April 1954. Two months later Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai made a highly publicized trip to India that made manifest the easing of tensions between the two Asian nations. American analysts noted with unease the rhetoric of cooperation and friendship that became the hallmark of the visit. Nehru's return visit to China in November aroused U.S. suspicions even more. CIA Director Allen Dulles twice began the intelligence briefings that opened most of the NSC's weekly meetings with observations about the "many overtones and undertones" of the Indian leader's China trip. ₆₃ The State Department noted that "basic clashes in ideology and social and economic systems between India and Communist China" set limits on Sino-Indian amity. Nonetheless, it feared that a "rapprochement" was underway that represented "a set-back to our objectives with regard to India." ₆₄

U.S. officials detected even more ominous portents in Indo-Soviet relations. As Bowles and other critics of the Pakistani-American alliance had predicted, the Soviet Union responded quickly to the opportunities that pact opened by mounting an aggressive campaign designed to woo India. Promises of economic assistance combined with loans offered at easy credit terms formed the centerpiece of Moscow's new strategy. Late in 1954 the Soviets offered to help construct and finance a large steel mill at Bhilai, a development project long sought by Indian leaders. This Soviet "economic offensive," as they tagged it, alarmed U.S. officials. They worried that it marked a subtle, and potentially effective, shift in the Kremlin's Cold War strategy. ₆₅

They were right. Stalin's successors had jettisoned the rigid "two camps" theory that had characterized the late premier's stance toward the Third World, adopting in its stead a much more flexible and imaginative approach aimed at strengthening ties between Moscow and the leading nonaligned states. The new approach grew from the calculation that closer relations between the Soviet Union and the nonaligned nations could reduce the effectiveness of the West's anticommunist alliance systems, dilute Western influence throughout the Afro-Asian world, and at the same time demonstrate that the Soviet Union had become a truly global power. India, the largest and most influential of the neutralists, and a nation nursing a host of grievances against the United States, appeared to offer the Soviets an unusually promising opportunity for gaining a Third World foothold. ₆₆

U.S. analysts from the first appreciated that Soviet economic enticements to India were part of a reformulated global strategy rather than just an isolated phenomenon. They were acutely aware as well of India's centrality to that larger strategy. On May 12, 1955, Allen Dulles told the NSC that the Soviet Union was attempting nothing less than to gain the leadership in India's drive to industrialize. Unless means could be found for India to acquire from the United States the steel mill that it desired, he ventured that the Indian leadership seemed inclined to accept the Soviet offer. Disturbed by the director's report, Eisenhower suggested that the administration might encourage private investors in the United States to help finance the Indian steel mill. At any rate, the president requested that he be kept informed about this important new development. ₆₇

Nehru's high-profile visit to Moscow in June 1955 served to intensify American fears and suspicions about the developing Indo-Soviet relationship. For days before his arrival, the Soviet press had built up the Indian leader with an unprecedented crescendo of praise. The huge crowds that turned out to welcome Nehru upon his arrival in Moscow, combined with the thunderous applause that greeted his every public appearance and the generous accolades heaped upon the Indian visitor by his fawning hosts, all spoke volumes about the heightened importance being accorded India by the Kremlin's new rulers. ₆₈

Whatever it may have accomplished in terms of his broader quest for international peace and understanding, Nehru's Soviet tour did little for his image with the American public. "Nehru Likes Any Color Just So Long as It's Red," screamed an editorial in the Detroit Free Press. "The Prime Minister of an avowed Red satellite, with Moscow's noose around his neck, could be no more obliging nor have a greater look of unquestioning servility," the newspaper declared contemptuously. ₆₉ "He has sided officially with the enemies of this country," averred columnist Constantine Brown in the Washington Star. ₇₀ Even the generally pro-Indian New York Times censured Nehru for his evident pro-Soviet turn. "He is surely too intelligent a man not to realize that in espousing the Soviet cause he can only antagonize the American side of the balance," it commented. "He said as he took off from Moscow: `I am leaving part of me behind.' We might be forgiven for thinking he also left a part of his common sense behind." ₇₁

As the direction and magnitude of the Soviet economic offensive became clearer in the months following Nehru's pilgrimage to Moscow, Eisenhower and his top advisers voiced mounting concern about the problems this unexpected shift in communist tactics posed for the United States. As so often occurred during the Eisenhower administration, the weekly NSC meetings became the principal forum within which different views were vented and debated. On November 15 Allen Dulles informed the council that the CIA had recently pieced together all available information concerning Soviet economic initiatives in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. Analyzed collectively, he said, these various moves revealed "a pattern of coordinated long-term and high-level operations designed to advance Communist influence in all these areas." In addition to India, Dulles identified the principal Soviet targets as Indonesia, Afghanistan, Burma, Iran, Syria, Turkey, and Lebanon. The CIA director contemptuously characterized the Russian promises of economic assistance as "political penetration in disguise." Although in their totality the offers remained relatively modest, Dulles acknowledged that they "had a very considerable impact on the position of the United States in these underdeveloped areas of world." Nixon, who presided over the meeting due to the president's recent heart attack, concurred; he commented that the Soviet economic offensive raised "very painful alternatives" for the United States. ₇₂

One week later, with a recovered Eisenhower presiding, the NSC again tackled this vexing issue. Allen Dulles opened the discussion by offering a tentative explanation for recent Soviet successes in the Third World. The developing countries, he suggested, "had been enormously impressed" by the rapid industrialization of the Soviet Union. Since many Third World regimes attributed Soviet economic success largely to the Communist system, "they drew the deduction that a Communist system would likewise prove most efficient in accomplishing their own industrialization." In addition, the intelligence chief noted that many Third World countries "believed that they could play off Soviet and U.S. assistance against one another." ₇₃

His comments set the stage for a broader discussion of how American foreign aid might effectively counter the Soviet economic offensive. Eisenhower chimed in that the administration's foreign aid budget should be increased substantially, since foreign-assistance programs were "the cheapest insurance in the world." The secretary of state and vice-president agreed. Although Secretary of Defense Charles Wilson and Secretary of the Treasury George Humphrey, the most conservative and budget-conscious of Eisenhower's cabinet members, cautioned against assistance that promoted socialism in foreign countries, the tenor of the meeting pointed toward an expanded use of foreign aid to counter the new Soviet strategy. "The scene of the battle between the free world and the Communist world was shifting," John Foster Dulles warned. "The United States and the free world must be prepared henceforth to meet much more serious Soviet economic competition." ₇₄

The highly publicized three-week visit of Soviet Premier Nikolai Bulganin and Communist Party Secretary Nikita Khrushchev to India in November and December 1955 made clear just how serious that competition was becoming. The two leaders, still uneasily sharing power in this early post-Stalin era, dangled attractive offers of economic aid in front of their Indian hosts, renewed their commitment to help construct the steel mill at Bilhai, discussed measures for increasing Indo-Soviet trade, and expressed a willingness to sell advanced military aircraft to India. During a brief stopover in Kashmir, the emotional high point of the trip, the Russian rulers theatrically pronounced unequivocal Soviet support for India's position in the dispute. It was a most impressive performance, even though little of a concrete nature came out of the visit other than India's agreement to purchase one million tons of steel from Moscow. The Soviet delegation was greeted throughout its stay by huge, boisterous crowds, including a memorable public appearance in Calcutta in which the visitors from Moscow were mobbed by a frenzied crowd of over two million. In private, Nehru warmly referred to "this feast of friendship between the Soviet leaders and the people of India." ₇₅ Khrushchev and Bulganin, who received exceptionally gracious hospitality from their Indian hosts, had every reason to view this venture into personal diplomacy as a foreign policy coup. ₇₆

