The International History Review

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The Making of a Non-Aligned Nuclear Power:

India's Proliferation Drift, 19648

Jayita Sarkar

To cite this article: Jayita Sarkar (2015) The Making of a Non-Aligned Nuclear Power:
India's Proliferation Drift, 19648, The International History Review, 37:5, 933-950, DOI:
10.1080/07075332.2015.1078393

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07075332.2015.1078393

Published online: 01 Oct 2015.

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The International History Review, 2015
Vol. 37, No. 5, 933 950, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07075332.2015.1078393

The Making of a Non-Aligned Nuclear Power: Indias Proliferation

Drift, 1964 8
Jayita Sarkar *

The article examines the strategic circumstances leading to non-aligned Indias

safeguard of its nuclear option during a crucial period in its proliferation
trajectory, when it was one of the states closest to nuclear-weapons development,
and faced US pressures to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) that
was being negotiated at the time. Based on Indian, US, and French primary
sources, this paper demonstrates that Indias regional strategic insecurities and
bilateral tensions with the United States were too great for it to sign the NPT.
Yet, New Delhis capability to successfully reprocess weapons-grade plutonium
permitted the developing country substantial leverage that it exploited through
advancing on a slow dual-use nuclear programme.
Keywords: India; nuclear; non-alignment; United States; 1960s

Introduction
India conducted its first nuclear test on 18 May 1974 in Pokhran. This underground
nuclear explosion of a twelve-kiloton device in the Thar Desert in Rajasthan was
called a peaceful nuclear explosion (PNE) by New Delhi, which Washington was
quick to dismiss, calling it a nuclear-weapon test.1 A complete understanding of the
1974 PNE is difficult without an assessment of the events in the latter half of the
1960s, which was a crucial period in Indias proliferation trajectory with Chinas first
Lap Nor test and the negotiations for a Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Accord-
ing to a newly declassified US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) from late 1964,
the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had predicted Indias nuclear bomb within
few years of the first Chinese nuclear test.2 US apprehensions about an Indian
nuclear-weapons programme, however, began at least around February 1964, when
Indias plutonium-reprocessing plant began its operations in Trombay, months prior
to the first Chinese test of 16 October 1964. During this period, Indias precarious
security environment - regional and international - contributed to its gradual drift
towards proliferation through maintaining its nuclear option. Decisive factors were
Indias dwindling status within the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), its 1965 war
with Pakistan, an emerging Sino-Pakistan strategic nexus in its neighbourhood, its
eastern border tensions with a nuclear-armed Peoples Republic of China (PRC), its
severely strained relations with the United States over the Vietnam War and unreli-
able US economic, military, and nuclear assistance, and New Delhis capability to
produce fissile material from its plutonium-reprocessing plant in Trombay. In the

*Email: Jayita_Sarkar@hks.harvard.edu

2015 Taylor & Francis

934 J. Sarkar

summer of 1968, India refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)
calling the treaty discriminatory.3 By 1969, India began obtaining designs for fast-
breeder reactors from the French. These plutonium-fuelled and plutonium-produc-
ing reactors allowed New Delhi to develop a civilian justification for the weapons-
grade plutonium it was stockpiling from its reprocessing plant and move forward on
a slow dual-use nuclear programme.4
The period 1964 8 was an uncertain phase in Indian domestic politics. Not only
did it witness one of the worst food crises in its own history but it also experienced
several transitions in its domestic political leadership. The Congress Party was torn
by infighting, and foreign policy lacked the eminent leadership of Nehrus times.
Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastris untimely death in Tashkent led to Indira
Gandhis premiership but not without challenges. Mrs Gandhi, being relatively
young and inexperienced, faced intense internal opposition to her leadership within
the Congress Party at the time. Some party veterans dubbed her gungi gudiya (a
dumb puppet), who they thought they could freely manipulate.1 In other words,
soon after coming to power, not only did she have to steer a famine-stricken country
at odds with the United States, but also the desperation to outdo her opponents
within the Indian domestic political milieu.
In the extant literature on Indias nuclear programme, the importance of this time
period (1964 8) is more often trumped by New Delhis underground nuclear explo-
sion of May 1974, and the five nuclear tests of May 1998. This is possibly because of
the significance that nuclear testing holds as a conspicuous sign of nuclear-weapons
development in both the policy community as well as the academy.2 Furthermore, as
the latter part of the 1960s were characterised by Indias unsuccessful quest for
nuclear-security guarantees during the negotiations for the NPT, some scholars have
investigated Indian motives behind such a quest.3 A.G. Noorani, who provides a
substantive account of Indian nuclear diplomacy during that period, underlines the
difficulties of an explicit guarantee for non-aligned India, but does not provide much
insight into the complexity of Indian motivations for seeking guarantees. Andrew
Kennedy explores a longer timespan, and argues that implicit nuclear-security guar-
antees and bilateral and multilateral diplomacy explain Indias slow pace of nuclear-
weapons development and emergence as a nuclear-armed state.4 Since Kennedy him-
self argues that nuclear umbrellas and institutions were means of preserving
national-security interests, his main thesis does not go against the core reasoning for-
warded by this paper that Indian security motivations mattered substantially. In this
context, Nicholas Millers re-examination of the nuclear domino theory or reactive
proliferation supports the findings of this paper that security considerations were the
most important drivers for Indian nuclear-weapons development during this period.5
Based on Indian, US, and French primary sources, this article examines the com-
plex events that engendered what it calls Indias proliferation drift, i.e., Indias slow
but sure move towards the development of nuclear weapons. This research is based
on extensive research conducted on relevant documents from the Indian National
Archives in New Delhi (NAI), published documents from the French and US
archives, namely, the Documents Diplomatiques Franc ais (DDF) and Foreign Rela-
tions of the United States (FRUS), and newly declassified documents from the Lyn-
don Baines Johnson Presidential Library (LBJL) in Austin, TX.
The paper is divided into four main sections. The first section examines a working
paper developed by the Indian Foreign Ministry on the first Chinese nuclear test, and
the lack of criticism of Chinese action emanating from the NAM. The Foreign
 The International History Review 935

Ministry paper called for an Indian nuclear-weapons programme. The second section
investigates US Indian tensions during this period owing to multiple issues includ-
ing coercive economic aid, inconsistent military aid, and unreliable nuclear assistance
by the United States. Indias technological capability to reprocess plutonium, and
President Lyndon Johnsons short tether further affected US Indian relations. The
third section underlines Indias two-pronged policy towards the PRC by which
Beijing was, on the one hand, an adversary of India in the regional strategic environ-
ment, and a counterbalance to the superpower rivalry in the bipolar cold-war order
on the other.5 Finally, the fourth section studies Indias drift in favour of developing
nuclear weapons in 1967 8 as the negotiations for the NPT neared completion. The
article concludes that its security environment was too precarious for India, its rela-
tions with the United States too strained, and its capability to produce fissile material
too certain for New Delhi to not drift towards the development of nuclear weapons.

