Hunger and Containment: How India Became “Important” in US Cold War Strategy

Abstract

Abstract Notes 1. Robert L. Beisner, Dean Acheson: A Life in the Cold War (New York: Oxford, 2006), p. 507; National Security Council, “NSC-48, The Position of the United States With Respect to Asia,” December 30, 1949, in Thomas Etzold, ed., Containment: Documents on American Policy and Strategy (New York: Columbia, 1978), p. 265. 2. W. W. Rostow, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Foreign Aid (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1986), pp. 8–9; John F. Kennedy, “If India Falls,” The Progressive, January 1958, pp. 8–11. 3. Michael Latham, Modernization as Ideology (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000), pp. 86–7; Nils Gilman, Mandarins of the Future (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 2003), pp. 44–5; Walter Lippmann, “India, The Glorious Gamble,” Ladies Home Journal, August 1959, pp. 48–9. 4. CIA, “Analysis of Possible Political Developments of Strategic Significance that May Occur Between 1951 and 1954,” February 28, 1950, Declassified Documents Reference System (hereafter DDRS). www.gale.com, item CK3100296001; Gary R. Hess, America Encounters India, 1941–1947 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1971), pp. 162–72; H. W. Brands, India and the United States: The Cold Peace (Boston: Twayne, 1990), p. 42; JSPC 814/3, December 11, 1947, Thomas H. Etzold and John L. Gaddis, eds., Containment: Documents on American Policy and Strategy, 1945–1950 (New York: Columbia, 1978), p. 296. 5. Andrew Rotter, Comrades at Odds: The United States and India, 1947–1964 (Ithaca: Cornell, 2000), p. 32; Office of Intelligence and Research, South Asia Branch, “The Need for and Possibility of Economic Development in India,” March 2, 1951, Far East Program Division, South Asia Country Subject Files, 195-52, India, box 13, RG 469, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD (hereafter NARA); Milton Katz to Richard Bissell, April 21, 1951, Office of the Deputy Administrator, Country Files, 1950–51, box 2, RG 469, NARA. 6. CIA, “Comprehensive Plan of Requirements for Production of National Intelligence on the Far East,” June 15, 1950, CIA-RDP79, CREST, NARA. 7. William C. Bullitt, “The Old Ills of Modern India,” Life, October 1, 1951, pp. 111–12; Dennis Merrill, Bread and the Ballot: The United States and India's Economic Development, 1947–1963 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990), p. 55; Acheson to Truman, “Indian Request for Food Grains,” February 2, 1951, DDRS, CK3100407683; Ferdinand Kuhn, “Truman Asks Foreign Grant of $8.5 Billion,” Washington Post, May 25, 1951, p. 1. 8. Robert J. McMahon, The Cold War on the Periphery: The United States, India, and Pakistan (New York: Columbia, 1994), p. 107; “GOP Demands India Vow Aid Against Russia,” Chicago Tribune, May 24, 1951, p. D6; Willard Edwards, “Denounce Bill to Give India Grain as ‘Phony’,” Chicago Tribune, March 7, 1951, p. 5; “How Real is India's Famine?” Chicago Tribune, February 19, 1951, p. 16; M. J. Akbar, Nehru: The Making of India (New Delhi: Roli Books, 2002), p. 491. 9. Nehru, The Discovery of India (New York: Doubleday, 1960), p. 386; India Planning Commission, Our Plan (Delhi: GOI Publications Division, 1953), pp. 27–9; Harlan Cleveland to William C. Foster and Richard Bissell, “Aid to India,” January 19, 1951, Records of the US Foreign Assistance Agencies, RG 469, Country files, Box 1. 10. Oscar Calvo-Gonzalez, “Neither a Carrot nor a Stick: American Foreign Aid and Economic Policymaking in Spain During the 1950s,” Diplomatic History Vol. 30, No. 3 (June 2006), pp. 409–38; Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Development of Technical Assistance Programs: Background Information and Documents, 83rd Cong., 2nd sess., 1954, p. 60; George V. Allen to Dulles, July 26, 1953, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954 (hereafter FRUS) (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1986), Vol. 9, p. 1699; Dulles to Allen, September 3, 1953, FRUS, 1952–1954, Vol. 9, p. 1717. 11. Eleanor Roosevelt, India and the Awakening East (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1953), pp. 113–14; W. O. Douglas, “Way to Win in the East,” Rotarian, June 1951, 6–53; Margaret Bourke-White, Interview With India (London: The Travel Book Club, 1950), p. 175; Henry Steele Commager, “Acid Test for the American Character,” New York Times Magazine, April 29, 1951, p. 8. 12. Barbara Ward, “The Fateful Race Between China and India,” New York Times Magazine, September 20, 1953, pp. 9–67; Chester Bowles, “New India,” Foreign Affairs Vol. 31, No. 1 (October 1952), p. 80; Yuan-li Wu and Robert C. North, “China and India: Two Paths to Industrialization,” Problems of Communism Vol. 4, No. 3 (May–June 1955), pp. 13–19; Watt W. Rostow, The Diffusion of Power: An Essay in Recent History (New York: MacMillan, 1973), p. 104. 