U.S. observers certainly saw it that way. Ambassador Cooper said that the Soviets, who were openly challenging the West "to compete for India's friendship," would score an "impressive propaganda gain because they are presenting themselves to India as dynamic, cheerful, friendly, [and] robustly self-confident." In contrast, Indians increasingly saw the United States as "inconsistent, cool, and wavering." Cooper warned Washington that unless it quickly filled "vacuums" in its foreign aid program, Moscow would fill them. "This will in turn reduce the chance of helping India to remain in the free world." ₇₇ From outside the administration, Eugene Rostow, dean of the Yale University Law School, voiced the fear that the United States might be heading toward "a diplomatic Pearl Harbor" in India. ₇₈

The Bulganin-Khrushchev visit to India formed just part of a larger tour of the Third World that included trips to Afghanistan and Burma. At each stop, the eagerness of the two Soviet leaders to offer economic development assistance to noncommunist regimes confirmed the worst suspicions of U.S. policymakers. American analysts were convinced that the Soviet Union had chosen a new geographical locus for its Cold War struggle with the United States. Even more worrisome, Stalin's successors had evidently added a powerful new tactical weapon to their arsenal. A study commissioned by the White House called the Soviet economic offensive "a well-planned and integrated one--vigorous, selective and opportunistic"--that was "global in scope." The offensive's goal, in targeting countries such as India, was "to neutralize U.S. influence and undermine the Western politico-military position in areas adjacent to the [communist] Bloc." The United States, according to the report, now faced a grave political and strategic challenge: the Soviets aimed not only to undercut U.S. leadership and influence in the underdeveloped areas but in the process to undermine the Western alliance as well. ₇₉

Aggressive Soviet aid offers to India and other developing countries helped bring to the fore two long-simmering debates within the foreign policy and defense establishments. One concerned the relative importance of India to the United States; the other, intimately related to the first, concerned the appropriateness--and efficacy--of providing economic aid to neutral nations. On both issues the Eisenhower administration found itself sharply divided. Some senior officials tended to discount the strategic value of India. During an NSC discussion of the administration's overall national security policy back in December 1954, Treasury Secretary Humphrey argued that the United States should concentrate its resources in Western Europe, the Middle East, and Japan and not concern itself unduly with India's fortunes. It was a position subscribed to by a significant number of diplomatic and defense officials, even though few were willing to articulate it so bluntly as the caustic Humphrey. It was not a view shared by the president, however. Eisenhower immediately took issue with the budget-minded Humphrey's somewhat cavalier disparagement of India. "The domination of India by the USSR," he countered, "would be certain to cost us the entire Middle East." ₈₀ Despite his support for the Pakistani alliance, Eisenhower consistently expressed the view that India's orientation truly mattered to U.S. national security. An India aligned to the Soviet Union, he was convinced, would represent a political, strategic, and psychological catastrophe to the United States. ₈₁

Eisenhower, consequently, was far more willing to tolerate India's nonalignment than some of his subordinates. In the wake of the Khrushchev-Bulganin visit, he personally took the lead in proposing an expanded aid program for India. During a meeting of the NSC on December 8, 1955, the president suggested that the United States--"for its own good"--consider allocating more dollars to assist India's economic development. According to a record of the meeting: "The President said that he felt that it was clearly to the security advantage of the United States to have certain important countries like India strong enough to remain neutral or least `neutral on our side.' " Referring to the new tactics unveiled by the Soviets in their economic offensive, Eisenhower remarked that the United States "must be ready to adjust to changes in the [international] situation." Part of that adjustment, in his view, required a more imaginative and aggressive use of foreign aid. ₈₂

Skeptics within the executive branch posed a serious obstacle to such a policy reorientation, however. Walter S. Robertson, the conservative Richmond banker who served as Dulles's assistant secretary of state for Far Eastern Affairs, voiced a widely shared sentiment when he questioned the wisdom of providing India with any economic assistance. On November 18, 1955, Robertson lectured a group of State Department colleagues that the United States could not buy India's support. "In view of Mr. Nehru's consistent support of the Communist position and his opposition to U.S. policy," the assistant secretary argued, "U.S. aid would only build up an unfriendly government"; withholding aid and forcing India to recognize its dependence on U.S. support might ultimately prove a more effective tactic. ₈₃

Many Republican and Democratic lawmakers shared Robertson's misgivings about India. Indeed, more than any other recipient of American aid--with the possible exception of Yugoslavia--India served as a lightning rod for congressional critics of Eisenhower's mutual security program. During the president's first term in office, conservative legislators annoyed with Nehru's public criticisms of the United States and his flirtations with both the Soviet Union and China were instrumental in slashing the administration's aid requests each year. The intensification of anti-American feelings in India following the military pact with Pakistan just exacerbated the problem. As Eisenhower and Dulles well understood, suspicions about India's international orientation ran deep on Capitol Hill, posing a formidable impediment to any initiative aimed at increasing the U.S. economic assistance program there.

The extent of the problem can be glimpsed in the contentious Senate and House debates over India aid in the summer of 1955. The president had reduced his budget request for India to only $70 million in combined technical and developmental assistance for fiscal year 1956, in part to avoid the ugly clash that had marred the previous year's aid budget deliberations. But even that more limited sum drew impassioned attacks. Announcing his unalterable opposition to "coddling Nehru to get his goodwill," one Republican representative angrily asserted that the Indian leader "has completely gone over to the Russian camp." ₈₄ Another member agreed, charging that "Indian neutrality is entirely weighted in favor of communism." ₈₅ Senate Majority Leader Knowland echoed those complaints during a private meeting with Eisenhower and Dulles. "It would be bad," he cautioned, "if the impression got around the world that we reward neutralism." ₈₆ Those deeply held sentiments took their toll on the administration's request, resulting in a $20 million reduction in the funds allotted to India for fiscal year 1956. A futile effort by Senator Hubert Humphrey, probably India's strongest supporter on Capitol Hill, to restore just half of the funds originally earmarked for India was crushed by a 68-16 vote. ₈₇

With remarkable frankness, Senator Styles Bridges, the ranking Republican member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, later defended the budget cuts as appropriate punishment for India's "playing both ends against the middle." Foreign aid, he insisted, should be given only to countries willing to cooperate fully with the United States, a viewpoint that certainly resonated with many American voters. ₈₈ Indeed, a spate of articles and editorials appearing in the American press throughout this period raised pointed questions about India's true loyalties. The very titles of a representative sample of these stories--"Will India Go Communist?," "India: Russia's Dupe or Ally?," "The Neutral Mr. Nehru--Whose Side is He On?," "How Red is India?," "Leading Troublemaker for U.S.," "Red Wooing of India,"--offer richly suggestive clues to the negative public image India projected in Cold War America. ₈₉ Public and congressional disillusionment with India's international behavior was so widespread at this juncture that it rendered unrealistic any proposals for a major increase in U.S. economic aid as a means of countering Soviet overtures.