I. South Block paper on the Chinese nuclear test and the NAM
In November 1964, a little more than a month after the first Chinese nuclear test, the
Indian Foreign Ministry - informally known as the South Block - produced a work-
ing paper entitled India and the Chinese Bomb.6 The South Block paper amply
demonstrated New Delhis dismay at the lack of criticism emanating from non-
aligned countries; most seemed content with Beijings action. Not only did the paper
represent Indias anxieties over its gradual loss of leadership of the non-aligned bloc,
but also underscored New Delhis battered pride at the technological demonstration
by another developing country and military adversary. It stated:

Even in Asia fear is tinged with admiration for this scientific feat by a non-white country
who until 15 years ago was at the very bottom of the scale of nations. One might say that
the Chinese nuclear test has produced in Asia and Africa emotions similar to those pro-
duced by the historic victory of Japan over Russia in 1905. In the case of China, there is
some additional sympathy because of the prevalent feeling that the West has been unjust
in keeping China out of the UN and in isolating and surrounding China with nuclear
bases The practical possibilities of organizing Asian opinion against China on the
question of the nuclear test are very limited.

Parallel to the non-aligned support for the Chinese nuclear test ran Indias dwindling
status within the NAM. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehrus death in May 1964
engendered a series of power struggles within the Congress Party. Indias economic
underdevelopment was glaring - this included acute food shortages in parts of the
north leading to famine - and in the aftermath of its 1965 war with Pakistan and fre-
quent border tensions with China, New Delhis military vulnerabilities in the subcon-
tinent was becoming rather evident.7 In other words, Indias Bandung moment was
probably over.8
As the South Block paper indicated, despite being threatened by a nuclear China
in its immediate neighbourhood, New Delhi could not criticise Beijings nuclear test,
since its chances of mobilising a NAM opinion against China was rather slim. The
Afro-Asian countries could not condemn the Chinese nuclear test since they appreci-
ated Chinas reasons in making the bomb, as the Algerian Foreign Office told the
Indian Ambassador at Algiers.9 The Indian paper offered four possible steps for
New Delhi: (1) to coexist with China on Chinese terms; (2) to seek alliance and
nuclear protection from the United States; (3) to organise world public opinion
936 J. Sarkar

against China and to work for disarmament; and (4) to manufacture nuclear weap-
ons. The paper argued that the last option was the most appropriate, and added that
New Delhi must develop nuclear weapons on the one hand, and call for universal
nuclear disarmament on international platforms on the other.10
Furthermore, the paper discarded the question of joint superpower nuclear-secu-
rity guarantees for two key reasons: (1) these guarantees would be unfeasible owing
to superpower disagreement; and (2) India was too great a nation to become an
international protectorate. The Indian paper further noted that unilateral US
nuclear-security guarantees were unacceptable to New Delhi owing to its non-aligned
position, as much as they were unacceptable to most Afro-Asian countries owing to
their nationalism, non-alignment and anti-colonialism.11 More importantly, the
paper underlined that unilateral US guarantees would not provide genuine protec-
tion to countries embroiled in conflict with Washington, e.g., Vietnam. Yet, one of
the key demands made by New Delhi at the ENDC negotiations in Geneva between
1965 and 1967 involved nuclear-security guarantees for non-nuclear states outside
alliance structures.12
The South Block paper was, however, said to have been rejected at the top. The
Indian Foreign Ministry official, who had leaked it to the US Embassy in New Delhi,
said that the intent was merely to stimulate debate and discussion on the Chinese
nuclear test. 13 Since no more paper trail is available in the currently declassified
archival documents in the Indian and US archives used for this research, it is best to
refrain from overemphasising the importance of the Indian Foreign Ministry paper
vis-

a-vis New Delhis pro-proliferation decision. Nevertheless, the paper does facili-
tate, at least partly, our understanding of Indias reaction to the first Chinese nuclear
test, especially with respect to its non-aligned status.
There was another element related to Indias non-alignment at this time. In the
post-Nehruvian era, the Indian political elites, most of whom had little foreign-policy
exposure, seemed to accept non-alignment more literally than Nehru had perhaps
intended. A case in point was the Sudhir Ghosh incident in 1965. Jawaharlal Nehru,
Indias first Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, had stated in his speech in the
Constituent Assembly in December 1947: We are not going to join a war if we can
help it, and we are going to join the side which is to our interest when the time comes
to make the choice. There the matter ends.14 In the face of the 1962 Chinese aggres-
sion, Nehru wrote to President Kennedy requesting twelve squadrons of supersonic
aircraft, radar installations, and two squadrons of B-47 bombers, all manned by US
personnel.15 Washington did not reject the Indian request for military help. How-
ever, as the Kennedy administration was preoccupied with the Cuban Missile Crisis
that was unfolding at the same time, US help came late and only after the Chinese
unilaterally called a ceasefire. The Congress Party and the Indian Parliament were,
however, not aware of this request at the time.
After Nehrus death in May 1964, a political scandal broke out in March 1965
when Sudhir Ghosh, a member of the upper house of the Indian Parliament men-
tioned in his speech Nehrus appeal for direct US military help during the Chinese
aggression. The members of the Congress Party reacted sharply, calling for Ghoshs
immediate expulsion for bringing such a slur on the image of India.16 The incident
demonstrated the oversimplified understanding of non-alignment within the domes-
tic Indian political milieu, and especially the Congress Party - the Party was neither
consulted before nor informed afterwards about the plea for US military help that
Nehru had made - far from the nuances that Nehru had intended.17
 The International History Review 937

II. Severe US Indian bilateral differences

What differentiated India from other resource-scarce countries of the time was its
technological capability to produce weapons-grade fissile material. Hence, what lay
between India and the nuclear bomb was New Delhis intent. The question that
loomed large therefore was whether India would take the decision in favour of devel-
oping nuclear weapons. Indias nuclear-weapons largely caused concerns within a
Johnson administration that was already having trouble with New Delhi over eco-
nomic, military, and nuclear assistance.

Indian nuclear-weapons ambitions

In February 1964, at least eight months prior to the Chinese nuclear test, the US
State Departments Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) reported on the
Indian technological capability to produce nuclear weapons to the Secretary of State
Dean Rusk. The memo noted: Within four to six months India will be able and may
intend to produce weapons-grade plutonium free of any safeguards.18 The INR
report was referring to the Indian plutonium-reprocessing plant that had just started
its operations. In May 1964, another INR memo to Rusk mentioned suspicious
Indian activity with regard to the Canadian-supplied CIRUS reactor. The report
noted that the core of the CIRUS was being changed every six months, which was
unusually short for that type of reactor. According to the INR memo: While train-
ing or some other technical reason may explain this short cycle, it is appropriate for
production of weapons-grade plutonium. It added that while a nuclear-weapons
programme necessitated a series of decisions, India had deliberately taken the first -
to have available on demand, unsafeguarded weapons-grade plutonium, or at least,
the capacity to produce it.19
Exactly a month prior to the Chinese nuclear test, US Ambassador to India
Chester Bowles wrote to National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy about rising
concerns in New Delhi concerning Beijings ability to develop nuclear weapons, as
well as possible Chinese nuclear installations in Tibet.20 Bowles suggested that the
United States share intelligence with India on Chinese nuclear development, and
convince New Delhi that an effective nuclear deterrent with Indian strike capability
on Chinese cities was beyond Indias abilities, unless it asked for a US nuclear
umbrella. In the following years, Washington shared unclassified intelligence data on
Chinese nuclear-weapons development with New Delhi, and considered Indian
accession to the NPT as the most effective way to stall New Delhis inclinations for
the bomb.
In February 1965, at a meeting at the US State Department, Homi J. Bhabha, the
chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission of India (AECI), claimed that India
could manufacture nuclear weapons within 18 months of a decision to do so. He
raised eyebrows in Washington with his remark that the country closest to a nuclear-
weapons capability was neither West Germany nor Japan but India. Only India had
an operational plutonium-reprocessing plant, which he claimed was large enough to
produce 100 nuclear bombs a year.21 Earlier in January that year, Bhabha had told
Jerome B. Wiesner, who was visiting India at the time to gauge Indian motivations
for the bomb, that India could develop a crude nuclear device for US$10 million.22
These exaggerated claims made by Bhabha, and the emerging domestic support for
nuclear weapons in India, worried the US government extensively. In response,
938 J. Sarkar