13. Quoted in Jean Drèze and Amartya Sen, India: Development and Participation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 113. 14. Judith M. Brown, Nehru: A Political Life (New Haven: Yale, 2003), p. 269; Congressional Record, 84th Congress, 1st sess., June 29, 1955, p. 9536. 15. Congressional Record, 84th Cong., 1st sess., July 11, 1953, p. 10234. 16. NSC 5409, “United States Policy Toward South Asia,” February 19, 1954, FRUS, 1952–1954, 11: 1098; NSC 5701, Statement of Policy on US Policy Toward South Asia,” January 10, 1957, FRUS, 1955, 1957, Vol. 8, p. 31; Yves Moroni, “India's Second Five Year Plan,” May 22, 1956, Records of the Federal Reserve, country files, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand, general, Federal Reserve Board Archives, Washington, DC. 17. Kissinger, “Reflections on American Diplomacy,” Foreign Affairs Vol. 35 (October 1956), p. 37; On images of Indians as economic actors, see Rotter, Comrades at Odds, pp. 77–115. 18. Ward, “Fateful Race Between China and India,” p. 64; J. K. Galbraith, “Conditions for Economic Change in Underdeveloped Countries,” Journal of Farm Economics Vol. 33, No. 4 (November 1951), pp. 689–96. 19. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Mutual Security Act of 1955, 84th Cong., 1st sess., 1955, p. 520. 20. Helen C. Farnsworth, “Response of Wheat Growers to Price Changes: Appropriate or Perverse?” The Economic Journal Vol. 66, No. 262 (June 1956), pp. 271–87; John Kerry King, “Rice Politics,” Foreign Affairs Vol. 31 (April 1953), p. 458; Galbraith, “Conditions for Economic Change,” p. 691; J. K. Galbraith, “Making Point 4 Work,” Commentary, October 1950, p. 229. 21. State Dept., OIR, “The Far East and South Asia,” June 23, 1955, OIR Rept., 6972, RG 59, NARA; Senate, Mutual Security Act of 1955, p. 8. 22. W. W. Rostow, “Marx Was a City Boy or, Why Communism May Fail,” Harper's Magazine, February 1955, pp. 26–9. 23. “Model for Asia – China or India,” Far Eastern Economic Review, February 10, 1955, p. 161. 24. Senate, Mutual Security Act of 1955, p. 93; Stassen meeting with Planning Commission, March 1, 1955, Records of US Foreign Assistance Agencies, RG 469, Mission to India, Director Subject Files, box 2, NARA. 25. Congressional Record, September 4, 1959, 86th Congress, 1st sess., p. 18056; Congressional Record, May 27, 1957, 85th Cong, 1st sess., p. 7716; Elmer L. Menzie and Robert G. Crouch, “Political Interests in Agricultural Export Surplus Disposal Through Public Law 480,” Arizona Experiment Station Technical Bulletin Vol. 161 (September 1964), pp. 15, 28. 26. Merrill, Bread and the Ballot, pp. 126–30; James Warner Bjorkman, “Public Law 480 and the Policies of Self-Help and Short-Tether: Indo-American Relations, 1965–68,” in Lloyd I. Rudolph and Susanne H. Rudolph, eds., The Regional Imperative (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1980), pp. 201–62; State Dept. Bureau of Intelligence and Research, “Food-for-Peace and Freedom-from-Hunger,” August 23, 1960, Policy Planning Staff Records, Lot 67D548, RG 59, box 118, NARA. 27. P. C. Mahalanobis, The Approach of Operational Research to Planning in India (Calcutta; Statistical Publishing Society, 1963), pp. 6–7. 28. Nehru, Press Conf., May 31, 1955, Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru, 2nd series (Delhi: Oxford, 2001), Vol. 28, pp. 384–5; Minister of Food, “Impact of Wheat and Rice from the USA under Fresh P.L. 480,” 1957, Ministry of Food and Agriculture Papers, FIMP-110(61)I, National Archives of India (hereafter NAI), New Delhi; William F. Hall, P.L. 480's Contribution to India's Economic Development (Washington: Economic Research Service, Dept. of Agriculture, 1961), p. 10. 29. Nehru to Chief Ministers, August 12, 1956, Selected Works, Vol. 34, p. 51; Foodgrains Enquiry Committee, Report (Delhi: Ministry of Food, 1957), p. 93. 30. Nilakanth Rath and V. S. 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Nehru, “P.L. 480 – Aid to India,” July 11, 1957, Food Ministry papers, FIMP-110(61)I, NAI; Rath and Patvardhan, Impact of Assistance, pp. 79, 155, estimated that coarse grain production dropped 15 percent by 1962. 33. Press Conference, May 31, 1955, Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru, 2nd series (Delhi: Oxford, 2001), Vol. 28, p. 388. 34. Nehru to CM, November 20, 1957, Nehru, Letters to Chief Ministers (Delhi: Oxford, 1988), Vol. 4, pp. 600–1; S. R. Sen, “Impact and Implications of Foreign Surplus Disposal on Underdeveloped Economies, the Indian Perspective,” Journal of Farm Economics Vol. 42, No. 5 (December 1960), pp. 1031–42. 35. Foodgrains Enquiry, Report, p. 95; B. B. Ghosh, “Further P.L. 480 Agreement for Import of Wheat and Rice from USA,” April 30, 1957, Food Ministry papers, INA, FIMP-110(61)I, NAI; Bjorkman, “Public Law 480,” p. 227. 36. A. M. Rosenthal, “Food Now Scarce in India's North,” New York Times, April 21, 1957, p. 11. 37. Chunilal B. 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