The dramatic Khrushchev-Bulganin journey to India once more brought such ideas to the fore, quietly setting in motion a wholesale reexamination by the Eisenhower administration of U.S. goals and tactics in South Asia. In the short run, however, the Soviet tour just aggravated the underlying problem by generating another round of mutual suspicions and recriminations. The sensitive Indians recoiled at the abusive comments heaped upon them by an American press that expressed near-uniform outrage with the accolades and red-carpet treatment showered upon the visitors from Moscow. Dulles, probably unwittingly, added fuel to the fire. Following a meeting with Portuguese Foreign Minister Paulo Cuñha, held coincident with the Khrushchev-Bulganin tour of India, the secretary of state carelessly referred to Goa as one of the "Portuguese provinces" in Asia. Since Indians deeply resented Portugal's unwillingness to surrender what they viewed as an anachronistic colonial enclave, their furious reaction to the American diplomat's insensitive words should have been anticipated. "Nothing could have been more calculated to irritate Indian opinion," Nehru commented privately, "than Mr. Dulles' amazing statement on Goa." ₉₀

N. R. Pillai, secretary-general of the Indian Ministry of External Affairs, bluntly informed the U.S. ambassador that the remarks by Dulles deeply offended Indians on a "grave" matter. Cooper cabled Washington that until the Goa controversy was defused, it would "make [the] betterment [of] relations improbable." ₉₁ On December 30, 1955, Indian Ambassador G. L. Mehta expressed great concern to Dulles about the feelings aroused in the United States by the Bulganin-Khrushchev visit and the feelings aroused in India by the Dulles-Cuñha communiqué. He said that something dramatic needed to be done to restore Indo-American ties and recommended that the secretary arrange a private meeting with Nehru. ₉₂

Cooper also recommended that a face-to-face conversation between Nehru and either Eisenhower or Dulles might help ease U.S.-Indian tensions, a recommendation seconded by the man he replaced, George Allen, who was now serving as the assistant secretary of state for NEA. The president found the proposal appealing. Several months earlier, he seriously considered responding positively to a personal request from Nehru to visit India. Convinced reluctantly by the State Department that the timing was not propitious for such a trip, in August 1955 Eisenhower extended an invitation to the Indian leader to meet with him in Washington at the earliest possible opportunity. ₉₃

Eisenhower's interest in arranging private talks with Nehru stemmed from the president's great faith in his own ability to overcome misunderstandings through the sheer force of his personality. It derived as well from a conviction that Nehru seemed "to be often more swayed by personality than by logical argument." ₉₄ Eisenhower thought he understood what made the Indian leader tick. "Underlying everything about Nehru," the president once speculated to a journalist, lies a "terrible resentment" of "domination by whites." He characterized the prime minister as "a strange mixture, intellectually arrogant and of course at the same time suffering from an inferiority complex . . . schizophrenia." ₉₅ That analysis of so complex and multifaceted an individual as Nehru may have been superficial, but it was one widely shared by diplomatic and intelligence experts in the United States. ₉₆ It pointed, moreover, in a clear direction, especially so in the wake of the emotions unleashed by the Soviet visit and the Goa communiqué. Until Eisenhower could himself sit down with the Indian leader--and a date for Nehru's arrival in the United States had by the end of 1955 still not been set--his top diplomat would have to suffice.

Dulles arrived in New Delhi on March 9, 1956, immediately after the conclusion of the second annual meeting of the SEATO Council, held at Karachi. His arrival, coming on the heels of a final communiqué by the SEATO Council that called for an early settlement of the Kashmir dispute, either through UN-sponsored or direct negotiations, could not have been more ill-timed. Nehru called the statement, in conjunction with the secretary's earlier remark about Goa, "singularly misconceived and harmful." ₉₇ Public opinion within India became so aroused that the government needed to take special steps just to insure Dulles's safety. During a two-day stay in New Delhi, the secretary of state and prime minister engaged in over five and a half hours of unusually frank discussions. "We really let our hair down," Dulles quipped afterward. ₉₈

Those talks did little to foster Indo-American understanding, however. Instead, they revealed once again just how far apart the United States and India stood on major international issues. The two statesmen disagreed on the need for regional security pacts, clashed in their assessments of recent developments in the Soviet Union, and aired widely divergent views about colonialism, communism, and nationalism. Nehru lectured his American visitor about the impracticality of Washington's nonrecognition policy toward Beijing, hardly a subject about which Dulles was prepared to compromise. For his part, the secretary of state implored Nehru not to purchase Soviet military aircraft. The longest and liveliest part of their discussion, and the one that sparked the prime minister's strongest words, centered on Pakistan. "The one distinct impression that I gained," Dulles wired the president,

is their almost pathological fear of Pakistan. I, of course, knew they did not like our alliance with, and armament program for, Pakistan, but I never appreciated before the full depth of their feeling. I had assumed that India with its greater population and economic strength would feel relatively immune from any serious threat. However, they feel that Pakistan, or at least West Pakistan, is essentially a military state, largely run by the Army, that they are a martial people, that they are fanatically dedicated to Islam and may develop the urge to attack India or at least to try to take Kashmir or parts of it by force. . . . I do not think we can alter our Pakistan relationship which is of great value, but I do think that we must try to handle it in ways which will give maximum assurance to India that our military aid will only be used for purely defensive purposes. ₉₉

Dulles's admission that he never really understood the reasons for the Indian furor over U.S. aid to Pakistan almost defies comprehension. If the talks with Nehru served no other constructive purpose, then, they at least made clear the depth of India's feelings about the Pakistani alliance. "The most we can expect out of his visit here," observed Nehru sarcastically, "is that he has got some idea into his rather closed head as to what we feel about various things." ₁₀₀ Jean Joyce, formerly attached to the U.S. embassy under Bowles and now a Ford Foundation representative in India, observed that Nehru sounded "as near to cold resentment as he's ever publicly been" after meeting with Dulles. "No one but no one thinks that [the] Dulles trip here did any good whatever in improving Indian attitudes toward the US or its policies," she wrote Bowles; "the only possible good that may have come out of the trip was that Dulles may have gotten at least a glimmer of the intensity of Indian feeling on arms to Pakistan and why they feel so." ₁₀₁

In the months that followed the Dulles visit, Indian foreign policy pulled back from its seeming gravitation toward Moscow and Beijing, opening the possibility of a genuine detente with Washington. Nehru reiterated publicly India's unwavering commitment to the principles of nonalignment, concluded an arms deal with Britain rather than the Soviet Union, criticized the Kremlin for its suppression of freedom fighters in Hungary, jousted with China over developments in Tibet and disputed portions of the Sino-Indian border, and accepted Eisenhower's invitation to visit Washington at the end of the year. Dulles's talks with Nehru bore little if any responsibility for the shift in Indian foreign policy. Rather, by the middle of 1956 a confluence of international and domestic developments had made Nehru more wary of international communism and more receptive to the United States. The prime minister was pleasantly surprised--and impressed--by the firm American stand against the Anglo-French misadventure at Suez. At the same time, the brutal Soviet move into Hungary coupled with China's heavy-handed actions in Tibet and its aggressive border claims in the Himalayas deeply distressed the former Gandhi disciple. Pragmatism also played a role. Nehru's economic advisers worried that rapidly evaporating foreign-currency reserves might subvert India's second five-year plan. If a true fiscal crisis occurred, they realized that it might become necessary to turn to Washington for assistance. ₁₀₂