Washington launched a counter-campaign through the US Embassy in New Delhi to

apprise the Indian government through informal channels of the extremely high costs
of a nuclear-weapons programme, and how much that would strain an already frag-
ile Indian economy. However, US intelligence reports during this time began to claim
that India might have taken a decision in favour of the bomb, under the guise of a
Plowshare programme, which the Johnson administration termed a Plowshare
loophole.23
In November 1964 - only one month after the first Chinese nuclear explosion -
Prime Minister Shastri mentioned for the first time to the lower house of the Indian
Parliament that India would begin preparations for peaceful nuclear explosions
(PNE). Known as the Study of Nuclear Explosions for Peaceful Purposes (SNEPP),
this programme, Shastri said, would be used for the construction of tunnels, amongst
other things. The launching of this PNE programme did not put an end to domestic
political pressure for the development of an Indian nuclear bomb. The pressure got
stronger every time the PRC conducted a nuclear test. To Indian pro-bomb political
groups, the PNEs were too subtle to seem like an alternative to a full-blown bomb
programme.24 After Bhabhas death in January 1966, while his successor Vikram
Sarabhai began expanding Indias space programme, research in peaceful nuclear
explosives continued.25

Coercive economic aid and inconsistent military aid

In the mid-1960s, India was struggling with its food-population problem - food
underproduction and overpopulation - and was heavily dependent on US food aid
under the 1954 Agricultural Trade Development and Assistance Act, commonly
known as PL480 (or Food for Peace). The situation was especially severe in 1965 7,
when it faced a severe famine in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. The country was literally
living from ship to mouth, i.e., it ran the risk of starvation if US ships carrying
PL480 wheat did not arrive. Against the backdrop of Indias famine, US Congressio-
nal pressure began to increase against providing food aid to India - a cold-war non-
ally that constantly differed with Washington on key US foreign-policy issues. Legis-
lative opposition to economic assistance to India, which had started increasing dur-
ing the Kennedy administration, intensified during Lyndon Johnsons presidency.
Furthermore, President Johnsons strategy of making aid contingent upon Indias
support for the US war in Vietnam added to New Delhis plight, as did Walt W.
Rostows position. Rostow, chairman of the State Departments Policy Planning
Commission until April 1966 when he replaced Bundy as National Security Advisor
and a key architect of the modernisation theory insisted that the recipients of US aid
must be able to show better economic performance in order to receive more assis-
tance. The situation was aggravated by Johnsons short tether policy - the Presi-
dents practice of delaying aid shipments to a famine-stricken India in order to gain
political leverage over New Delhi. Johnsons short tether caused severe bitterness
towards the United States both in Indian political circles as well as with the public.
According to presidential aides Harold Saunders and Howard Wriggins, Presi-
dent Johnson worried that if the United States satisfied Indias aid requirements
New Delhi could remain dependent on the United States forever. Thereby, he tried
to be harsh on India, and to enforce the agricultural modernisation that became
known as the Green Revolution. While this increased Indian food production in
1968 9, it embittered relations between New Delhi and Washington beyond repair,
 The International History Review 939

at least for the time being. In addition to the PL480 issue, currency devaluation also
led to Indian resentment, when the Aid-to-India Consortium was unable to provide
the aid the World Bank had promised India in order to cushion the impact of devalu-
ation - an economic step the United States had insisted upon.26
In the wake of the 1965 India-Pakistan war, the Johnson administration began to
explore ways to use aid to induce a settlement of the Kashmir problem - Indias
dreaded soft spot.27 Prime Minister Shastri retaliated that he would not accept
PL480 with political strings causing another bilateral diplomatic fiasco. The follow-
ing year, when in March 1966, Indira Gandhi visited Washington as the new Prime
Minister for talks with the President, NSC staffer Bob Komer underlined the two-
fold aims of the meeting: (1) pledge US support provided India accepted World
Bank terms and opened up its economy to private investment; and (2) stiffen her
intention not to go nuclear without promising too much.28 In other words, the John-
son administration used aid for India as an instrument of US foreign policy on all
three counts: economic (market deregulation and agricultural reform); political (sup-
port for Vietnam War); and strategic (nuclear non-proliferation).29
Between January 1965 and April 1966, the US State Department caused deliber-
ate delays for the construction of two United States-supplied boiling-water reactors
in Tarapur. Despite violent strikes in Tarapur initiated by left-wing labour unions,
both USAEC and General Electric wanted to go ahead, while the State Department
began to hold off signing the contract for fuel supply for the reactors. The motive, in
the words of Komer, was to soften up the Indians on non-proliferation.30 The Tara-
pur delays began to cause bilateral diplomatic strains, and in December 1965, the
Indian government even submitted an aide-m emoire to Washington through the US
Embassy in New Delhi expressing concern over the long delay.31 NSC aide Komer
and National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy, who were principally behind this
initiative, had hoped that Tarapur could be used as a bargaining chip in January
1966 when Prime Minister Shastri was scheduled to visit Washington.32 Shastris
untimely death in Tashkent that month cancelled the visit.
It is to be noted that Komer was opposed to Johnsons tendency to delay PL480
food aid to India.33 Food was an urgent Indian need, thought Komer, and feared
that the US policy of holding back food aid could lead to a nationalist go-it-alone
psychosis in Delhi and stimulate Indias desire to build the bomb.34 In fact, both
Komer and Bundy opposed the suspension of PL480 aid, even temporarily, although
they were not willing to be as generous as US Ambassador Chester Bowles, who con-
tinuously called for an increase in US aid and an active US policy to meet Indias
security concerns vis-
a-vis Pakistan and China.35
The 1965 war ended after a UN resolution was passed calling for a ceasefire.
Washington reacted by placing an embargo on its arms supplies to South Asia. On
the one hand, this led to bitter outcries in Rawalpindi, which condemned US puni-
tiveness as a sign of Washingtons favouritism towards India. On the other, New
Delhi expressed its anger by pointing out that the arms Pakistan had used against
India in the 1965 war were US-supplied, and thus blamed Washington for the
regional instability.36 By late 1966, it grew apparent that the Johnson administration
was going to adopt a new arms policy toward the subcontinent, especially in view of
Islamabads growing military proximity to Beijing. In April 1967, this new arms pol-
icy was announced by Washington, which allowed cash sales of spare parts for previ-
ously supplied US weapons on a case-by-case basis but prevented any sale of new
weapons systems.37 This partial relaxation of arms embargo, however, satisfied
940 J. Sarkar

neither South Asian country. Pakistan complained that the new US arms policy was
not significant enough while India criticised the policy as benefitting mostly Pakistan,
which was more reliant on US arms than India itself.

