Fateful Triangle. Tanvi Madan
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because then “Southeast Asia and the Middle East would be impossible to hold.”258
Electoral gains in 1952 by a coalition of communist and socialist parties in a southern Indian state made it clear that India was not immune to communism. American and Indian policymakers were apprehensive that communists could take advantage of disillusionment with the government’s ability to deliver.259 The danger of the loss of India seemed more real. This helped Delhi in one way— Dennis Merrill argues that the communist gains were “the decisive factor” in Acheson increasing the aid request for India for FY1953.260
A reappraisal of NSC-68 in summer/fall 1952 further highlighted the importance of the free world developing “greater stability in peripheral or other unstable areas.”261 Traveling with Eisenhower on the campaign trail, a journalist called for less of the blame game and more attention to what a new administration could do: “China is gone, yes.… But there are perhaps four years in which we can help save India.”262 Bowles also continued to link Indian economic development to US security interests.263 An intelligence estimate that October assisted his cause: “[C]oming on the heels of the Communist victory in China, [the loss of South Asia] would create the impression throughout non-Communist Asia, Africa, and Europe that the advance of Communism was inevitable.”264
In India, Nehru tried to do his part by pointedly acknowledging American aid publicly. He noted that the US had sent assistance with the “very best of motives and without strings of any kind.” While Nehru believed that the communists in India were weaker than six months before, he told Bowles of his government’s concern that directly and indirectly Beijing had “done a disturbingly effective job of selling China as a new land of milk and honey”—all achieved through communism, rather than democracy.265
In the US, by the time Eisenhower took office in 1953, there was no longer a debate on whether defense (of the US and the “free world”) and development (of India and other developing countries) were connected. Even though some continued to argue against aid for India, the key point of discussion became how much aid India should receive. The lame-duck Truman administration had left office suggesting that the new administration allocate over four times the amount of aid India had received the previous year. Acheson had argued that it would help keep India on the side of the “democratic free world” and serve as an example.266 The Eisenhower administration considered the proposals excessive. But the president worried about the vulnerability of newly independent states.267 Thus, while reducing the amount, Dulles elicited from Congress more aid for India for FY1954 than had ever been authorized, making the following case:
Whether you like India or not … there is a pretty important sort of competition going on between India and Communist China.… If the Indians fall and collapse it will be very difficult to prevent Communists from taking control in India and doing in India what they have demonstrated in China that they can do better, and on the other hand, if India proves they can do it better, then there might be a reverse effect.268
Representatives Vorys and Judd grudgingly admitted that while they did not like Nehru, it served American purposes to help India prevent communists from making gains. Others noted that if they cut aid to India even further, it might have negative repercussions on India’s stance in the NNRC.269
India, in turn, really needed foreign aid, and Nehru publicly acknowledged that it was “very important” to have a working relationship with the US: “What we do or do not do is powerfully affected by our relations with America.”270 The importance of aid was evident in India’s reaction to the American uproar over an Indian shipment of thorium nitrate to China in 1953. Before that, when there had been some US concern about Indian exports of another strategic material—rubber goods—to China, India had suspended such exports. But in July 1953 the US ambassador received reports that a state-owned Indian company was shipping thorium nitrate to China. The Battle Act of 1951 in the US made countries exporting strategic items to countries like China and the Soviet Union ineligible to receive US aid.
When Indian officials became aware that the shipments would result in a suspension of US aid, they argued that aid had to come with no strings attached.271 Nehru told Allen that even if he could recall the shipment, the “political consequences, both internally and in relations between India and China, would be so serious as to render [such action] impossible.”272 Nonetheless, the government—aware of the stakes—tried (unsuccessfully) to stop the shipment. It subsequently accepted a solution proposed by Dulles.273 Delhi declared that the thorium nitrate was for commercial purposes in China and that India did not expect any such future shipments to China or other countries in the Soviet orbit. Later, when China and the Soviet Union approached India for more thorium nitrate, Indian officials looked to the US to purchase it instead.274
For the rest of 1953 and through 1954, there continued to be debate about the necessity and benefits of aiding India. Under Secretary of State Walter Bedell Smith felt that the relationship with India would survive an aid stoppage.275 Dulles disagreed, however, noting that aid termination would leave the US no way of ensuring stability in India. Furthermore, along with the general negative impact on the US-India relationship, such a cutoff would have “unfortunate results which would likely take place in connection with discussions of Asian problems, UN debates and resolutions, and India’s work as chairman [of] NNRC.”276 In this way, at least, India’s international role helped its case.
Like its predecessor, the Eisenhower administration had little to no expectation that aid would lead India to jettison nonalignment and move closer to the US.277 The purpose of aid to the South Asian countries at the time, as Vice President Richard Nixon put it, was not primarily “a desire to gain credit or to buy friendship, but rather to build up these countries.”278
In early 1954, NSC 5409—United States Policy toward South Asia—emphasized the stakes involved given “the consolidation of communist control in China” and the setbacks in Indochina. It and supporting documents reinforced various themes: South Asia as “a major battleground in the cold war,” China-India competition, the threat posed by India’s internal economic and political vulnerability, the adverse impact if India—“potentially … the pivot of the whole area”—were lost. If democratic India did not progress, while communist China did, then South Asians might turn to communism. And China seemed to be delivering faster.279 Therefore, even though Nehru irked Eisenhower and Dulles, they saw the need to help India. Of the economic aid requested for underdeveloped countries for 1955—even though it paled in comparison to military assistance and aid to allies—the largest request was for India.
Dulles and other administration officials continued to advocate for this aid by highlighting the China-India economic competition. On Capitol Hill, he highlighted the “striking contrast” between communist China and India’s “notable experiment in free government.” Major General George C. Stewart, the director of the Defense Department’s Office of Military Assistance, stressed that from a military perspective, for US national security the loss of India would be “equally as great a disaster as the loss of China.” Appealing to the China bloc members on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Stassen, who oversaw foreign aid programs, highlighted India’s “relative strategic position” vis-à-vis China. He asserted that Washington had already once made the error of basing China policy on adverse perceptions of Jiang; it should not repeat that mistake by basing India policy on views of Nehru. Assistant Secretary of State Henry Alfred Byroade argued that any termination of aid would weaken the hands of those in India who were friendly to the US. And Allen stated that it was crucial to dispel the notion in Asia that the US had only “one string to our bow” (i.e., military means to solve problems). The US needed to help the democratic Indian government “deliver the goods.”280 The administration found support from senators like H. Alexander Smith and Hubert Humphrey. They also managed to convince skeptics like Senator J. William Fulbright, who came to believe that one of the most important questions was “whether or not India, with our assistance, is making greater progress than China with the Russian assistance.”281
On Delhi’s part,