The Powers in Play
Around noon that day, in the United States embassy in New Delhi, the Indian Foreign Minister Chandra and the US Ambassador to India, Christopher Anderson, spent the whole morning on a last round of detailed consultations over President Kahan's coming visit to America, and the talks went hard.1 In the space of a few hours the ambassador explained the American position over and over. He said there ought by rights to have been a higher grade of reception, but that, considering how most Americans loathed this suddenly erupted war, this state visit could only be downgraded; the US government had to cancel the parts where Prime Minister Kahan would speak at his alma mater and hold a joint press conference at the White House. The closed-door talks with the President could be kept, since the President was still interested to hear the Indian Prime Minister's explanation of the war, but there was little likelihood of the joint statement the Indian government wished for. America would not back a war that threatened the Indian Ocean, and the fall of Pakistan's present government might well bring on a problem of nuclear proliferation. In principle, only if India escalated the conflict no further and acknowledged the United Nations' leading role in it could relations between America and India be repaired.
Chandra knew he was unlikely to change the present facts; in truth he himself did not much understand the real substance of this war, but as Foreign Minister he felt he had to argue the case on its merits one last time, and win, at least, one public speech for the Prime Minister's American visit; Prime Minister Kahan had studied in America, his English was good, his eloquence beyond compare, and perhaps it might work some marvel.
"Ambassador, your President should fully weigh how many points in common our two great nations have in the realm of ideology; whatever happens, the world should not be left with the impression that America is isolating India. So Prime Minister Kahan still hopes to make a public address to the American people."
"Minister, you overthink it; the US government's idea is really very simple, to restore regional peace to the Indian Ocean, which is the throat of world trade, and where America's interests lie too, that is all," Anderson at once threw a set phrase back at Chandra to block him.
"There is much else we can cooperate on; if a secondary problem were let harm the interests of many other quarters, I think that is... ill-considered, and besides... the Indian people love the American people," Chandra said, straining to speak of a war that had already killed and wounded several thousand as a trifling stumbling stone in the road of Indo-American relations. In fact he himself felt that to say such a thing distorted the truth badly.
"Quite so, Minister. But you know too that the US government's settled policy is not easily changed. Pakistan is not Palestine; Pakistan has made sacrifices for America's counter-terror needs too, and is a nuclear-armed country."
"But we still have other, weightier common interests; we must face together the greatest threat in Asia. To weaken India would only cancel out the free world's greatest bastion in Asia."
For some reason a faint, scarcely perceptible light flickered in Anderson's eyes, as though Chandra's words had touched him a little, but he did not take up the thread. He waited for Chandra to go on.
"Ambassador, you know China is giving Pakistan a steady stream of aid, swift and generous; apart from lording it over Asia, they have no code to bind their conduct; while America, as the leader of the free world, clings to impractical moral principles and keeps isolating India. This truly chills Prime Minister Kahan, and the Indian people," Chandra said, throwing his old face to the winds; these absurd arguments he could never have brought himself to utter a month ago, but the war Kahan had launched had long since dragged him into it too, and now he no longer cared.
"Perhaps... that is one reason the President is willing to hold closed-door talks with Prime Minister Kahan; but... I do not think this meeting can change the US government's Asia strategy. Even if there is a change... forgive my frankness, it will very likely come after our elections this year."
Anderson put this topic off too; by the look of it today's talks would make no real progress. After a few more rounds of empty words of little meaning, Chandra had no choice but to rise and take his leave.
Anderson saw Chandra all the way to the fountain before the embassy's main building. Chandra's car came slowly up from the underground garage, and in that interval the two exchanged a few harmless words about the artistic level of this Nehru-era building. The car drew up; the two shook hands once more in farewell, and Chandra had just turned to get into the car when Anderson suddenly came over again.
"Oh, by the way, Minister, there is one more thing I nearly forgot."
Chandra climbed back out of the car; forty years of diplomatic training told him that no regular diplomat forgets the content of a formal talk. The American ambassador was putting on a play, but for the moment Chandra did not yet know what piece Anderson was about to sing.
"Out of consideration for the security interests our two countries share, my government wishes to remind yours of one thing. This may perhaps clear away some of the estrangement the war has caused between us."
"Oh? What thing?" Anderson's words had caught Chandra off guard.
"It is this: as our fleet passed the waters west of Koniba Island in the small hours today, it discovered a Chinese nuclear submarine that had slipped secretly into the Bay of Bengal.2 If your country needs it, we can tell you the last position at which this submarine was found. In fact, that submarine is at present just..." Anderson suddenly stopped, this time seeming really to have forgotten something; an American military attaché beside him stepped briskly up and murmured a few words in his ear.
"Right, twenty nautical miles east of Chennai. As of nine o'clock this morning she was still there," the ambassador said. Chandra knew that while he had been holding his sham talks with him this morning, the American embassy and Washington had been in effective contact all along, so that the ambassador even knew the Chinese submarine's position as of nine o'clock.
Chandra's mind rather short-circuited; he knew this was a signal the Americans had deliberately let out, but did not yet know what kind of hint it was; in all his years as a diplomat, this was the first time he had met so odd a thing.
The two shook hands a third time, hypocritically; this time Anderson looked composed and easy, as though no other words had suddenly come back to him, and he and his wife stood there by the fountain to see Chandra into his car and away from the American embassy.
The moment he was out of the embassy gate Chandra meant to telephone the Prime Minister's office, but on second thoughts he had the driver take him straight to the Prime Minister's residence.
Chandra walked into the residence; the secretary told him the Prime Minister had been waiting in his office for his news. But when he entered the office quickly, he found Singh there too, and it seemed a quarrel had just taken place, for the Prime Minister looked very displeased. Chandra thought it must be the business of Singh, that fearless fool, having dismissed a weighty old man of the military. But that was no concern of his, no need to ask; he now had important matters to report.
"Dr. Chandra, how do the Americans stand?" the Prime Minister turned to ask him, leaving Singh to one side.
"On the surface, the same as ever. They can make no sense of this war of ours. But..."
"But what?"
"This is why I hurried over. As I was leaving, Anderson suddenly told me the American fleet had found a Chinese nuclear submarine lurking near our east coast, and that the US government hoped this top-secret news might be of help to our security."
Without waiting for Kahan to speak, Singh sprang up from his seat, his face all excitement. He had caught, with a keen nose, the intent the Americans had let out in this.
1. The downgraded visit: Washington strips Kahan's state visit of its alma-mater speech and White House press conference, keeping only a closed-door meeting, and rules out the joint statement Delhi wanted. The American conditions, escalate no further and accept UN primacy, plus the worry that a Pakistani collapse means nuclear proliferation, mark how far the war has cost India abroad, even with a friendly administration. ↩
2. The tip-off: Anderson's staged "one more thing" is the pivot of the whole arc: the US quietly hands India the position of 411, twenty nautical miles east of Chennai, current as of that morning. The hint is not aid to a friend but a nudge, a chance to see whether India will act against Chinese power in the Indian Ocean, which is the American interest even while Washington opposes India's war. Koniba Island appears to lie in the Nicobar chain; the referent is left uncertain and transliterated. ↩