Unreliable US nuclear assistance and US low-cost approach

Prime Minister Indira Gandhi visited the United States at the invitation of President
Johnson in April 1966, when she held talks with the latter in Williamsburg. Around
the time of her visit, the Johnson administration was very anxious about an immi-
nent pro-bomb decision by New Delhi. In a memo by Dean Rusk, the President was
advised to encourage Indira Gandhi to prioritise her efforts for Indias economic
development instead of a nuclear-weapons programme.38 The nuclear issue aside,
the United States believed that Indira Gandhis visit would usher in a new era in
US Indian relations - not because Washington and New Delhi had begun to agree
with each other, but rather because India was compelled to ask for a new
relationship on the terms of the United States. Komer expressed his triumph to Pres-
ident Johnson:

Circumstances helped (famine and the Pak/Indian war), but seldom has a visit been
more carefully prepared, nor the Indians forced more skillfully to come to us (note how
little press backlash about US pressure tactics - when its been just that for almost a full
year). The proof is that India is now talking positively about buying all the World Bank
reforms.39

By April 1966, the United States began to sense that India might have embarked
on a serious PNE programme. Since PNEs were technically indistinguishable
from explosions conducted for military purposes, this programme would thus
have the same impact on the level of threat perception by Indias enemies.40 Yet,
Washington was not willing to invest much effort into dissuading an Indian
bomb programme. President Johnsons agenda during Prime Minister Gandhis
visit with respect to Indias nuclear ambitions was to stiffen her intention not to
go nuclear without promising too much.41 Soon after, the US State Department
began to explore various kinds of contingency measures if India indeed decided
to go nuclear. The chief concern revolved around how to live with an Indian bomb
on the one hand, and prevent a pro-proliferation domino reaction in Pakistan,
Japan, and West Germany on the other.42
Between June and August 1966, the Johnson administration devised a concerted
policy towards what it called the Indian nuclear weapons problem. By then, Walt
Rostow had replaced McGeorge Bundy as the new National Security Advisor to
Johnson. In the National Security Action Memorandum (NSAM) 351, Rostow
called for a strict cost benefit analysis of US options to dissuade an Indian bomb.43
Following this, the twenty-two-page memo that Secretary of State Dean Rusk sub-
mitted to the President on 25 July 1966 underlined that the administration had been
unable to devise anything dramatic which would not cost us more than any antici-
pated gain.44 The memo summed up US strategy towards Indias nuclear ambitions
to be that of buying time, and hoping that India signed the NPT, which was being
negotiated at the time in Geneva. Around this time, the Johnson administration had
begun searching for a compromise with the Soviet Union to resolve the impasse in
the ENDC negotiations, which were deadlocked over the question of Multilateral
 The International History Review 941

Forces in Europe.45 The following month, President Johnson approved Rusks July
1966 recommendations under NSAM 355, and ordered their implementation.46 In
other words, no decision was taken in favour of nuclear-security assurances for
India, and the administration remained opposed to any high-cost approach.
The Soviet opposition to joint nuclear-security guarantees to India was merely
one of the many impediments. Moreover, by the latter part of 1966, the Johnson
administration had reached the conclusion that providing US security guarantees to
India, without the Soviet Union, was also not the solution.47 This was because: (1)
being a non-aligned country, the Indian government would find it difficult to accept
unilateral US guarantees, and even more difficult to justify it domestically; (2) private
or secret security assurances to India would not reduce pro-bomb pressures from
political forces outside the government; and (3) India might never be fully convinced
of the credibility of unilateral US nuclear-security assurances, and thereby continue
to develop the bomb anyway.48
The sole solution for the United States therefore was to negotiate rapidly the
NPT before a pro-bomb decision was taken by New Delhi, and make India adhere
to that treaty. India, however, had little incentive to join the NPT. Its regional secu-
rity environment was characterised by high threat perception from Pakistan and
China, and its strained relations with the United States increased its mistrust of
Washington. With the superpowers co-operating at the ENDC negotiations, and nei-
ther manifesting an interest in a joint nuclear-security guarantee for New Delhi,
India had few reasons to forsake the bomb.
In the summer of 1966, Pakistan raised concerns at the UN that India was mak-
ing preparations to develop nuclear weapons under the guise of an underground
nuclear-explosives programme, in order to avoid violating the LTBT. The memo
that the Pakistani representative submitted to the UN Secretary-General U Thant
highlighted the lack of IAEA safeguards for the Canadian-supplied CIRUS reactor,
New Delhis operational plutonium-reprocessing plant, and its consistent opposition
to applying safeguards on its reactors as evidence of Indias move towards the bomb.
The Indian Foreign Minister Swaran Singh dismissed such claims as baseless.49

President Johnsons leadership style

The Johnson administration was dealing with its own problems, with the escalation
of the war in Vietnam, tackling a balance-of-payments deficit of its own, and Con-
gressional opposition to US aid to developing countries. The resources and capacity
for manoeuvre in its relations with India were thus already limited for Washington.
South Asia as a region, despite its strategic relevance to the United States, was not a
top US foreign-policy priority at the time.50 With the US foreign-policy apparatus
mobilised for the war in Vietnam, the lack of organisational focus on South Asia
hampered US relations with both India and Pakistan.51
Furthermore, Lyndon B. Johnsons decision-making style was probably also to
blame. The President did not always discuss his plans and objectives, and very often
kept his White House aides guessing about his next move, thus complicating matters.
In deep frustration Komer wrote to Bundy:

But the town is paralyzed, because no one knows the Presidents mind, not even we
the lack of leadership in State on this matter [U.S. policy in South Asia] is appalling.
Neither (Dean) Rusk, nor (George) Ball, nor (Thomas) Mann, have either particular
942 J. Sarkar

interest or competence what we need instead is to do some serious skull practice and
hash out the affair with the President. Surely this is worth 1/100th of the time that has
already been spent on Vietnam.52

Moreover, while the US government recognised the importance of India to its overall
policy in Asia, it was unable to configure a clear strategy towards New Delhi. In the
absence of such a strategy, the short tether seemed to be the main characteristic of
US policy towards India during this period, thus severely damaging bilateral ties.53

III. Indias two-pronged foreign policy toward China

During this period, and for much of the Cold War, Indias foreign policy operated
on at least two separate levels: (1) the regional strategic environment in South Asia,
where it felt encircled by the growing Sino-Pakistan nexus; and (2) the global strate-
gic environment, where it struggled to maintain its foreign-policy independence
without explicitly aligning with either of the cold-war blocs. On the first level, China
was a nuclear-armed enemy that India wanted to counter and compete with. On the
second level, the PRC could counterbalance the two superpowers and provide a
possible third front, in the wake of the Sino-Soviet split. In other words, Indias
grand strategic goals necessitated a China that was more engaged in international
politics, and not a pariah. This nuanced view was neither understood nor appreci-
ated in Washington such that the Chicom (the US administrations abbreviation
for Chinese Communists) problem seemed intractable between Washington and
New Delhi.54