The Eisenhower administration approached Nehru's second trip to the United States with great caution. Administration analysts were of course delighted with the shifting tenor of public pronouncements emanating from New Delhi. They appreciated the recent softening of Nehru's past criticisms of the United States and sensed a real opportunity for placing Indo-American relations on a surer footing. Former Ambassador Cooper, who had been reelected to the Senate the previous month, wrote Eisenhower in December 1956 that even though there still existed "great suspicion and disapproval of United States policies and objectives" among Indians, "the climate in India is more favorable than it has been at any time since World War II for making an advance in the relations of the two countries." ₁₀₃ The embassy in New Delhi similarly enthused about the opportunities presented by the Nehru visit. "We feel strongly," it cabled the State Department, "that [the] `moment of history' has arrived which if seized and exploited, can give US much firmer anti-Communist and anti-Red China counterpoise in India." ₁₀₄ Yet memories of the disastrous visit of 1949 lingered, serving to temper official expectations for this encounter.

communism and more receptive to the Un

Two critical issues, moreover, stood as formidable barriers to any genuine detente. The Pakistani alliance, as Dulles found out during his talks with Nehru in March, remained an emotional touchstone for India. Upon his return to Washington, the secretary considered providing India with direct information about the extent of U.S. arms shipments to Pakistan in the hopes that a full accounting would curb New Delhi's unfounded fears about its weaker neighbor. Vigorous objections from the U.S. embassy in Karachi, which forecast an explosive Pakistani reaction to such an initiative, led Dulles to drop the idea. ₁₀₅ The problems posed by the Pakistani alliance simply defied easy resolution. "U.S. military aid to Pakistan has been the chief cause of Indian animosity toward the United States," Cooper reminded Eisenhower. "They resent this aid because it causes them to expend their meager funds, desired for economic advancement, upon military supplies." ₁₀₆ On the eve of Nehru's arrival in Washington, Dulles observed shrewdly that one of the Indian's prime objectives during his stay would be "to reduce our military and political support of Pakistan." ₁₀₇ But could the United States accommodate that objective without at the same time harming its relationship with Pakistan?

U.S. economic aid to India, the other crucial issue, proved nearly as complex and just as nettlesome. Following Dulles's return from New Delhi, the State Department initiated a series of studies designed to identify means by which the United States could expand its contribution to India's second five-year plan. The subject gained urgency in the wake of the Soviet economic offensive in India and the president's expressed interest in counteracting Moscow's opportunistic offers of aid. Most U.S. officials concerned with South Asia shared Eisenhower's conviction that economic aid remained America's most effective instrument of influence. But the administration found it extremely difficult to forge a consensus on a discreet program. Divisions between, on the one side, officials at the embassy in New Delhi and in NEA who favored a substantial increase in the U.S. commitment to India and, on the other, Treasury Department analysts and State Department representatives from other bureaus who preferred a more cautious and modest approach plagued interagency deliberations throughout 1956. In the absence of a strong presidential directive, the issue simply drifted within the bureaucracy. ₁₀₈

In only one area did the administration make a significant new economic initiative in the months between the Dulles visit to New Delhi and Nehru's arrival in Washington. On August 29, 1956, the United States and India signed a PL 480 agreement under which Washington agreed to provide New Delhi with $360.1 million in surplus agricultural commodities over the next three years. That agreement provided an important boost to the Indian five-year plan. ₁₀₉ But in all other areas affecting economic ties between the two nations, bureaucratic stalemate blocked new initiatives. Too many officials found it inappropriate to reward India's neutralism. "It was extremely important," Nixon remarked at an NSC meeting in July, "that we not appear to court neutrals and to abandon our allies." ₁₁₀ Even those officials who approached the problem with greater flexibility worried that a sizable number of legislators shared Nixon's misgivings, a point driven home forcefully once again during recent congressional hearings on the foreign aid budget. Representative E. Ross Adair's amendment to the administration's mutual security bill, which called for the termination of all U.S. aid to India, had fallen only three votes shy of gaining majority support within the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. Plainly the reluctance of Congress to loosen its purse strings for a nation widely viewed as uncooperative and unfriendly imposed limits on what the executive branch could achieve with the carrot of economic assistance. ₁₁₁

The Eisenhower-Nehru meetings did not resolve either of these two core issues. As he did during his previous visit to the United States, Nehru devoted most of his attention to a broad tour d'horizon focused especially on East-West relations and regional trouble spots; he tended to avoid most issues of a purely bilateral nature. Consequently, he hardly mentioned India's economic difficulties and dwelt only briefly on the problems caused by U.S. military aid to Pakistan. The prime minister was more comfortable with sweeping philosophical ruminations about international affairs, a penchant that had exasperated the more businesslike Truman and Acheson. In Eisenhower, to his pleasant surprise, Nehru found a kindred soul who also delighted in discussions of the abstract. Their private discussions at Eisenhower's Gettysburg farm proved especially conducive to that type of exchange. Throughout several days of formal and informal meetings the two men relaxed, clearly enjoying each other's company to an extent that neither had anticipated. No breakthroughs occurred, nor should any have been expected. On the personal level, however, the talks must be termed a significant success. For all the policy disagreements aired during their discussions, Eisenhower came away with a more nuanced understanding of the Indian perspective on world affairs and Nehru returned home with a deeper respect for Eisenhower and the American leadership. ₁₁₂

On January 3, 1957, only two weeks after Nehru's departure, the NSC met to approve a new statement of policy toward South Asia, NSC 5701. The paper highlighted shifting U.S. perspectives toward the region. "The USSR," it said, "is engaged in a vigorous and open diplomatic, propaganda, and economic campaign to increase its influence in the area." India, a principal target of that activity, posed "an undeniable dilemma for U.S. policy." Its policy of nonalignment often brought India into conflict with the United States, and an India strengthened by U.S. economic assistance might become an even more powerful spokesman for positions that ran counter to U.S. interests. "Nevertheless," the paper stated clearly, "over the longer run, the risks to U.S. security from a weak and vulnerable India would be greater than the risks of a stable and influential India. A weak India might well lead to the loss of South and Southeast Asia to Communism. A strong India would be a successful example of an alternative to Communism in an Asian context." At present, it continued, assistance aimed at bolstering the second Indian five-year plan offered the United States its best opportunity for strengthening India and thus promoting that important policy goal. ₁₁₃

During the council's discussion of the paper, Humphrey raised his pet complaint about U.S. support for state-owned enterprises abroad. Eisenhower leaped to the bait, offering a vigorous endorsement of the policy set forth in NSC 5701. The fundamental objective of American foreign-assistance programs, he declared, was "to provide assistance to non-Communist governments to save them from Soviet domination. If we ourselves did not aid countries like India, we could be sure that Soviet Russia would do so." ₁₁₄

