Sino-Indian War and JFK’s Quiet Hand

Earlier this week, during a Lok Sabha exchange, Prime Minister Narendra Modi alluded to ‘JFK’s Forgotten Crisis: Tibet, the CIA, and the Sino-Indian War’ a 2015 book by CIA insider and foreign policy expert Bruce Riedel as a pestle to beat Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and his party. The allusion stemmed as a riposte to Gandhi’s remarks on the Sino-Indian border situation, with Modi invoking the book to suggest that Gandhi’s critique stemmed less from historical awareness than from an attempt to project gravitas. The PM, naturally, wanted to draw attention to the ‘Himalayan Blunders’ of Gandhi’s great-grandfather and India’s first PM Jawaharlal Nehru during the 1962 Sino-Indian War.

However, Riedel has given a superbly balanced account that goes well-beyond detailing Nehru’s missteps while effortlessly evoking the geopolitical landscape of South Asia of the 1950s and early 60s, U.S. President John F. Kennedy deft diplomacy and the corridors of power in Washington, Beijing and New Delhi. A CIA insider for more than three decades and director of the Brookings Intelligence Project, Riedel packs in an amazing amount of information in less than 180 pages. No dry diplomatic account, Riedel’s book is an exemplar of clarity and readability, leavened with novelistic flourishes (for instance, Jackie Kennedy’s efforts at bolstering diplomacy between Nehru and Ayub Khan) that reads with the immediacy of a thriller.

In the autumn of 1962, Kennedy was juggling two high-stakes conflicts on opposite sides of the globe. In the Caribbean, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev was deploying nuclear weapons in Cuba, bringing the world perilously close to annihilation. Meanwhile, in the Himalayas, Mao Zedong’s China launched an invasion of India, exposing Nehru’s strategic miscalculations and leaving India’s northern frontiers vulnerable.

Beginning with the Eisenhower era, Riedel paints a fascinating picture of how the Korean War (1950-53) shaped American perceptions of China, leading to an entrenched belief that Beijing was reckless, unpredictable, and expansionist. This perception influenced Kennedy’s response to the 1962 Sino-Indian War.

Drawing on declassified documents, Riedel has a sharp eye for the telling detail. For instance, after the first pushback of the North Korean forces, American confidence curdled into calamity that resulted in disaster at Unsan. Meeting Truman on Wake Island in October 1950, Douglas MacArthur assured him the war would be over by Christmas. China, he insisted, would stay out. Even as he spoke, over 250,000 Chinese troops were slipping unnoticed into Korea. When they struck at Unsan, routing the Eighth Army, MacArthur’s intelligence chief dismissed it as a skirmish. It was anything but. The Chinese had feigned retreat, drawing American forces deeper north, then returned in overwhelming force. In 1962, Beijing would play the same game against India - strike hard, withdraw, and then strike again.

In his dissection of Nehru’s blunders in handling China, Riedel presents a nuanced analysis of how Nehru’s idealistic foreign policy, particularly the 1954 Panchsheel Agreement with China, lulled India into a false sense of security. Nehru’s trust in Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai’s assurances about border disputes proved disastrous, as Beijing methodically built infrastructure in Tibet, including roads through the contested Aksai Chin region.

The 1962 war was not merely a border skirmish but a calculated effort by Mao to humiliate India and assert dominance. When the Chinese advance overwhelmed India’s poorly equipped army, Nehru was forced to make a desperate appeal to Kennedy for military aid, including American air cover for Indian cities.

Riedel shows that Kennedy’s deft handling of the Sino-Indian war was a diplomatic triumph. Despite America’s close alliance with Pakistan, Kennedy swiftly moved to support Nehru, providing crucial military assistance and warning Beijing against further aggression. His intervention, some argue, played a role in China’s decision to withdraw.

The book also reveals how Kennedy’s strategy kept Pakistan from exploiting India’s crisis. Ayub Khan, Pakistan’s president, was displeased with Kennedy’s tilt towards India (he had earlier suspended CIA operations into Tibet based in East Pakistan). Yet, Kennedy managed to keep Islamabad from opening another front against India, preventing the conflict from spiralling into a broader South Asian war.

If there is a ‘hero’ in Riedel’s story, then it is John Kenneth Galbraith, the economist-turned-U.S. ambassador to India. Unlike the more hawkish elements in Washington, Galbraith saw India as a crucial counterbalance to China and worked tirelessly to secure Kennedy’s support for India.

Riedel has given us a number of engrossing books; JFK’s Forgotten Crisis is his most gripping.