357.AB/5–951
Memorandum of Conversation, by Mr. Howard Meyers of the Office of United Nations Political and Security Affairs
Subject: Kashmir
| Participants: | Dr. Frank P. Graham, UN Representative for India and Pakistan |
| Frank D. Collins, SOA | |
| Howard Meyers, UNP |
On Monday, 7 May, Frank Collins and I spent three hours with Dr. Graham. At this time, we handed him the list of unclassified documents noted in the appendix to this memorandum,1 and promised to furnish additional classified materials as soon as we could get it ready. [Page 1767] I had previously ascertained from Dr. Graham’s secretary, and confirmed it with Dr. Graham, that he would prefer to read the basic documents in the case before coming over to the Department for briefing. We indicated which of the documents we believed were of primary and immediate interest.
[Here follows a discussion of possible appointments to the staff of the United Nations Representative for India and Pakistan.]
The UN Representative was most curious about the personality of Prime Minister Nehru, remarking that Nehru appeared to be the single most important factor in any negotiations on the Kashmir Dispute. We attempted to describe as objectively as possible the Prime Minister’s background in general and its specific application to the Kashmir Dispute, pointing out that the emotional overtones of his attachment to Kashmir were complemented by the power-politic realism of various elements within India who saw the Kashmir Dispute as useful for a variety of purposes. We suggested that some of the more important of these purposes, which we did not believe were inconsistent one with the other, might be outlined as the following: (i) through various devices, to avoid implementing the Indian commitment to settle the accession question by a fair and impartial plebiscite, with the objective of making the cease-fire line a real political boundary and integrating Kashmir more closely into the Indian Union; (ii) avoiding settlement of the Kashmir Dispute, as a means of weakening the position of the Government of Pakistan and disrupting Pakistan’s internal stability; (iii) keeping alive the Kashmir Dispute, as one of a number of devices directed at eventual reintegration of Pakistan in a Greater India.
Despite these possible objectives of the Government of India, we said that the Department believed that overcoming Nehru’s objections to fair suggestions was the single greatest problem for a reasonable settlement of the Kashmir Dispute, since there are members of his cabinet and groups in India who we believe really desire a reasonable settlement of the Kashmir Dispute. We added that Nehru, himself, continued to declare publicly that a peaceful settlement of the Kashmir Dispute was possible and desirable.
At Dr. Graham’s request, we described at some length the various shifts in Indian tactics by which they had gone from the state-wide plebiscite concept of the two UNCIP resolutions, to the Bajpai suggestion of partition with a plebiscite in the Vale of Kashmir, to the return at the recent Security Council meetings to an emphasis on the state-wide plebiscite under the August 1948 and January 1949 UNCIP resolutions. Dr. Graham remarked that this maneuvering reminded him very strongly of the Dutch attitude during the Indonesian Dispute, and added that a solution of the Indonesian problem had been reached finally despite the maneuvering of the Dutch trying to prevent [Page 1768] a fair solution. He hoped that something of the same nature could occur in the Kashmir Dispute, although he was cognizant of the difficulties and of the fact that he did not possess any similar means of bringing pressure to bear which would be nearly as effective as those which had been used on the Dutch. He said he found that it had been most difficult for the Dutch to talk their way around very specific and detailed proposals which had been supported by the Security Council, and indicated that this might be the logical development of the Kashmir Dispute. We took this opportunity to say that the minimum benefit we could obtain from Dr. Graham’s mission would be a report in which, under his terms of reference, he would sum up the unresolved issues between the parties which he believed had to be solved in order for them to implement their commitments under the two UNCIP resolutions. This might possibly be used as the basis for working out detailed proposals of the nature of those which Dr. Graham had referred to in connection with the Indonesian Dispute.
We ended the discussion by explaining to Dr. Graham that we wanted to make clear that the Department would support him as best it could. We pointed out that his position was not that of the United States Representative on a Commission but the UN Representative for the Kashmir Dispute. Actually, by acting in the most objective fashion, Dr. Graham could not help but advance UN interests and US interests. Both India and Pakistan are our friends. The United States sincerely desires a solution which will be mutually acceptable to both parties, and Ambassador Gross had said in the recent Security Council meetings concerned with the Kashmir Dispute that there could be no lasting solution of the dispute which was not acceptable to both parties.
- List of documents, mostly published by the United Nations, not printed.↩