Nehru style jackets were kind of a fad then too. The Beatles helped to make them popular
Posted on 06/14/2016 12:48:41 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
India need not have had to make desperate efforts now to get membership of elite NSG had former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru accepted the then US President John F Kennedy’s offer of helping the country detonate a nuclear device much before China did in 1964, according to former Foreign Secretary Maharajakrishna Rasgotra.
He also said that if Nehru had accepted the offer, not only would have India tested the nuclear device first in Asia, before China, but it also “would have deterred China from launching its war of 1962 and even imparted a note of caution to (Pakistan’s) Field Marshal Ayub Khan’s plans for war in 1965,” according to a Observer Research Foundation (ORF) release.
Rasgotra was speaking at the release of his new book “A Life in Diplomacy” at ORF.
“Kennedy, who was an admirer of India’s democracy and held its leader Jawaharlal Nehru in very high esteem, felt that democratic India, not Communist China, should be the first Asian country to conduct a nuclear test,” he said.
Kennedy’s hand-written letter was accompanied by a technical note from the chairman of the US Atomic Energy Commission, setting out the assistance his organisation would provide to Indian atomic scientists to detonate an American device from atop a tower in Rajasthan desert, the release said.
In the letter, Kennedy had said he and the American establishment were aware of Nehru’s strong views against nuclear tests and nuclear weapons, but emphasised the political and security threat China’s test would spell for Nehru’s government and India’s security, it said, adding the American leader’s letter emphasised that “nothing is more important than national security”.
Nehru discussed the entire matter with Dr Homi Bhabha and GP Parthasarathy, and rejected the offer.
Nehru style jackets were kind of a fad then too. The Beatles helped to make them popular
Nehru was a joke. He’s burning in hell.
“...(Kennedy’s) letter emphasised that “nothing is more important than national security”.
What a novel idea! Let’s ask obama what he thinks about this.
At least he had an article of clothing named after him, which is cool.
I’d like to be forever known for the T-Bone Texan Sock, which is sock, but dirtier.
There was an engineer from IIT who demonstrated a rocket prototype to Nehru before Neil Armstrong walked in the moon. Nehru told the engineer India is a poor country...we have no needs for rockets. The engineer moved to the US, and was one of the lead engineers on the Saturn project. I think he also was a founding member of Martin Merriata.
So a democrat was going to give India a nuclear weapon?
India was and still is a socialists country.
Today’s democrats give countries like North Korea and Iran nuclear weapons help.
Lol, I’d buy a T-Bone Texas Sock. A clean one, that is :)
Seriously though, had Nehru not compromised India as much due to his communist sympathies, we wouldn’t have the ChiCom bully we have in today’s PRC/Mainland China.
Socialism set India back by more years than it has been operational. And the bureaucracy there doesn’t want to give up its control of the economy.
Political India remains a prisoner of her recent history - economic and social India are desperately trying to move forward.
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