With those words, Eisenhower laid out the essential rationale for a major economic commitment to India, underscoring the analysis presented in NSC 5701. The actual scope and extent of the U.S. commitment would of course hinge on a number of imponderables: the precise nature of Soviet economic competition, India's specific needs in the context of its overall development plans, the president's ability to win congressional backing, and the likely impact of such a commitment on America's Pakistani ally. At Eisenhower's direction, an interagency task force began meeting in March 1957 to weigh those variables and to make specific recommendations regarding the timing, form, and amount of economic development assistance that the United States should supply to India. The president made it clear that he considered this matter of great importance and wanted the results of the study brought quickly to his personal attention. ₁₁₅

By early 1957 America's South Asia policy stood at a crossroads. Having weathered the gale-force storm that earlier threatened to overwhelm the Indo-American relationship, the Eisenhower administration now seriously contemplated an unprecedented financial investment in India's future. The implications of such a commitment were far-reaching. Having chosen Pakistan as a military ally, how could the United States now justify substantial economic assistance to its nonaligned rival? What impact might such a policy reversal exert on a Pakistani leadership that the United States had so carefully cultivated--and on other Third World allies who had stood up to be counted? The alliance with Pakistan of course daily grew more burdensome and more expensive. Voices within the administration, including Eisenhower's, had begun to question its efficacy. Yet no high-level official sought to terminate the Pakistani-American connection. Indeed, certain intelligence and defense specialists touted Pakistan as a prospective site for air bases and listening posts that might contribute significantly to U.S. surveillance of the Soviet Union. America's global interests, in short, pointed the administration's South Asia policy simultaneously in several different directions. Eisenhower and his advisers could not long postpone reaching a decision about which path to follow.

---

Note 1: Hildreth to Byroade, April 9, 1954, Military Aid to Pakistan 1954 folder, SOA Lot 57 D 462, DSR; Kennedy to Hildreth, April 15, 1954, Chronological File 1954 folder, ibid. Back.

Note 2: Meyers to the Department of the Army, April 2, 1954, 790D.00/4-254, DSR; Report by the JSPC, JCS 2099/397, July 16, 1954, CCS 092 (8-22-46), sec. 116, JCS Records; Hildreth to DOS, July 16, 1954, FRUS, 1952-54, 11, pt. 2:1855-56; OCB Progress Report, July 29, 1954, ibid., p. 1143. Back.

Note 3: Memcon between Jernegan and Pakistani Ambassador Amjad Ali, August 6, 1954, FRUS, 1952-1954, 11, pt. 2:1859-60; Hildreth to DOS, August 9, 1954, ibid., pp. 1860-63; Hildreth to DOS, August 24, 1954, 790D.5-MSP/8-2454, DSR; Makins to FO, October 16, 1954, FO 371/112307, PRO. Back.

Note 4: Record of conversation between Hildreth and Laithwaite, July 9, 1954, FO 371/112321, PRO; Hildreth to DOS, August 17, 1954, FRUS, 1952-1954, 11, pt. 2:1864-65; Hildreth to DOS, August 18, 1954, 790D.5-MSP/8-1854, DSR. Back.

Note 5: Hildreth to DOS, August 9, 1954, FRUS, 1952-1954, 11, pt. 2:1860-63. Back.

Note 6: Ibid., pp. 1861-63. Back.

Note 7: Dulles to Stassen, July 23, 1954, with enclosed NEA memo of July 13, 790D.5-MSP/7-2354, DSR; Dulles to the Embassy in Pakistan, August 20, 1954, FRUS, 1952-1954, 11, pt. 2:1865-67; report of the Heinz Mission to Pakistan, September 1954, Mutual Security Program FY 1954 folder, SOA Lot 57 D 462, DSR. Back.

Note 8: FRUS, 1952-1954, 12, pt. 1:672-79, 704-5, 758-61; Gary R. Hess, "The American Search for Stability in Southeast Asia: The SEATO Structure of Containment," in Warren I. Cohen and Akira Iriye, eds., The Great Powers in East Asia, 1953-1960 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990), pp. 283-85. Back.

Note 9: Acting Secretary of State Herbert Hoover, Jr., to the Embassy in Pakistan, October 22, 1954, FRUS, 1952-1954, 11, pt. 2:1869-71; Hoover to Eisenhower, October 15, 1954, ibid., pp. 1867-68; Byroade to Hoover, October 20, 1954, 790D.5-MSP/10-1054; Radford to the Army Chief of Staff, October 21, 1954, CCS 092 (8-22-46), sec. 122, JCS Records. Back.

Note 10: Memcon between Dulles and Bogra, October 18, 1954, FRUS, 1952-1954, 11, pt. 2:1868-69; memcon between Bogra and Stassen, 790D.5-MSP/10-1854, DSR; DOS memo, "Official Visit of Prime Minister Mohammed Ali of Pakistan," October 1954, 611.90D/10-1454, DSR. Back.

Note 11: NYT, October 5, 1954, p. 1 and October 10, 1954, p. 73; Venkataramani, American Role in Pakistan, p. 275. Back.

Note 12: Makins to Eden, October 23, 1954, FO 371/112307, PRO. Back.

Note 13: NYT, October 4, 1954, p. 26. Back.

Note 14: DOS memo, "Official Visit of Prime Minister Mohammed Ali." Back.

Note 15: Emmerson to DOS, September 29, 1954, 790D.00/9-2954, DSR; Acting Secretary of State Walter B. Smith to the Embassy in Pakistan, September 24, 1954, 790D.00/9-2254, DSR; Dulles to the Embassy in Pakistan, September 24, 1954, 790D.5-MSP/9-2254, DSR; Emmerson to DOS, September 29, 1954, 790D.00/9-2954, DSR; Smith to the Embassy in Pakistan, October 1, 1954, 790D.00/9-2954, DSR; Dulles to the Embassy in Pakistan, October 4, 1954, 790D.00/9-2954, DSR; Emmerson to DOS, October 6, 1954, 790D.00/10-654, DSR. Back.

Note 16: Jalal, State of Martial Rule, pp. 191-92; Venkataramani, American Role in Pakistan, pp. 272-77; Dulles to the Embassy in Pakistan, November 26, 1954, 611.90D/11-2654, DSR. Back.

Note 17: Quoted in Time 64 (November 8, 1954):32; and Philip Deane, "The Men Who Really Run Pakistan," The Reporter 12 (January 27, 1955):30. See also J. D. Murray, Acting High Commissioner in Pakistan to CRO, December 10, 1954, DO 35/5406, PRO. Back.

Note 18: DOS to the Embassy in Pakistan, February 2, 1955, 611.90D/2-255; memcon between Hildreth and Bogra, November 2, 1954, 790D.00/11-254, DSR; memcon between Hildreth and Ghulam Mohammed, November 4, 1954, 790D.00/11-254, DSR; Mohammed Ayub Khan, Friends Not Masters: A Political Autobiography (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967), pp. 51-53; Venkataramani, American Role in Pakistan, pp. 278-80; Deane, "The Men Who Really Run Pakistan," pp. 30-34. Back.

Note 19: Dulles to the Embassy in Pakistan, November 26, 1954, 611.90D/11-2654, DSR. Back.

Note 20: DOS to the Embassy in Pakistan, February 2, 1955, 611.90D/2-255, DSR. Back.

