CIAO DATE: 05/02

Georgetown Journal of International Affairs

Volume 1, Number 2, Summer/Fall 2000

 

South Asia Goes to Washington
by Howard Schaffer ^*

 

President Clinton’s recent visit to South Asia, Indian Prime Minister Atul Behari Vajpayee’s planned trip to Washington later this year, and the dramatic dash last year of then–Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif have underscored the greater attention America has paid to the region following nuclear testing in India and Pakistan. For me, they also recalled the spate of journeys that a bevy of South Asian leaders made to the United States in the early 1980s.

During a period of less than two years, between July 1982 and June 1984, no fewer than five heads of government traveled from South Asia to the United States and elsewhere in the country to confer with President Ronald Reagan and other leaders and to make a case to them, the media, and the American public about the importance of their countries–and themselves–to the well–being of the United States. They included an internationally renowned prime minister (Indira Gandhi of India), a couple of authoritarian generals (President Zia Ul–Haq of Pakistan and Chief Martial Law Administrator Hussain Mohammed Ershad of Bangladesh), a democratically elected chief executive (President Junius Richard Jayewardene of Sri Lanka), and a monarch with real, rather than symbolic, power (King Birendra of Nepal). As Deputy Assistant Secretary in the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs, it was my lot to plan the visits of this odd collection and to ensure that they were implemented in a way that strengthened U.S. interests and sent the leaders back to their homelands at least reasonably pleased with their experiences.

It is not easy to explain why this minor avalanche of South Asian rulers was allowed to descend on Washington in those early Reagan years. The continuing Soviet occupation of Afghanistan was no doubt key to the invitation of Prime Minister Gandhi and General Zia. The newly–elected Reaganites had moved swiftly in 1981 to revive Washington’s largely defunct security ties with the Pakistanis and embolden them to stand fast as a frontline state bordering an expanded, and possibly expanding, Soviet empire. India had greeted these strengthened U.S.–Pakistani relations with angry dismay that easily outstripped the concern it expressed over the Soviet invasion that had brought them about. High on the list of Indian complaints was the American decision to provide Pakistan with weapons systems as sophisticated as F–16 aircraft and heavy tanks. Even Indians troubled by their government’s complacence concerning the presence of Russian troops in Kabul recognized that the Pakistanis were much more likely to use these U.S. arms against India than in battle against Soviets coming through the Khyber Pass.

By the spring of 1982, however, signals from New Delhi clearly indicated to us that Prime Minister Gandhi had concluded that there was nothing much her government could do to dissuade the Reagan administration from providing military assistance and political backing to Pakistan. She let it be known that she would welcome the opportunity to repair ties by coming to Washington on an official visit. We were told that she was prepared to make the journey before undertaking a similar visit to Moscow, whose special relationship with New Delhi may by then have become a little too close for her non–aligned comfort. The fact that Mrs. Gandhi had gotten along remarkably well with the president when they met at an international economics conference in Cancun the previous year was helpful in selling the idea in Washington, where committed right–wing Reaganites had little love for a tough lady they suspected of pro–Communist leanings. In any event, an invitation was soon on its way and a visit was scheduled for July 1982.

As it was inconceivable that the leader of unhelpfully non–aligned India could come to Washington absent a similar visit by the president of the key country in the fight against consolidation of Soviet power in Afghanistan, General Zia of Pakistan also got an invitation. The prospect of that state visit was not greeted with universal rejoicing at the State Department. Zia’s authoritarian military rule, his hanging of the predecessor he had deposed, and his adoption of Islamic principles of governance and punishment were seen as a source of trouble, especially in the public relations aspect of the visit. (In fact, the general was greeted by unfriendly demonstrators in several cities.) His trip was put on the presidential calendar for December 1982, but was announced at the same time as Prime Minister Gandhi’s. We did not want anyone to think, even briefly, that we were cold–shouldering the Pakistanis or that the Zia trip was an afterthought.

At the time, and in retrospect as well, the Indian and Pakistani summit visits made sense. Mrs. Gandhi’s trip moved the difficult U.S.–Indian bilateral relationship beyond the problems sparked by their respective reactions to the Afghanistan issue. It also provided the occasion for the settlement of a nasty dispute over the provision of U.S. nuclear fuel to Indian reactors that had bedeviled ties for years. The prime minister’s uncharacteristic reluctance to criticize U.S. policy in the course of her trip, the effective use she made here of her senior standing on the international stage, and her considerable charm all smoothed the way for better bilateral relations during her remaining two years in power. Zia’s trip, in turn, proved a valuable opportunity for the Reagan administration to consolidate our once again robust security and political relationship with Pakistan, if not also to deal with such underlying problem areas as its nuclear program and its human rights record. The visit was also a fitting occasion for us to honor a leader who for all his faults had been willing to stand up to the Soviets–while extracting for this a price the administration was quite prepared to pay. Somewhat like Mrs. Gandhi, the Pakistani president was also able to come across to Americans as a more attractive personality than his reputation had suggested he was. This, too, benefited bilateral ties.