China in the global strategic environment

The US attempts to elicit Indian support in blocking the PRCs entry into the United
Nations (UN) remained continuously frustrated. Washington found it both unac-
ceptable and incomprehensible that a country, which had faced Chinese aggression
in 1962 and sought US military help to counter it, would also support Chinese entry
into the UN against the United States will.55 Seen from the perspective of Indias
two-pronged foreign-policy approach however, New Delhis stance seemed both
strategic as well as sensible.
Washingtons Chicom problem was, however, pervasive in South Asia. Not only
was New Delhi refusing to take an explicit stance against Red China on the latters
UN entry, US ally Pakistan was gradually leaning towards Beijing. This apparent
South Asian tilt towards the Chicoms by countries that depended on US economic
and defence aid was highly vexing to Washington. It is in this vein that National
Security Council (NSC) staffer Robert W. Komer wrote to National Security Advi-
sor McGeorge Bundy: We have got to convince them (the Indians and the
Pakistanis) that they cant have their American cake and eat it with chopsticks too.56
Even though the United States perceived India - a large Asian democracy along
with Japan - as a potential counterweight to Communist China, New Delhis non-
aligned status in the Cold War remained a large thorn in the side of US Indian rela-
tions. For instance, John Foster Dulles, who was the Secretary of State in the Eisen-
hower administration, termed the foreign policies of non-aligned countries as
immoral.57 While President John F. Kennedy took a more nuanced approach
towards non-alignment, reaching out to non-aligned countries in Africa and Asia,
 The International History Review 943

like few US presidents had done before him, the tensions over Indias non-aligned
status became a characteristic feature of US Indian relations during the Lyndon
Johnson administration.58
Indias opposition to the United States conduct of the Vietnam War, as well as
its refusal to provide direct support to contain the Chinese threat in Asia, angered
the US State Department. The stakes were rather high for the United States, as Bob
Komer acknowledged:

Basically, we cant afford to let India go the way China did, without a staggering set-
back. On the positive side, we see a free, democratic and viable India as an essential
counterweight - with Japan - to Communist China. what we win in Vietnam today
will be partly up to India to preserve tomorrow. Loss of India would make loss of
Southeast Asia pale by comparison, and mean loss of Pakistan too.59

In its desperation to coax India to support its policy in Indochina, the Johnson
administration tried a host of coercive policies, from diplomatic pressures and food-
aid delays to suspension of military aid, which further deteriorated their bilateral
ties. Furthermore, US military and economic assistance to Pakistan was a major
cause for New Delhis mistrust of Washingtons intentions.60 On her US visit in April
1964, with her father Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi gave an interview to the New
York Times in which she stated, strictly in her personal capacity, that the United
States was losing Indias goodwill because of the formers favouritism to Pakistan
over Kashmir.61 In January 1966, when Gandhi became the Prime Minister, India
and the United States continued to differ over Vietnam, food aid, economic deregu-
lation, agricultural practices, and US alliance with Pakistan.

China in the regional strategic environment

By October 1964, China had emerged as a military adversary of India owing to a
series of border disputes culminating in the Sino-Indian War of October 1962 - con-
current to the Cuban Missile Crisis - in which India lost some territory to China.62
During the period under study, India therefore dealt with two adversaries in its
regional strategic environment: Pakistan in the west and Communist China in the
east. As the Chinese nuclear test of 16 October 1964 renewed Indias fears of its west-
ern adversary, domestic political pressures in India began to increase in favour of a
nuclear-weapons programme. In February 1965, the Chinese tested their second
nuclear weapon. Soon after at the Congress Party annual meeting in Durgapur,
nuclear weapons dominated the discussions.63 While a large faction led by K.C. Pant
called for an immediate reassessment of Indias nuclear programme, with some call-
ing for a quick pro-bomb decision, Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri maintained
that Indias intentions were peaceful. Later that year, in August September 1965,
India and Pakistan became embroiled in another border war - their second since the
1947 conflict over Kashmir.
Chinas support for Pakistan in the 1965 war not only worried Washington,
which looked upon with horror how its Cold War ally was gravitating towards its
Communist enemy, but also heightened Indias anxieties of an emerging
China Pakistan nexus in its neighbourhood. On 16 September 1965, at the height of
the India-Pakistan war, the Beijing government gave India an ultimatum asking it to
stop military incursions into what it claimed to be Chinese territory along the China-
944 J. Sarkar

Sikkim border.64 In response, Indian Ambassador Braj Kumar Nehru made three
requests to Secretary of State Dean Rusk on behalf of New Delhi: (1) a formal US
statement interdicting interference to forestall a Chinese attack on Sikkim; (2) if
China really attacks, US help for India; and (3) the United States must modify its
neutrality between India and Pakistan, in and out of the UN Security Council.65 The
US response was two-fold: warning and reassurance to Rawalpindi to prevent it
from aligning with Beijing; and delay in responding to Indian request until the situ-
ation developed further.66 Washingtons inaction with respect to meeting New
Delhis immediate security needs was beginning to convince the latter that it could
not count on the United States in times of crisis.

IV. New Delhis proliferation drift, 1967 8

Although in the absence of Indian primary-source documents, the paper trail of an
Indian pro-proliferation decision is difficult to ascertain, it may be possible to say
that New Delhis proliferation drift was sealed by mid- to late 1967. This is owing to
the January 1967 exchange between USAEC chairman Glenn Seaborg and his Indian
counterpart Vikram Sarabhai, the April 1967 visit by Sarabhai and Indian official
L.K. Jha to Washington to discuss nuclear-security guarantees, Prime Minister
Indira Gandhis April 1967 letter to President Charles de Gaulle on Indias threat
perception vis-
a-vis nuclear China, and Sino-Indian border clashes in Sikkim follow-
ing the Chinese hydrogen-bomb test.
In January 1967, the USAEC chairman Glenn Seaborg visited India and met his
Indian counterpart Vikram Sarabhai. The former communicated to the latter that
the United States considered that the development of peaceful nuclear explosives is
tantamount to the development of nuclear weapons. Sarabhai responded to Seaborg
that a non-proliferation treaty should not prevent such a decision by states.67
Although the AECI chairman denied that India was developing such explosive devi-
ces, he defended Indias legal right to do so in the future.
Later that year, on 18 April 1967, Indira Gandhis envoy L.K. Jha and Vikram
Sarabhai met US Defense Secretary Robert McNamara in Washington in order to
discuss joint superpower nuclear-security guarantees for India. Jha and Sarabhai
were travelling from Moscow, and were carrying the Soviet text on nuclear-security
assurances for non-nuclear states. At the meeting, McNamara underlined that
Johnsons verbal guarantee in his October 1964 statement was already a real
deterrent.68 The following day, Jha and Sarabhai met President Johnson to discuss
the Soviet draft. LBJ told them that he found the Soviet document very interesting
but made no promises. President Johnson however did not miss underlining at the
meeting that the United States would appreciate Indian support on Vietnam.69 It is
to be noted that when the US President called the draft interesting, it was not a sign
of genuine interest. This was because he was acting on the advice of Walt Rostow,
who had informed him earlier that day that while the Soviet text did not look too
onerous, at first glance it precluded the United States from the first use of nuclear
weapons in North Korea and Vietnam, and was therefore unacceptable to the United
States in principle.70
On that very day, on 19 April, the French Embassy in New Delhi received a letter
from Prime Minister Indira Gandhi addressed to the French President Charles de
Gaulle. The main message of the letter was that the military threat to India from
China was making it difficult for India to continue to commit itself to the use of
atomic energy for solely peaceful purposes.71 Indira Gandhi also underlined Indias
 The International History Review 945

opposition to the NPT for the treatys discriminatory nature, international safe-
guards on national nuclear programmes, and the absence of a clear-cut strategy to
protect the non-nuclear-weapon states in the event of a nuclear war. In his response
De Gaulle expressed his unanimity with the Indian position on the NPT, and
emphasised French refusal to both participate in the negotiations as well as sign the
treaty on the grounds that such an instrument could never promote genuine disarma-
ment.72 In other words, while her aides were meeting the US President, Mrs Gandhi
wrote to the French President underlining that the Chinese threat was a factor
behind Indias proliferation drift. Whether the superpowers could eventually draw a
compromise on nuclear-security guarantees seemed less consequential in her letter:
she seemed to have already made up her mind.
The China threat was partly military and partly ideological, as L.K. Jha stated in
one of his top-secret letters to P.N. Haksar, Gandhis principal secretary.73 Jha wrote
in May 1967:

Should India make nuclear weapons? The time has come when at least at the top level in
the Government, this question should be faced squarely and if possible, some kind of a
view taken. The main argument in favour of India going nuclear is the Chinese threat.
This threat is partly military and partly ideological for what it is worth, that the cost
of India going nuclear is so high in material terms that we shall lose the ideological battle
against China in the process

Jha underlined that to not develop nuclear weapons meant living dangerously.74 He
recommended that New Delhi not change its stated policy against nuclear-weapons
development while at the same time focus on missile development, which was left
unaffected by the NPT.
In June 1967, China tested its first hydrogen bomb at its Lap Nor test site.75 This
thermonuclear device, which had a yield of 3.3 megatons, was Chinas sixth nuclear
test since October 1964.76 Not only did it enhance New Delhis insecurities, but
within a few months Indias already tense eastern frontier with China heated up.
These events constituted the Nathu La incident in September, which led to sixty-two
Indian casualties, as well as the Chola incident in October, which was a daylong bor-
der skirmish between the Indian Army and the Peoples Liberation Army.77 The Chi-
nese military threat that Gandhi had underscored to de Gaulle seemed revalidated.
Journalist Raj Chengappa argued in his book that the 1967 Chinese hydrogen-
bomb test gave a renewed impetus to research in nuclear explosives, i.e., the SNEPP
launched by Shastri in November 1964.78 While in the absence of archival documents
this increase in momentum in PNE research is indeterminable, the decision to keep
the nuclear-weapons option open seemed to be sealed by then. India refused to sign
the NPT when it was opened for signature in the summer of 1968. The next step for
New Delhi was to obtain a legitimate justification for stockpiling weapons-grade plu-
tonium, which its reprocessing plant was generating. This was realised with the agree-
ment the AECI signed in April 1969 with its French counterpart to obtain designs for
plutonium-fuelled and plutonium-producing fast-breeder reactors.79

Conclusion
In retrospect, the Johnson administrations collective intuition that India would tilt
in favour of the bomb in the long run proved to be correct. India tested its first
nuclear-explosive device underground in May 1974 and called it a PNE. The debate
946 J. Sarkar

that ensued afterwards concerned the lack of technological distinction between

explosives meant for peaceful uses from those for military ends. This paper demon-
strated that in order to understand fully the 1974 Indian nuclear test, one needed to
trace back to the events that transpired during the latter part of the 1960s, when
India faced a decisive moment given the Chinese nuclear-weapons programme and
the negotiations for the NPT. The regional insecurities vis-
a-vis Pakistan and China
were as important as Indias battered prestige within the non-aligned movement.
International regulations under the 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty and US pressures
against a bomb programme made it necessary for New Delhi to develop an under-
ground nuclear device with a civilian facade while its own non-isolationist policy as a
proactive non-aligned country required it to choose a strategy to keep the nuclear
option open without violating any pre-existing international legal instrument. The
Plowshare loophole fitted the bill perfectly. Moreover, since New Delhi termed the
device a PNE, it permitted India to make a technological demonstration without
having to begin immediately investing resources in delivery vehicles. In other words,
the Plowshare loophole seemed to be a plausible cost-effective way for India to
enter the nuclear club.

Acknowledgement
For helpful comments and suggestions, the author thanks Jussi Hanhimaki, William Burr, Ste-
phen P. Cohen, John Krige, Janick Schaufelbuehl, anonymous reviewers, and participants in
the Yale International Security Studies colloquium and Harvards Conflict, Security and Pub-
lic Policy working group.

Funding
Research for this article was made possible by funding from the Lyndon Baines Johnson
Foundation, the Stanton Foundation, and the Swiss National Science Foundation.

ORCID
Jayita Sarkar http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6075-4400

Notes
1. See Secret Telegram 6591 from the Embassy in India to the Department of State and the
Embassy in the United Kingdom, 18 May 1974, 0600Z, Foreign Relations of the United
States (FRUS), RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files; Secret Telegram TOSEC 794/
104621 from the Department of State to the Mission to the International Atomic Energy
Agency, 18 May 1974, 2238Z, FRUS, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files.
2. Declassified 1964 National Intelligence Estimate Predicts Indias Bomb but not Israels,
NPIHP Research Update 9, at http://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/declassified-
1964- national-intelligence-estimate-predicts-india%E2%80%99s-bomb-not-israel%E2%80%99s
(Accessed 29 September 2014).
3. For a history of the negotiations for NPT see Bunn, G. (1992). Arms control by committee
: managing negotiations with the Russians. Stanford, Calif., Stanford University Press.
4. See Jayita Sarkar, Indias Nuclear Program between France and the United States, In
India and the Cold War, edited by Manu Bhagavan. Chapel Hill, NC: University of
North Carolina Press, Forthcoming, 2016.
5. Indias foreign policy was quite complex with several facets This paper claims that
towards China, New Delhi operated on at least two different levels regional and
international.
 The International History Review 947