Note 21: NIE 52-55, "Probable Developments in Pakistan," March 15, 1955, FRUS, 1955-1957, 8:423-25; Hoover to the Embassy in Pakistan, March 5, 1955, ibid., pp. 421-22; Hildreth to DOS, February 25, 1955, 790D.13/1-2555, DSR. Back.

Note 22: Memo of discussion at NSC meeting, January 13, 1955, NSC Series, WF, DDEP, DDEL. Back.

Note 23: Memo of discussions at State-JCS meeting, January 14, 1955, FRUS, 1955-1957, 8:410-12. Back.

Note 24: Hildreth to DOS, January 8, 1955, 790D.5-MSP/1-855, DSR; Hildreth to DOS, November 18, 1954, 790D.5-MSP/11-1854, DSR; Hildreth to DOS, December 12, 1954, 790D.5-MSP/12-1254, DSR; Hoover to the Embassy in Pakistan, December 18, 1954, 790D.5-MSP/11-1254, DSR. Back.

Note 25: Memo by Hensel, February 17, 1955, FRUS, 8:418-20. Back.

Note 26: Report by the JSPC to JCS, March 24, 1955, CCS 092 (8-22-46) (2), sec. 6, JCS Records; MAAG Chief in Pakistan to the Department of the Army, February 17, 1955, sec. 3, ibid.; JCS 2099/569, February 14, 1956, sec. 24, ibid.; JCS Historical Section, "The Evolution of the Attitudes, Thinking, and Planning of the Joint Chiefs of Staff with Regard to U.S. Military Assistance to Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Indochina, Taiwan, Korea, and Thailand," July 11, 1957, B.P. Part 17, ibid. Back.

Note 27: Memcon between Hildreth, Mirza, and Ayub, March 29, 1955, 790D.5-MSP/3-3155, DSR. Back.

Note 28: Memcon between Hildreth and Bogra, March 30, 1955, FRUS, 1955-1957, 8:425-27. Back.

Note 29: Hildreth to DOS, ibid., pp. 430-32; Hildreth to DOS, August 12, 1955, ibid., pp. 434-35; Hildreth to DOS, August 26, 1955, ibid., pp. 435-37; Brig. Gen. Rothwell H. Brown, Chief of the Army Section, MAAG, to Hildreth, August 27, 1954, 790D.5-MSP/8-2755, DSR; OCB Progress Report, August 24, 1955, NSC 5409 folder, Policy Papers Subseries, NSC Series, SANSA Records, DDEL. Back.

Note 30: Jalal, State of Martial Rule, pp. 202-12; Sir Alexander Symon, High Commissioner in Pakistan, to CRO, August 17, 1955, DO 35/5406, PRO. Back.

Note 31: Report by the Joint Committee on Programs for Military Assistance, "Military Aid for Pakistan," September 2, 1955, JCS 2099/512, CCS 092 Pakistan (8-22-46), sec. 14, JCS Records; Major General Robert Cannon, Special Assistant to the JCS, to Radford, November 23, 1955, CJCS 091 Pakistan, Chairman's Files, ibid.; Arthur Z. Gardiner, Chargé in Pakistan, to DOS, October 1, 1955, FRUS, 1955-1957, 8:442-43. Back.

Note 32: Hildreth to DOS, August 26, 1955, FRUS, 1955-1957, 8:435-37; Hildreth to George Allen, Assistant Secretary of State, NEA, August 6, 1955, SOA General 1955 folder, SOA Lot 57 D 462. Back.

Note 33: Gardiner to DOS, September 15, 1955, ibid., pp. 437-39. Back.

Note 34: Fisk to DOS (dispatch), October 4, 1955, 790D.5-MSP/10-455, DSR; Fisk to DOS (cable), October 4, 1955, FRUS, 1955-1957, 8:444-45; Brown to Brig. Gen. John K. Wilson, Jr., Chief of the Office of Military Programs, OASD/ISA, November 18, 1955, CJCS 091 Pakistan (8-22-46), Chairman's Files, JCS Records; MAAG Chief, Pakistan, to the Secretary of Defense, November 19, 1955, CCS 092 (8-22-46), sec. 20, ibid. Back.

Note 35: Hoover to the Embassy in Pakistan, November 12, 1955, 790D.5-MSP/11-1244, DSR; MAAG Chief, Pakistan, to the Department of the Army, November 11, 1955, CCS 092 (8-22-46), sec. 20, JCS Records. Back.

Note 36: Hoover to Gordon Gray, Assistant Secretary of Defense, ISA, November 5, 1955, FRUS, 1955-1957, 8:446-48; Hoover to the Embassy in Pakistan, November 12, 1955, ibid., pp. 449-50; Hildreth to the Embassy in Pakistan, October 12, 1955, ibid., pp. 445-46; memo of discussion at NSC meeting, October 6, 1955, NSC Series, WF, DDEP, DDEL; Allen to Hoover, October 20, 1955, 790D.5-MSP/10-2055, DSR. Back.

Note 37: Hildreth to DOS, December 6, 1955, 790D.5-MSP/12-655, DSR; Hildreth to Chaudhri Mohammed Ali, December 7, 1955, 790D.5-MSP/12-1555; Radford to Secretary of Defense Wilson, December 7, 1955, CCS 092 (8-22-46), sec. 21, JCS Records; Hildreth to E. Perkins McGuire, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, ISA, November 11, 1955, 790D.11/11-1155, DSR; Gardiner to DOS, November 16, 1955, 790D.5-MSP/11-1655, DSR. Back.

Note 38: Hoover to Dulles, March 9, 1956, FRUS, 1955-1957, 8:459-60; Hildreth to the Embassy in Pakistan, May 19, 1956, ibid., pp. 460-61; Allen to Dulles, March 23, 1956, 790D.5-MSP/3-2356, DSR. Back.

Note 39: Report to the NSC by the Interdepartmental Committee on Certain U.S. Aid Programs, June 19, 1956, NSC 5610 folder, Policy Papers Subseries, NSC Series, SANSA Records, DDEL. See also Radford to Secretary of Defense Wilson, November 16, 1956, ibid; Prochnow to Dulles, July 26, 1956, FRUS, 1955-1957, 10:85-87. Back.

Note 40: Ibid. Back.

Note 41: Quoted in General Maxwell Taylor, Army Chief of Staff, to Radford, July 26, 1956, CJCS 091 Pakistan, Chairman's Files, JCS Records. Back.

Note 42: Memo of discussion at NSC meeting, October 26, 1956, FRUS, 1955-1957, 10:124-33; Radford to Wilson, November 21, 1956, NSC 5610 folder, Policy Papers Subseries, NSC Series, SANSA Records, DDEL. Back.

Note 43: Memo of discussion at NSC meeting, January 3, 1957, FRUS, 1955-1957, 8:25-28 and FRUS, 1955-1957, 19:397. Back.

Note 44: Ibid.; NSC 5701, January 10, 1957, ibid., pp. 29-43. Back.

Note 45: Hildreth to DOS, November 19, 1956, FRUS, 1955-1957, 8:475-76. Back.

Note 46: Jalal, State of Martial Rule, pp. 234-35, 255-56. Back.