But what about the visits by the leaders who trooped to Washington from the smaller South Asian countries, none of which had any plausible claims to major importance to American interests? How did the Nepalese king, the Sri Lankan president, and the chief martial law administrator of Bangladesh manage to wrangle much sought–after trips to Washington from the Reagan administration?

The origin of King Birendra’s visit is a fascinating example of the way a small country’s ambassador can make a mark in official Washington if he knows how to play his limited hand. As such, it deserves more detailed treatment than it has received in print before.

In 1982, Nepal was represented in Washington by Ambassador Bhekh Thapa–a small, round–faced, engaging man then in his early forties. Thapa had been educated in the United States, spoke idiomatic American English fluently, and had worked closely with many U.S. officials as minister of finance before his Washington assignment. Charged by his government with arranging a royal visit, he made that his top priority.

When Ambassador Thapa first expressed to me his interest in a visit, I told him I could not support him. I was then seeking State Department and White House approval for the Indian and Pakistani visits. Only when these were nailed down could I offer any help. Even then, I said, the odds would be strongly against an invitation. Three South Asian summiteers in a short span of time was probably more traffic than could be beared. Nepal was, in any event, nowhere near the top of the administration’s list of countries with which it wished or needed to strengthen ties.

Undeterred, Ambassador Thapa set to work, and once the Gandhi and Zia trips were scheduled, I, too, did what I could to help move a royal visit forward. My own efforts generally produced little more than amused reproach for what seemed to be excessive “clientitis” on my part. I did succeed in getting the Near East–South Asia bureau to send up a favorable recommendation for the trip to the Executive Secretariat of the State Department. But this, I believe, was because my bureau colleagues had no other suitable candidates.

Thapa, meanwhile, was following a different approach. It soon became evident to me that he saw Washington as a larger, more complicated version of the royal court in Kathmandu. Here, as there, what had to be done to gain an objective was to befriend those “courtiers” who could be helpful. These, he perceived, could be found in Washington mostly at the White House. Through what would later come to be called effective networking, Thapa managed to develop relations with a number of key players including Reagan confidante Helene Von Damm, National Security Adviser William Clark, and Attorney General Edwin Meese.

Much impressed, I fed Thapa ideas that I thought he could use in persuading these and other senior administration figures to support Birendra’s visit. I recall suggesting, for example, that the idea of a king coming to the White House from a remote Himalayan monarchy might well appeal to an administration headed by a one–time Hollywood actor with a taste for the romantic.

I was sitting at my State Department desk one morning when Thapa called to tell me the good news. The White House had approved the king’s visit and would shortly be informing the Department. I quickly phoned the Executive Secretariat to alert them. I was asked in reply what strange drinking habits I had picked up during my extensive South Asian assignments, then rudely told not to waste their time with such fantasies. A couple of hours later I received another call. It was the Executive Secretariat phoning to arrange the first planning meeting for the king’s visit.

The visit eventually took place in late 1983 and went off very well. Although the king failed to get the U.S. military aid that he sought, he made a great splash in Washington and elsewhere. It was evident throughout the visit that Americans’ fascination with South Asian monarchs, particularly young ones who spoke with apparent sincerity about bringing democracy to their countries, extended well beyond Hollywood types.

The glamour of the king’s journey was heightened by another Thapa stratagem. He had shrewdly named a number of rich and prominent Americans to be honorary Nepalese consuls general in cities Birendra was to visit. Delighted to be participating in a royal progress, they put on glittering receptions and dinners for the king, at no expense to the Nepalese exchequer. One of them was Mrs. Murchison, co–owner of the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys. Fortuitously, the king visited Texas on the weekend the Cowboys were playing the Washington Redskins, in those years a key NFL match–up. Amid great publicity, he and the queen sat in the owner’s box for the game, which Birendra, who had spent a year as a Harvard undergraduate, seemed to vaguely understand. Before the king headed south, Vice President George Bush, noting his own ties to both Dallas and Washington, had suggested in a luncheon toast that he follow Nepal’s longstanding policy of non–alignment when attending the gridiron classic. He did so. (The Redskins won handily.)

