INDIA: The Rainmakers

In the hospitable air, rent with cheers and scented with roses, Nikita Khrushchev grew expansive. “I have seen reports which say that we have come here with a motive—for the purpose of exploiting things,” he said with a broad Slavic smile. “I would say to these people that we are quite willing to compete with them for the friendship of India.” With all the talent, affability and wile at their command, Soviet Communism’s two traveling salesmen plunged into the competition last week. In legislative halls and banquet rooms, at ancient shrines and new construction projects, in plush drawing rooms and crowd-crammed streets, with merry quips, tough speeches and promises tossed out like rose petals, they wooed the great uncommitted mass (1,140,000 sq. mi.) and minds (356,891,-624 people) of the world’s second most populous nation. With their mission less than half done, the anti-Communist Times of India was moved to admiration: “Bulganin and Khrushchev have the commercial salesmen of the West beaten to a frazzle.”

Ovation in the Ears. Everywhere Premier Bulganin and Communist Party Boss Khrushchev turned, they found their path carpeted, their coming heralded, their audience assembled and coached, their selling task made easier by the energetic, almost rapt ministrations of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and his government. Although Indian law bars foreigners from addressing a session of the Parliament, Nehru provided one next best thing, an informal joint sitting of both houses.

Reading only the first and last paragraphs and leaving the rest to be read out in Hindi by a sweating interpreter, Bulganin and Khrushchev used the forum for a combined 90-minute assault on the Western democracies. “The spirit of Geneva causes indigestion to certain persons,” cried Khrushchev. “Certain circles in some states are still trying to follow the notorious policy … of threats by atomic weapons …”

With the ovation of India’s legislators ringing in their ears, the two Soviet leaders ventured jovially into the countryside. Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko and another aide stayed behind to talk economic deals. Bedizened with flower garlands, they sloshed through fruit-juice and colored-water toasts; they kissed babies, rode gingerly atop lumbering elephants, released white doves, clowned in beaded hats and white Gandhi caps, allowed vermilion paste to be smeared across their proletarian foreheads, sat glumly with Nehru while they were made honorary Boy Scouts. They politely disregarded Neutralist Nehru’s insistence that India is with neither bloc in the cold war; repeatedly the Russians described India as their “ally,” and often they talked less like salesmen than like benign senior partners down on an inspection trip.

Unmissed Bets. Two hundred miles north of New Delhi, their special train came to India’s proudest engineering project, the huge Bhakra dam. The Indian government had tacked up huge red banners bearing the slogan chosen by Nehru’s government for the Soviet visit—”Indians and Russians Are Brothers”—and for two days had assailed the public by loudspeaker to provoke them into a rousing demonstration. But the principal host at Bhakra proved to be an American, Construction Expert Harvey Slocum. one of the builders of Grand Coulee Dam. Under contract to the Indian government, Slocum and a group of 50 U.S. construction men are supervising the Bhakra project.

Punjab officials described him as “American adviser to the 300 Indian engineers building the dam.” and Slocum’s 50 U.S.

aides are classified as “workmen without education.” Bulganin and Khrushchev peered into the dam’s 680-ft. chasm, then turned to Slocum.

“We needed and got American aid at the beginning of the new Russia,” Khrushchev remarked, “but now we are competing with you and will soon surpass you.”

“Competition is fine by us,” said Slocum unperturbedly. “It helps progress.” Khrushchev tried another approach: “Your job here must be very difficult.” Slocum grinned. “You want to change jobs with me?” “All right,” Khrushchev replied, “but first you Americans must lift your Iron Curtain. I can give you a passport to my country but cannot get a passport to yours.” Bulganin broke in with the new refrain: “We are not your enemies. We want to be your friends.” As the two visitors moved on, Slocum said, “That guy Khrushchev doesn’t miss any bets.” Throwing Out Garbage. Over partridge and curry at the tented table of a maharaja, Bulganin and Khrushchev received a pair of 200-year-old, gem-encrusted swords. Khrushchev grasped his sword and lunged oratorically forward like a Cossack on charge. “We were born 38 years ago, and 14 states, including the United States, sent forces against us,” he cried. “We did not sit with folded hands but took up the sword.” His sword sliced the air in a defiant arc. “We threw the invaders out of our country like a good housewife throwing out garbage.” The sword went into its scabbard. “I will not say who is responsible for your economic backwardness,” said Khrushchev, suddenly gentle. “And I know it’s being said that we Russians are here to exploit you. But our friendship is real.