Note 47: William Witman of SOA to Rountree, October 15, 1956, 790D.11/10-1556, DSR. Back.

Note 48: NIE 52-56, "Probable Developments in Pakistan," November 13, 1956, FRUS, 1955-1957, 8:473-75. Back.

Note 49: Ibid. Back.

Note 50: The fullest and most persuasive analysis of this problem can be found in Jalal, State of Martial Rule. See also Richard Sisson, "Pakistan and U.S. Foreign Policy Formulation: Interest, Perception, and the Context of Choice," in Leo Rose and Noor Husain, eds., United States-Pakistan Relations (Berkeley: University of California Institute of East Asian Studies, 1985), pp. 124-25; and Aswini K. Ray, Domestic Compulsions and Foreign Policy: Pakistan in Indo-Soviet Relations (Delhi: Manas, 1975), pp. 67-68. Back.

Note 51: ICA Report, "Evaluation of Pakistan Program," February 1, 1957, 790D.5-MSP/4-1557, DSR. On Pakistan's defense burden, see also JCS 1887/347, March 20, 1957, CCS 381 EMMEA (11-19-47), sec. 56, JCS Records. Back.

Note 52: ICA Report, "Evaluation of Pakistan Program." Back.

Note 53: OCB Progress Report, August 24, 1955, NSC 5409 folder, Policy Papers Subseries, NSC Series, SANSA Records. Back.

Note 54: Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Executive Sessions (1956) 8:295. Back.

Note 55: Hildreth to DOS, December 13, 1955, FRUS, 1955-1957, 8:452-53; Venkataramani, American Role, pp. 329-33; Michael R. Beschloss, Mayday: The U-2 Affair (New York: Harper and Row, 1986), pp. 144-46. Back.

Note 56: Dulles to the Embassy in India, April 9, 1954, 611.91/4-954, DSR; Dulles to the Embassy in India, July 13, 1954, 611.91/7-1354, DSR; D. J. C. Crawley to Sir Saville Garner, September 29, 1954, DO 35/112212, PRO. Back.

Note 57: Dulles to the Embassy in India, April 9, 1954, 611.91/4-954, DSR. Back.

Note 58: SE-55, January 15, 1954, FRUS, 1952-1954, 11, pt. 2:1839-45. Back.

Note 59: Dulles to Eisenhower, undated memo (mostly likely written on January 5, 1954), Meetings with the President 1954 folder, White House Memoranda Series, Dulles Papers, DDEL. Back.

Note 60: Dulles to the Embassy in India, June 21, 1955, 611.91/6-2155, DSR; Dulles to the Embassy in India, November 1, 1954, 611.91/11-154, DSR; Donald Kennedy, Chargé in India, to DOS, April 1, 1955, 791.13/4-555, DSR; Allen to Bowles, February 3, 1955, folder 10, box 118, Bowles Papers; Allen to DOS, August 18, 1955, 611.91/8-1854, DSR. Back.

Note 61: Hoover to the Embassy in India, May 28, 1955, FRUS, 1955-1957, 8:284-86; ibid., pp. 279-84, 286-88. Back.

Note 62: Dulles to the Embassy in India, June 21, 1955, 611.91/6-2155, DSR. Back.

Note 63: Memoranda of discussions at NSC meetings, October 14 and November 9, 1954, NSC Series, WF, DDEP, DDEL; William J. Barnds, India, Pakistan, and the Great Powers (New York: Praeger, 1972), pp. 135-41; Gopal, Nehru, 2:194-95, 226-32. Back.

Note 64: Dulles to the Embassy in India, November 1, 1954, 611.91/11-154, DSR. Back.

Note 65: OCB Progress Report, August 24, 1955, NSC 5409 folder, Policy Papers Subseries, NSC Series, SANSA Records, DDEP, DDEL. Back.

Note 66: Stein, India and the Soviet Union, pp. 32-46; Horn, Soviet-Indian Relations, pp. 3-7; Francis Fukuyama, "Soviet Strategy in the Third World," in Andrzej Korbonski and Francis Fukuyama, eds., The Soviet Union and the Third World: The Last Three Decades (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1987), pp. 25-28. Back.

Note 67: Memo of discussion at NSC meeting, May 12, 1955, NSC Series, WF, DDEP, DDEL. Back.

Note 68: NYT, June 8, 1955, p. 1 and June 12, 1955, IV, p. 5. Back.

Note 69: Detroit Free Press, June 25, 1955. Back.

Note 70: Washington Star, June 27, 1955. Back.

Note 71: NYT, June 24, 1955, p. 22. See also New York Post, June 23, 1955. Back.

Note 72: Memo of discussion at NSC meeting, November 15, 1955, FRUS, 1955-1957, 10:28-31; briefing paper prepared in SOA, FRUS, 1955-1957, 8:275-76; DOS paper, October 3, 1955, FRUS, 1955-1957, 19:123-25. On the important impact of the Soviet economic offensive on U.S. thinking about foreign aid, see Burton I. Kaufman, "The United States Response to the Soviet Economic Offensive of the 1950s," Diplomatic History 2 (Spring 1978):153-65; Burton I. Kaufman, Trade and Aid: Eisenhower's Foreign Economic Policy, 1953-1961 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982), pp. 58-73. Back.

Note 73: Memo of discussion at NSC meeting, November 21, 1955, FRUS, 1955-1957, 10:32-37. Back.

Note 74: Ibid. Back.

Note 75: Gopal, Nehru, 2:253; Nehru, "Note on Visit of Bulganin and Khrushchev," December 20, 1955, JN: LCM, 4:309-25. Back.

Note 76: For summaries and analyses of the visit, from which this account has been drawn, see CRO to various diplomatic posts, December 28, 1955, FO 371/123587, PRO; G. H. Middleton, Acting High Commissioner in India to CRO, January 23, 1956, ibid.; Escott Reid, Canadian High Commissioner to the Canadian Foreign Office, December 3, 1955, ibid.; Escott Reid, Envoy to Nehru (London: Oxford University Press, 1981), pp. 133-43. Back.

Note 77: Cooper to DOS, November 25, 1955, FRUS, 1955-1957, 8:298-300; Hoover to the Embassy in Pakistan, December 17, 1955, ibid., p. 61; Dulles remarks, January 6, 1956, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Executive Sessions, 8:21; Merrill, Bread and the Ballot, p. 117. On Cooper's tenure as ambassador, see Douglas A. Franklin, "The Politician as Diplomat: Kentucky's John Sherman Cooper in India, 1955-1956," The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society 82 (Winter 1984):28-59. Back.

Note 78: Jones to Allen, November 21, 1955, India 1955 folder, SOA Lot 57 D 462, DSR. See also Bowles to Milton Eisenhower, November 21, 1955, 891.00/11-2155, DSR. Back.

Note 79: DOS memo, "The Nature and Problems of Soviet Economic Penetration in Underdeveloped Areas," February 29, 1956, Dulles-Herter Series, WF, DDEP, DDEL. Back.

Note 80: Memo of discussion at NSC meeting, December 21, 1954, FRUS, 1952-1954, 2, pt. 1:837-39. Back.

Note 81: See, for example, memcon between Eisenhower and Staff Assistant Andrew Goodpaster, November 29, 1955, DDE Diaries, WF, DDEP, DDEL. Back.

