NEW DELHI: Former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had sought American assistance and wrote to the then US President, John F. Kennedy, to provide India jet fighters to stem the Chinese tide of aggression during the 1962 Sino-India war, according to a new book cited by The Hindu on Wednesday.

The main objective of Mao Zedong, founding father of the People’s Republic of China, to attack India in 1962 was to “humiliate” Nehru who was emerging as a leader of the third world, it said.

“India’s implementation of the Forward Policy served as a major provocation to China in September 1962,” Bruce Riedel, a former CIA official, wrote the book titled JFK’s Forgotten Crisis: Tibet, the CIA and the Sino-Indian War.’

The book also notes that Kennedy played a “decisive role” in “forestalling a Pakistani attack” on India, even as Islamabad then was clearly capable of initiating war with India and taking advantage of the situation — New Delhi’s vulnerability.

“Mao’s focus was on Nehru, but a defeat of India would also be a setback for two of Mao’s enemies: [Nikita] Khrushchev and Kennedy,” Mr Riedel wrote.

As India was losing its territory to China fast and suffering heavy casualty, Nehru in a letter to Kennedy in November 1962 said India needed “air transport and jet fighters to stem the Chinese tide of aggression”.

“A lot more effort, both from us and from our friends will be required.” Nehru wrote another letter to Kennedy in quick succession, The Hindu quotes the book as saying.

This letter written by Nehru in a state of panic was hand-delivered by the then Indian Ambassador to the US, B.K. Nehru, to Kennedy on Nov 19.

“Nehru was thus asking Kennedy to join the war against China by partnering in an air war to defeat the PLA [Peoples Liberation Army of China]. It was a momentous request that the Indian Prime Minister was making. Just a decade after American forces had reached a ceasefire with the Chinese Community Forces in Korea, India was asking JFK to join a new war against Community China,” Mr Riedel wrote in his book.

Ahead of Nehru’s letter, the then US Ambassador to India, J.K. Galbraith, sent a telegram to the White House giving the President an advance notice that such a request was coming from Nehru.

In the letter, Nehru asked for 12 squadrons of US air forces, Mr Riedel told the Washington audience during the preview of the book at an event organised by the Brookings Institute — a top American think-tank — on Tuesday.

Mr Riedel said in his second letter that Nehru was, in fact, asking Kennedy for some 350 combat aircraft and crews: 12 squadrons of fighter aircraft and crews: 12 squadron of fighter aircraft with 24 jets in each and two bomber squadrons.

“At least 10,000 personnel would be needed to staff and operate jets, provide radar support and conduct logistical support for the operation,” Mr Riedel said adding this was a substantial force, large enough to make it a numbered air force in the American order of battle.

The British Prime Minister received a similar letter from Nehru, the American scholar writes.

Referring to the subsequent instructions passed by Kennedy to his administration, Mr Riedel described them as the one that of a President preparing for war.

But before the US would take further steps, China announced unilateral ceasefire.

After making major advances and being in a strong position to annex entire of North-East and reach as far as Kolkata, the Chinese leadership surprised the world by announcing a unilateral ceasefire fearing that both Britain and the United State were getting ready to provide material support to India in the war.

“This was a serious mistake. Having surrounded himself in New Delhi with ‘courtiers’ who told him ‘only what his top military advisors believed he wished to hear,’ Nehru took their bad advice,” he wrote.

Mr Riedel writes that Mao probably finalised the decision to go to war in a meeting in Beijing on Oct 6, 1962 with his senior generals. Mao told them that China had defeated Chiang Kai-Shek and the Nationalists Imperial Japan, and the United States in Korea, he wrote.

“At the same time defeating India would answer the question Kennedy had raised in his 1959 speech in the Senate about which country, democratic India or communist China, was poised to win the race for great power status in

Asia. For Mao, the conflict with India provided a surrogate for his rivalry with Moscow and with Washington,” Mr Riedel wrote in his book.

“On Oct 28, 1962, the day before Nehru asked for American military help, the US Ambassador in Pakistan, Walter McConaughy met the then Pakistani ruler Ayub Khan.

“The Ambassador urged him to send assurances to Nehru that Pakistan would not take advantage of India’s war with China,” he wrote.

In response, Khan proposed that “the Americans and Pakistanis work together to seek the surrender of Indian territory just as the Chinese were grabbing land. This the US considered as ‘blackmail,’” Mr Riedel said.

Galbraith immediately sent an “alarming telegram” to Washington and Karachi “asking for God’s sake that they keep Kashmir out” of any American message to Pakistan, Mr Riedel said in the book, adding that Washington sided immediately with Galbraith on Kashmir. At the advice of the US, Nehru then wrote a letter to Ayub Khan.

“Pakistan was clearly capable of initiating war with India, but decided in 1962 not to take advantage of India’s vulnerability,” Mr Riedel writes.

“Kennedy’s message to Ayub Khan, reinforced by similar message from (British) Prime Minister (Harold) Macmillan, left little in doubt that the United States and the United Kingdom would view a Pakistani move against India as a hostile and aggressive action inconsistent with the Seato and Cento Treaties. The Americans told Pakistan that the Chinese attack was the most dangerous move made by Mao since 1950 and that they intended to respond decisively,” he wrote.

Mr Riedel, a well-known American expert of South Asia and advisers to four successive US Presidents including Barack Obama, is a senior fellow and director of the Brookings Intelligence Project.

Published in Dawn, October 15th , 2015

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