You want to build factories. Do you want our assistance? Say so, and we will help you. You want to build power stations.

Do you want our technical know-how? Tell us, and you will get it. If you want to send your people to Russia for training, do so by all means. We will share our last piece of bread with you. If this is our cunning, it’s at least better than the cleverness of those who produce atomic weapons.” At approximately that moment, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission was getting ready to announce that Russia had just exploded a powerful thermonuclear test weapon (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS).

At an exhibition of Indian folk dances, Bulganin and Khrushchev clambered to the stage to embrace the dancers. Khrushchev waved his arms like a conductor as they chanted, “Indians and Russians Are Brothers!” Bulganin, tiring in the fast pace of the month-long good-will tour, was happy to play straight man for his buddy: “Oh, that Khrushchev! What a man! What will he do next?” Not Alone. At Bareilly, in Uttar Pradesh, 51 girls dressed in saffron robes and blowing conch shells, sprinkled bushels of rose petals on the travelers, after Soviet secret police first ran hands through the baskets to be sure that only petals were in them. “Fifty-one is the most auspicious number, according to the stars,” explained Uttar Pradesh’s chief minister, who also happens to be India’s most enthusiastic amateur astrologer. The traveling salesmen were bound now for Bombay, where, only two days before, Communists and other left-wing labor leaders had staged a riot that killed 15 and injured 200, to protest Nehru’s proposed changes in Indian state boundaries. But by the time Khrushchev and Bulganin arrived, the Reds had obligingly called off their agitators. “That your country stands firmly for peace is not questioned seriously in any quarter,” was the greeting of the Bombay state governor. Said Khrushchev: “Russia does not stand alone today. We have many other countries who think as we do, and India is among them.” Our Unconscious Ally. At stop after stop, the well-drilled streams of children, happy for the holiday, turned out; garlands fell about the visitors’ shoulders, and the air of mutual joviality ventilated the festivities. But as the days and the words flowed on, a discernible tinge of reserve, even irritation, became noticeable among some Indians. There were open criticisms of the Russians’ use of the Parliament as a forum for attacks on the West, and of Khrushchev’s almost daily boasts about Soviet power. Of Khrushchev’s speech on nuclear weapons, one Indian complained: “It reminds us of what Nehru said three years ago: ‘Some people talk about peace so loudly it sounds like war.’ ” The only open show of reserve was at Poona, once the citadel of British Imperial rule and now the site of India’s impressive, 1,000-cadet National Defense Academy.

The academy, commanded by Lieut. General K. S. Thimayya, Sandhurst-bred leader of the neutral repatriation commission in Korea, flew only Indian flags. Marshal Bulganin, traveling as “plain Mister,” sensed the soldierly restraint, but it was lost on the ebullient Khrushchev.

If the visitors were conscious of overworking their welcome, however, it did not show in their jaunty display of confidence. Though Bulganin had said on arrival in India that he was certain East-West differences could be settled, by last week’s end Khrushchev was singing a different tune. Perhaps the time is not “ripe” for the settlement of some of the issues discussed at Geneva, he told the Indian-Soviet Cultural Society. “We can wait.

The wind is not blowing in our faces. We can wait for better weather.” He did not explain that the Communists have no intention of waiting supinely while nature makes the weather. They had come to India not only as traveling salesmen, but also as rainmakers. One member of the Bulganin-Khrushchev party brought with him a letter of instructions (from Pravda Editor Dmitri Shepilov) now being secretly circulated among the leaders of India’s estimated 60,000 Communist Party members. It refers to Jawaharlal Nehru as “our unconscious ally,” outlines Communist strategy for swaying Nehru close to Soviet economic and political methods, recommends that Nehru personally be praised instead of attacked, urges the Communists to use unions and technical cadres to infiltrate more deeply India’s growing industries. Through these techniques, says Shepilov, the Communist Party can succeed Nehru as leader of India —perhaps even in Nehru’s lifetime.