6. This Indian foreign ministry paper was leaked to the US embassy in New Delhi and
transmitted to the Johnson administration. Indian MEA working paper of 25 November
1964 attached to airgram from U.S. embassy in New Delhi to U.S. State Department, 30
December 1964, NSF Committee File, RAC, NLJ-009R-6-3-1-3, Lyndon B. Johnson
Library, Austin TX (hereafter LBJL).
7. Note sur les relations exterieures de lInde, 1 April 1966, Document 227, 1966, vol.1,
Documents Diplomatiques Franc ais (hereafter DDF).
8. For the significance of the 1955 Bandung Conference to the emergence of the Nonaligned
Movement during the early part of the Cold War see See Seng See Seng Tan and Amitav
Acharya, Bandung Revisited : The Legacy of the 1955 Asian-African Conference for Inter-
national Order (Singapore: NUS Press, 2008); Christopher J. Lee, Making a World after
Empire : The Bandung Moment and Its Political Afterlives, Ohio University Research in
International Studies Global and Comparative Studies Series (Athens: Ohio University
Press, 2010).
9. Similar reactions to the Algerian one were registered by Indian foreign missions in Thai-
land and Malaysia. Indian MEA working paper of 25 November 1964 attached to air-
gram from U.S. embassy in New Delhi to U.S. State Department, 30 December 1964,
NSF Committee File, RAC, NLJ-009R-6-3-1-3, LBJL.
10. The paper in fact stated that an Indian nuclear weapons program must be tied to its calls
for disarmament: Once we have the bomb, we could announce our readiness to
renounce it and conduct a crusade for the complete elimination of conventional and
nuclear armaments from the face of the earth. It is only when we have the bomb that we
can renounce it convincingly Ibid.
11. Ibid.
12. For Indian position on nuclear security guarantees at the ENDC negotiations see V.C.
Trivedi Speech at ENDC Geneva, 15 February 1966, Foreign Affairs Records, 1966,
MEAR, accessed 7 February 2014, http://mealib.nic.in/?9992554?000
13. Indian MEA working paper of 25 November 1964 attached to airgram from U.S.
embassy in New Delhi to U.S. State Department, 30 December 1964, NSF Committee
File, RAC, NLJ-009R-6-3-1-3, LBJL.
14. See extracts from the Prime Ministers speeches and comments, 21/30/47-PMS, National
Archives of India, New Delhi (hereafter NAI)..
15. This was because Indian Air Force personnel did not have the training to operate the mil-
itary equipment requested. See Letter from Jawaharlal Nehru to John F. Kennedy, 19
November 1962, NSF Files of Robert Komer, Box 23, LBJL.
16. Prem Bhatia, Short of accurate but not untruthful, The Indian Express, 22 March 1965,
NSF Country Files: Middle East and India, Box 129, LBJL.
17. For US help accorded to India during the Sino-India War see Jeff Smith, A Forgotten
War in the Himalayas, Yale Global Online, 14 September 2012 http://yaleglobal.yale.
edu/content/forgotten-war-himalayas and James G. Hershberg, Quietly Encouraging
Quasi-Alignment: US-Indian relations, the Sino-Indian Border War of 1962, and the
Downfall of Krishna Menon, unpublished manuscript. http://src-h.slav.hokudai.ac.jp/
publictn/eurasia_border_review/Vol3SI/hershberg.pdf
18. Memo by George C. Denney, Jr., Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Department of
State to Secretary of State Dean Rusk, 24 February 1964, NSF Robert Komer Files, Box
25, LBJL.
19. Memo by Thomas L. Hughes, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Department of State
to Secretary of State Dean Rusk, 14 May 1964, NSF Robert Komer Files, Box 25, LBJL.
20. Top Secret Letter from Chester Bowles to McGeorge Bundy, 16 September 1964, NSF
Robert Komer Files, Box 25, LBJL.
21. Department of State Memorandum of Conversation with Homi J. Bhabha, B.K. Nehru,
George W. Ball, Robert Anderson and David T. Schneider, 22 February 1965, NSF Files
of Robert Komer, Box 25, LBJL.
22. Secret telegram 2054 from Jerome B. Wiesner to US AEC Commissioner John Palfrey,
21 January 1965, NSF Files of Robert Komer, Box 25, LBJL.
23. For US intelligence estimates of Indias bomb see Secret Current Intelligence Digest, 22
January 1965, Robert Komer Files, NSF, Box 25, LBJL. See also William Burr,
Declassified 1964 National Intelligence Estimate Predicts Indias Bomb but not
948 J. Sarkar

Israels, NPIHP Research Update, Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson International

Center for Scholars, 2012. http://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/declassified-1964-
national-intelligence-estimate-predicts-india%E2%80%99s-bomb-not-
israel%E2%80%99s
24. George Perkovich, Indias Nuclear Bomb: The Impact on Global Proliferation (Berkeley,
CA: University of California Press, 1999), 82-3.
25. Ibid, 122-3.
26. Dennis Kux, Estranged Democracies: India and the United States, 1941 1991 (New
Delhi: Sage Publications, 1994), 260-1.
27. Secret Memo from Robert Komer to McGeorge Bundy on A United States Assistance
Strategy for India, 8 November 1965, NSF Files of Robert Komer, Box 22, LBJL.
28. Memorandum for President by Robert Komer, 18 March 1966, NSF Files of Robert
Komer, Box 22, LBJL.
29. For an analysis of LBJs short tether policy for political and strategic ends see Rex W.
Douglass, U.S. Crisis Aid and Strategic Interests - Lyndon B. Johnsons Short Leash
Food Aid to India (paper presented at the A Dialogue on the Presidency with a New
Generation of Leaders: Papers of the 2005-2006 Center Fellows, Center for the Study of
the Presidency, 2006).
30. Secret memorandum for the President by Robert Komer, 19 January 1966, NSF Files of
Robert Komer, Box 25, LBJL. See also Note for Mr. Komer by Charles E. Johnson, 17
January 1966, NSF Files of Robert Komer, Box 25, LBJL.
31. US State Department Airgram A-546 from the US embassy in New Delhi, 23 December
1965, NSF Files of Robert Komer, Box 25, LBJL.
32. Secret memorandum from Charles E. Johnson to Walt W. Rostow, 8 April 1966, NSF
Files of Charles E. Johnson, Box 34, LBJL.
33. See B. Goldschmidt, Les probl
emes nucleaires indiens, Politique etrang
ere 3(1982):
620.
34. Secret note from Robert Komer to McGeorge Bundy, 28 August 1965, NSF Files of
Robert Komer, Box 25, LBJL.
35. In his utter frustration, Bowles wrote to Dean Rusk calling the U.S. policy in South Asia
was becoming a costly failure, and was contributing to antagonism towards the United
States in both New Delhi and Rawalpindi. Secret telegram from Chester Bowles to Dean
Rusk, 16 October 1965, NSF Files of Robert Komer, Box 23, LBJL.
36. Dennis Kux, India and the United States: Estranged Democracies, 1941-1991 (Washing-
ton, D.C.: National Defense University Press, 2002). 235-240.
37. Kux, Estranged Democracies, p. 265.
38. Memorandum for the President from Dean Rusk, 16 March 1966, Charles E. Johnson
Files, NSF, RAC, NLJ-030R-34-1-3-8, LBJL.
39. Memorandum for the President from Robert W. Komer, 27 March 1966, Robert Komer
Files, NSF, Box 22, Folder 1, LBJL.
40. Outgoing telegram from the US State Department to US embassies in New Delhi and
Ottawa, 4 April 1966, Charles E. Johnson Files, NSF, RAC, NLJ-030R-34-1-5-6, LBJL.
41. Memorandum for the President from Robert W. Komer, 18 March 1966, NSF, Box 22,
Folder 1, LBJL.
42. See Memorandum for Mr. Rostow, Discussion with Washington Post Correspondents
on Non-Proliferation Treaty, 25 February 1967, NSF Name Files, Keeny-Johnson
Memos, Box 5, Keeny Memos, LBJL. See also Report Contingency Planning for an
Indian decision to go nuclear: Questions and Issues, 19 May 1966, Charles E. Johnson
Files, NSF, RAC, NLJ-030R-33-9-5-9, LBJL.
43. National Security Action Memorandum 351, 10 June 1966, NSF Files, National Security
Action Memoranda, LBJL.
44. Memorandum for the President by Dean Rusk, 25 July 1966, NSF, Charles E. Johnson
Files, Box 33, LBJL.
45. USAEC chairman Glenn Seaborg recounts, Then on July 5, answering a question at a
news conference, the president seemed to intimate that the United States was prepared to
modify the language of its draft treaty in order to reach a compromise solution with the
Soviets Seaborg, Stemming the Tide, 185.
46. National Security Action Memorandum 355, 1 August 1966, NSF NSAM Files, LBJL.
 The International History Review 949

