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FOREIGN RELATIONS: Reading the Tea Leaves

5 minute read
TIME

With the delicate, fragrantly bland character of a pot of jasmine tea (which isn’t everybody’s dish), India’s exotic Nehru poured himself—rosebud and all —into the nation’s teacup, there for all to sniff and sip. After leaving Ike, he drove to the National Press Club to face Washington’s tough newsmen, was introduced irreverently as “the mystical man in the middle.” His 45-minute performance was admirable: deft, quiet, elusive, charming, and at times, productive: Items:

Q: What message did he deliver to Ike from Red China’s Chou Enlai? A: “Complaints” against the U.S.

Q: What would happen to Nationalist China should Red China be admitted to the U.N.? A: “The Formosa government is not China . . . whatever else it is. It is Formosa, and to call it China is slightly stretching language.”

Q: Is it wrong for the free nations of the world to recognize Chiang Kai-shek’s government? A: “Surely, you don’t expect me to be rude to anybody.”*

Q: Do Russia and China form a single Communist bloc? A: “No sir, not at all.”

Q: What of U.S. foreign policy? A: “It is a flexible policy adapting itself to circumstances … It is not as rigid as I thought.”

Q: What of Russia’s future? A: Russia is “passionately desirous of peace … is slowly moving towards democratization and liberalization . . . [Stalinism and Marxism are outdated, and anyone who thinks otherwise] is not living in the present.”

Soft & Slumbrous. Whisking into Manhattan, Nehru was the honor guest at an honest-to-gaudy, cushy stag luncheon for 500 bigwigs and local politicos given by Mayor Robert Wagner (who valiantly intoned that “You do us signal honor . . . on your brief sojourn,” solemnly proposed a toast to “the President of India”). He got his ear bent by loquacious Governor Averell Harriman, who introduced the Prime Minister to pin-neat Tammany Hall Boss Carmine De Sapio (“Carmine—I was just telling the Prime Minister here about you . . .”). His balding head glistening, the flower in his buttonhole lazily depetaling, Nehru wadded his white handkerchief in his hand, rose to deliver softly a slumbrous sermon (viz., leadership must compromise, else it becomes defeated) that was as uninformative as it was long (and brought evident drowsiness to a few of his neighbors, including chief foreign-policy lieutenant, Krishna Menon).

But it was soon clear that Nehru had only been waiting for his tea to steep. On his first night in Manhattan he went before the United Nations General Assembly and poured it on—5,500 words. Eloquently, he dwelt (as he often does) on his recollections of Mohandas Gandhi: “Now, the major lesson that Mr. Gandhi impressed upon us was how to do things, apart from what we did … how to proceed in attaining an objective … so as not to create a fresh problem in the attempt to solve one problem: never to deal with the enemy in such a way as not to leave a door open for friendship, for reconciliation.”

Pacts & Peace. Then Nehru left the India he knows so well and wandered piously into the wide, wide world, coming to a rude stop right on the cornerstone of the U.S. foreign-policy attempt to build defenses against a predatory Communist world.

“Cold wars,” said he, “mean nourishing the idea of war in the minds of men. If we go on nourishing the idea . . . then obviously there is always the danger of its bursting out from the minds to other activities. Therefore I submit to you that this idea of cold war is essentially, fundamentally wrong. It is immoral. It is opposed to all ideas of peace and cooperation . . . We have, as we know, all kinds of military alliances. It is not for me, especially on this occasion, to criticize . . . Nevertheless … all these pacts and alliances are completely out of place. I would go a step further. They are unnecessary, even from the point of view of those people who have those pacts and alliances.

“If it is our objective, as it must be . . . that we must have peace, then it follows necessarily that we must not have cold war. If we must not have cold war, then it follows necessarily that we must not buttress our idea of peace by past military establishments and pacts and alliances. All this seems to me to follow logically. We have seen and we know that the presence of foreign forces in a country is always an irritant; it is never liked by that country; it is abnormal. Therefore this maintenance of armed forces all over the world on foreign soil is basically wrong, even though such maintenance is with the agreement of the countries concerned … I know that it can be said that all this involves risk . . . For my own part, I am quite certain there is no risk.”

Slaves & Sniff. The speech was astonishing, not only because Nehru carries on an unrelenting, bristling cold war against India’s neighboring Pakistan, but because he saw no difference between regimentation and freedom, no difference between attack and defense, no difference between peace at any price and peace with justice.

Before Nehru left New York for a brief visit to Canada, he was buttonholed by New York’s aging, retiring, liberal Senator Herbert Lehman, who broached “a matter that has troubled me and many other Americans who are otherwise disposed to be friendly with India.” Said Lehman: “I have long wondered why you do not make a moral distinction between the U.S., which has helped free many nations, and the Soviet Union, which has enslaved many nations.”

Sniffed India’s Jawaharlal Nehru, the mystical man in the middle: “Comparisons are odious.”

*Unfettered by restraints, Nehru told a press conference in Ottawa three days later that the U.S. eventually will have to recognize the “facts of life” about the Chinese Communists. Said he: “There can be no settlement in Asia without [Communist] China having its say.”

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