229. Memorandum From the President’s Deputy Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Komer) to the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy)1
Mac—
When I called BK Nehru to invite him for lunch with us Friday, he raised the question of a visit by the PM. Did we have in mind the same kind of quick visit to Washington as had been under discussion before the fighting or were we now proposing that if the PM went to the UN the President would be delighted to see him in Washington? I told BK that (1) we had no fixed view; (2) I couldn’t speak for the [Page 437] President, but assumed that with the aid bill now by us, the President would be happy to see the PM under either circumstance—it was a matter of working things out to their mutual convenience; (3) I had personally rather thought that with the issue before the UN, the PM would want to appear if he came to the US.
BK asked whether our feelers constituted a formal invitation. I replied that the situation was rather one of trying to work things out informally to the mutual convenience of the two leaders but that once this was done I was sure a formal re-invite was no problem. However, I recalled that BK himself had suggested the PM would like to make any formal visit to the US at a time when he could spend several days seeing the country, which of course was not possible during the present interregnum between Lok Sabha sessions. BK said he understood.
Mac, my understanding (particularly from the latest note from the President)2 is that he’d be happy to see Shastri here in any way and any time that can be mutually worked out. Correct?
- Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Name File, Komer Memos, Vol. II. Secret.↩
- Reference is to a September 24 note, attached to a memorandum from Komer inquiring about proposed visits by Shastri and Ayub. President Johnson agreed to a visit by Shastri and preferred that the visit take place before October 15. (Ibid., Memos to the President, McGeorge Bundy, Vol. 15, 9/23/65–12/23/65)↩