47. See Memoranda for Walt W. Rostow by Benjamin Read, 31 October 1966 and 31 August
1966, NSF NSAM Files, NSAM 355, LBJL.
48. India worried that if China threatened India with a nuclear blackmail, and the United
States decided to retaliate, and the Soviet Union in turn said that for every bomb on a
Chinese city, the Soviets would attack American cities, then Washington would be com-
pelled to give up its unilateral guarantee, thus leaving India insecure and vulnerable.
Such a viewpoint was articulated by L.K. Jha in October 1965 in conversation with US
ambassador Chester Bowles, who noted in his telegram to the US State Department that
Homi J. Bhabha had also expressed a similar opinion to Bowles earlier in the year. In
1967,
L.K. Jha and Vikram Sarabhai (Bhabhas successor) travelled to Moscow and Washing-
ton, seeking a joint superpower security guarantee for India. See Secret telegram 1034
from Chester Bowles to Dean Rusk, 19 October 1965, NSF Files of Robert Komer, Box
21, LBJL.
49. Rajya Sabha starred question no. 463 regarding Pakistan Memo to UN on alleged atom
blast by India, 16 August 1966, Ministry of External Affairs Files (1914-1971), U.IV/125/
66/1966, NAI.
50. See Robert McMahon, Toward Disillusionment and Disengagement in South Asia, in
Warren I. Cohen et al (eds), Lyndon Johnson Confronts the World: American Foreign Pol-
icy, 1963-1968 (Cambridge University Press, 1994), 135-172.
51. Note to Robert Komer from Spurgeon Keeny, 3 November 1965, NSF Files of Robert
Komer, Box 25, LBJL.
52. Note for McGeorge Bundy prepared by Robert W. Komer, 5 October 1965, NSF Robert
Komer Files, Box 23, LBJL.
53. The short tether or President Johnsons policy of holding off food aid to famine-struck
India until the last moment in order to exercise leverage over New Delhi has been dis-
cussed in the fourth section.
54. Until the US recognition of the Peoples Republic of China in 1979, US archival docu-
ments have often referred to the country as the Chicoms as a shortened form of
Chinese Communists and to Taiwan or the Republic of China as China.
55. For the Sino-India war of October 1962 see Neville Maxwell, Indias China War (Lon-
don,: Cape, 1970); Allen Suess Whiting, The Chinese Calculus of Deterrence: India and
Indochina, Michigan Studies on China (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1975);
Srinath Raghavan, War and Peace in Modern India: A Strategic History of the Nehru
Years, Indian Century (Ranikhet: Permanent Black, 2010).
56. Note for McGeorge Bundy prepared by Robert W. Komer, 5 October 1965, NSF Robert
Komer Files, Box 23, LBJL.
57. Robert B. Rakove, Kennedy, Johnson and the Nonaligned World (Cambridge and New
York: Cambridge University Press, 2013).11.
58. For a historical comparison between the two administrations see Robert B. Rakove, Ken-
nedy, Johnson and the Nonaligned World (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012)
59. Memorandum for the President by Robert W. Komer, 22 April 1965, NSF Robert
Komer Files, Box 22, LBJL.
60. The rivalry between India and Pakistan has eternally posed problems for US foreign pol-
icy in South Asia. See Stephen P. Cohen, Shooting for a Century: The India-Pakistan
Conundrum (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2013).
61. The New York Times, US losing Indias goodwill, Mrs. Gandhi says, 22 April 1964,
NSF Robert Komer Files, Box 23, LBJL.
62. See Raghavan, War and Peace in Modern India : A Strategic History of the Nehru Years.
63. It was probably in anticipation of this outcry in the Indian domestic political scene that
ambassador Bowles wrote an urgent telegram to Dean Rusk suggesting that prime minis-
ter Shastri be allowed to announce the impending second Chinese nuclear test, if Shastri
so wishes to. This, Bowles argued, would demonstrate India can monitor Chinese nuclear
activities and therefore enhance the image of New Delhis scientific capabilities. It is not
known if Rusk disagreed or Shastri refused or both, but Bowles initiative did not bear
fruit. See Secret telegram 2254 from Chester Bowles to Dean Rusk, 10 February 1965,
NSA.
950 J. Sarkar

64. On the Chinese ultimatum to India during the 1965 India-Pakistan war see R. D. Prad-
han and Yashwantrao Balwantrao Chavan, 1965 War, the inside Story : Defence Minister
Y.B. Chavans Diary of India-Pakistan War (New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers & Distribu-
tors, 2007). 65-78.
65. Mentioned in: Secret note from Robert Komer to McGeorge Bundy, 17 September 1965,
NSF Files of Robert Komer, Box 21, LBJL.
66. Agenda points prepared by Robert Komer, 17 September 1965, NSF Files of Robert
Komer, Box 21, LBJL.
67. See excerpts from Report of Glenn T. Seaborg on his Trip to Australia, Thailand, India,
and Pakistan, Jan 3-14, 1967, NSF Files of Harold Saunders, Box 14, LBJL. Seaborgs
papers are stored at the Library of Congress but documents concerning Seaborgs
January 1967 trip are classified at the Library of Congress.
68. In the wake of the first Chinese nuclear test of 16 October 1964, President Lyndon John-
son issued a press statement that very day, and a radio and television address two days
later in which he offered strong support to non-nuclear states that faced some threat of
nuclear blackmail, hinting at the possibility of US nuclear security assurances to such
countries. Soon after, he appointed the high profile Committee on Nuclear Prolifera-
tion commonly known as the Gilpatric Committee to assess the threat of a spread of
nuclear weapons in the world, and the role of US policy with respect to it. For the 1967
meeting see Memorandum of conversation between the Secretary of Defense and L.K.
Jha on 18 April 1967, 25 April 1967, NSA. http://www.gwu.edu/nsarchiv/NSAEBB/
NSAEBB6/docs/doc15.pdf
69. Secret memorandum of conversation, 19 April 1967, NSA. http://www.gwu.edu/
nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB6/docs/doc14.pdf
70. Memorandum for the President from Walt Rostow, 19 April 1967, NSF Files of Harold
Saunders, Box 14, LBJL.
71. Lettre Mme. Gandhi, premier minister de lInde, au general de Gaulle, president de la
Republique, 19 April 1967, Document 147, 1967, vol. 2, DDF.
72. Telegramme de M. Couve de Murville, minist
ere des affaires etrang
eres
a M Daridan,
Ambassadeur de France
a New Delhi. Texte de la reponse du general de Gaulle
a
Madame Indira Gandhi, 12 May 1967, Document 177, 1967, vol. 2, DDF.
73. Top Secret Note by L.K. Jha to Prime Ministers Secretariat entitled Nuclear Policy, 3
May 1967, P.N. Haksar Papers, IIIrd Installment, Sl. No. 111, April-May 1967, Nehru
Memorial and Museum Library, New Delhi.
74. L.K. Jha however stated that his personal position was non-nuclear. Ibid.
75. 17 June 1967: Chinas First Thermonuclear Test. http://www.ctbto.org/specials/infa
mous-anniversaries/17-june-1967-chinas-first-thermonuclear-test/
76. Beijing had exploded its first hydrogen bomb in record time within 32 months of its
first nuclear test. The United States had taken 86 months and the Soviet Union 75
months after their respective first nuclear test explosions.
77. Dinesh Lal, Indo-Tibet-China Conflict (New Delhi: Kalpaz Publications, 2008), 201.
78. Raj Chengappa, Weapons of Peace: The Secret Story of Indias Quest to be a Nuclear
Power, 112.
79. Note de la direction politique, service des affaires atomiques pour la direction dAsie,
24 February 1969, Document 167, 1969, vol. 1, DDF, and Note de la direction politique,
service des affaires atomiques, 6 February 1968, Document 101, 1968, vol. 1, DDF.