Although the visits of Jayewardene of Sri Lanka and Ershad of Bangladesh also owe something to the hustle of their respective ambassadors, they seem to have found their way onto Reagan’s schedule, mostly because it was fairly open at the time. Jayewardene was then something of a poster–boy among Third World leaders. He had reinvigorated democracy in Sri Lanka following the repressive measures of his predecessor and had instituted a free market approach to economic policy that was much admired in Washington. His pro–Western tilt within the bounds of Sri Lankan non–alignment also won him much praise here. Unfortunately for Jayewardene, by the time he came to the United States some of the sheen had worn off his government. He had forced through a constitutional amendment to extend his term in office and had badly handled the murderous rioting between the country’s two major ethnic groups that had occurred a year before his visit took place in June 1984. The Tamil insurgency that these disturbances had helped spark became the major subject of the exchanges during the Washington talks, when Jayewardene sought unsuccessfully to persuade the Reagan administration to provide him with arms to defeat the rebels.

Ershad’s visit was billed as “official–informal.” This afforded him less protocol and fewer bells and whistles than the other South Asian leaders received. As Chief of Staff of the Bangladesh army, Ershad had overthrown the elected government of the country a few years earlier. The decision to receive him for a brief visit in October 1983 that took up relatively little of the administration’s time was a way of demonstrating its interest in the poorest countries of the world and support for their economic development. It was not meant to be an endorsement of Ershad’s military regime, though of course the general tried to spin it that way. He, too, sought American arms, with no more success than Birendra and Jayewardene, but won some credit from the administration for volunteering to cancel scheduled meetings with officials whom he knew had become preoccupied with the invasion of Grenada and the blowing up of the Marine barracks in Beirut. These distracting, contemporaneous events limited to the barest minimum the publicity Ershad received in the American media.

In sum, the five visits seemed to achieve relatively little in terms of concrete agreements and significant policy initiatives. They were more meaningful in the effect they had in shaping the environment in which policy is formulated. This was particularly true in the case of the Gandhi and Zia visits. The visits of the leaders of the smaller countries were, not surprisingly, less consequential. Although the Thapa’s trip was by far the most glittering of the journeys, its impact was evanescent. Like a well–choreographed pageant, it was impressive when it was staged. But it would be hard to argue that it left much behind either in the minds of policymakers or in lasting public impressions.

As I quickly discovered, for those who plan and execute such visits there is no end to the challenges. Some of these are, of course, predictable and routine: the seemingly unending preparation of scope papers, speeches, memoranda, and talking points; decisions about whom the visitors should see, when, and with whom; and the planning of the itinerary outside of Washington following the conclusion of the “official” portion of the trip. But unexpected problems also inevitably crop up. I faced plenty of these. Mrs. Gandhi wished to present a baby elephant to the Honolulu Zoo. We all thought that was a wonderful idea until we learned that the Indians expected the U.S. government to pay for sending the beast and its attendant by air from Madras to Hawaii. (After much wrangling, the honorary Indian Consul General, a wealthy Hawaiian of Indian descent, agreed to pick up the tab.) President Jayewardene also presented an elephant, in his case to the National Zoo. He saw it as a way to gratify a Republican administration. Unfortunately for the Sri Lankans, the elephant soon died, prompting a public relations disaster.

Jayewardene also faced problems elsewhere. He told of a childhood fascination with the people he called “Red Indians,” and to his delight, we arranged for him to visit a reservation in New Mexico. There he found himself the target of an impassioned plea by a tribal chief for support for the tribe’s claim to autonomy from the United States. For the leader of a country facing something of a similar call at home, it was a singularly inappropriate demand.

Jayewardene’s was the final trip in the South Asian cycle. It was also the last state visit by a foreign leader to Washington before President Reagan began his campaign for re–election. The White House dinner Reagan hosted in honor of his Sri Lankan visitor was a particularly glamorous affair. Reagan was at his affable best, and, at Jayewardene’s request, Frank Sinatra had been invited to entertain the guests. He sang a Jayewardene favorite, “I Did It My Way.” It was an appropriate song to conclude a series of visits that followed a fixed format, but were singularly individual in the manner in which they were carried out.

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Endnotes

Note *:   Howard B. Schaffer is former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs, former U.S. Ambassador to Bangladesh, and Director of Studies at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Georgetown University. Back.