Note 82: Memo of discussion at NSC meeting, December 8, 1955, FRUS, 1955-1957, 10:44-64. See also memo of discussion at NSC meeting, January 18, 1956, ibid., pp. 64-68; memcon between Eisenhower, Wilson, and Radford, March 13, 1956, ibid., 19:338-40. Back.

Note 83: Memcon between Robertson, Murphy, and others, November 18, 1955, ibid., 8:296-98. Back.

Note 84: Remarks of Representative Usher L. Burdick, June 29, 1955, Congressional Record, House, 84th Cong, 1st sess., 9536. Back.

Note 85: Remarks of Representative Alvin M. Bentley, June 29, 1955, ibid., p. 9478. Back.

Note 86: Notes of Bipartisan Legislative Meeting, May 3, 1955, Legislative Meeting Series, WF, DDEP, DDEL. Back.

Note 87: Congressional Record, Senate, July 22, 1955, 84th Cong., 1st sess., 11285-93. On the broader problem of congressional opposition to aid for India, see also Dulles to the Embassy in India, January 20, 1956, FRUS, 1955-1957, 8:304; Bowles to Douglas Ensminger, Ford Foundation representative in India, November 18, 1955, folder 202, box 131, Bowles Papers. Back.

Note 88: NYT, September 14, 1955, p. 16. Back.

Note 89: Vera Micheles Dean, "Will India Go Communist?" Foreign Policy Bulletin 33 (October 1, 1953):4, 8; "India: Russia's Dupe or Ally?" U.S. News and World Report 35 (October 16, 1953):35-37; "The Neutral Mr. Nehru--Whose Side is He On," ibid., 36 (October 29, 1954):78-81; Robert Sherrod, "How Red is India?" Saturday Evening Post 226 (April 3, 1954):28-29; "Leading Troublemaker for U.S.," U.S. News & World Report 38 (February 25, 1955):4; "Red Wooing of India," Business Week (February 26, 1955):141-42. Back.

Note 90: Nehru, "Note on Visit of Bulganin and Khrushchev," December 20, 1955, JN: LCM, 4:324. Back.

Note 91: Cooper to DOS, December 11, 1955, India--Misc. folder, International Series, WF, DDEP, DDEL; Consulate in Madras to DOS, December 9, 1955, 611.91/12-955, DSR; Gopal, Nehru, 2:251-52; Ensminger to Bowles, December 26, 1955, folder 202, box 131, Bowles Papers; Ensminger to Paul Hoffman, December 26, 1955, India--Misc. Correspondence folder, Paul Hoffman Papers, HSTL. Back.

Note 92: Memcon between Dulles and Mehta, December 30, 1955, 611.91/12-3055, DSR. Back.

Note 93: Cooper to Eisenhower, July 30, 1955, Dulles-Herter Series, WF, DDEP, DDEL; Eisenhower to Nehru, August 1, 1955, ibid.; memcon between Eisenhower and Goodpaster, November 29, 1955, DDE Diaries, ibid.; Allen to Dulles, July 29, 1955, FRUS, 1955-1957, 8:290-91; Byroade to Dulles, November 4, 1954, FRUS, 1952-1954, 11, pt. 2:1772-73; Allen to DOS, November 12, 1954, ibid., pp. 1778-79. Back.

Note 94: Eisenhower to Dulles, March 23, 1955, FRUS, 1955-1957, 8:278. Back.

Note 95: Memcon between Eisenhower and Malcolm Muir of Newsweek, May 25, 1955, Ann C. Whitman Diary, WF, DDEP, DDEL. Back.

Note 96: See, for example, Brig. Gen. Richard Collins, Deputy Director for Intelligence, the Joint Staff, to JCS, September 11, 1956, CJCS 091 India, Chairman's Files, JCS Records. Back.

Note 97: Nehru to Chief Ministers, March 14, 1957, JN: LCM, 4:350. Back.

Note 98: Dulles to Eisenhower, March 11, 1956, FRUS, 1955-1957, 8:309; editorial note, ibid., pp. 65-66; DSB 36 (March 19, 1956):447-49; Gopal, Nehru, 2:272-75. Back.

Note 99: Dulles to Eisenhower, March 11, 1956; memcons between Dulles and Nehru, March 9 and 10, 1956, FRUS, 1955-1957, 8:306-8; Dulles to DOS, March 10, 1956, ibid., pp. 66-67; memo of legislative meeting, March 22, 1956, Legislative Meetings Series, WF, DDEP, DDEL; Nehru to Chief Ministers, March 14, 1956, JN: LCM, 4:350-52. Back.

Note 100: Gopal, Nehru, 2:274. Back.

Note 101: Joyce to Bowles, March 24, 1956, folder 356, box 141, Bowles Papers. Back.

Note 102: Gopal, Nehru, 2:272-99. Back.

Note 103: Cooper to Eisenhower, December 13, 1956, Nehru folder, International Series, WF, DDEP, DDEL. Back.

Note 104: Frederic C. Bartlett, Chargé in India, to DOS, December 7, 1956, FRUS, 1955-1957, 8:319-25. See also DOS, Briefing Paper for Nehru Visit, December 12, 1956, India folder, Subject File, CF, White House Central Files, DDEL; "Briefing Book for Nehru Visit," December 1956, ibid. Back.

Note 105: Allen to Dulles, March 23, 1956, 790D.5-MSP/3-2356, DSR; memcon between Dulles and Makins, May 1, 1956, FRUS, 1955-1957, 8:74-75. Back.

Note 106: Cooper to Eisenhower, December 13, 1956. Back.

Note 107: Dulles to Hoover, December 12, 1956, FRUS, 1955-1957, 8:326. Back.

Note 108: FRUS, 1955-1957, 8:311-18; Bartlett to DOS, October 28, 1956, 891.10/10-2856, DSR; Hoover to the Embassy in India, November 19, 1956, 891.10/10-2956, DSR; John Sherman Cooper OH Interview, May 11, 1966, Dulles OH Collection, Dulles Papers. Back.

Note 109: FRUS, 1955-1957, 8:318; Merrill, Bread and the Ballot, pp. 129-30. Back.

Note 110: Memo of discussion at NSC meeting, July 12, 1956, FRUS, 1955-1957, 10:82-83. Back.

Note 111: House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Executive Sessions (1956), 13:379-80, 438-47; Congressional Record, House, June 8, 1956, 84th Cong., 2d sess., 9879-87; and Senate, June 29, 1956, 11392. Back.

Note 112: For memoranda of the Eisenhower-Nehru meetings, see FRUS, 1955-1957, 8:327-40. See also memo of telephone conversation between Eisenhower and Dulles, December 19, 1956, White House Telephone Conversations, Dulles Papers, DDEL; Gopal, Nehru, 3:40-42. Back.

Note 113: NSC 5701, FRUS, 1955-1957, 8:29-43. Back.

Note 114: Memo of discussion at NSC meeting, ibid., pp. 22-23. Back.

Note 115: Rountree to Dulles, February 4, 1957, 791.5-MSP/2-457, DSR; Clarence B. Randall, Special Assistant to the President, to Humphrey, April 15, 1957, 891.00/4-2457, DSR. Back.

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The Cold War on the Periphery