Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s successful visit to Washington in July was the high point of U.S.-India relations that have seen many moods and seasons over the past 55 years. But irrespective of success or failure, the summit meetings between the leaders of the two great democracies were never without moments of high drama. Sunil Adam analyzes the style and substance of past summits.

Seasons of Summits

Can charisma and chemistry influence diplomatic relations? Unlike in the 18th and 19th centuries, considered the golden age of diplomacy, the post-industrial world was too complex to be swayed by attributes of leadership. The mushrooming of new nations in post-colonial times, and the technological advances in transportation and communications and the resultant complexities of modern governance significantly reduced the import of personal diplomacy of heads of government.

It is just as well. The first 45 years of United States-India relations would have been far worse than they were had the personal feelings and perjudices of the leaders of the two countries influenced their respective foreign polices.

While the recent disclosures from declassified White House documents – about President Richard Nixon using expletives in his references to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi – underscore the complex intersection of personal feelings between leaders of countries and the relations between their countries, they also make obvious that the common values of the U.S. and India are such that their relationship could survive five decades of differing world views, conflicting national interests and, most pertinently, the clash of personalities.

Shaky Start

India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s first visit to the U.S. in October 1949 was nothing short of a disaster, even though he was received with all the pomp reserved for an important head of state, not just government. President Harry S. Truman even broke with protocol and went to receive Nehru at the airport.

“They had gone all out to welcome me and I am very grateful to them for it and expressed so myself. But they expected something more than gratitude and goodwill and that more I could not supply them,” Nehru wrote to Dr. S. Radhakrishnan about his visit.

At a personal level, Nehru, who had a very aristocratic upbringing, found the Americans’ propensity to flaunt their material wealth to be lacking in culture and good taste. Worse, he could not relate to his hosts at an intellectual level – during the White House dinner, Nehru complained in the letter saying, “A main topic of discussion between President Truman and his Vice President Alben Barkley concerned the merits of Kentucky bourbon whiskey.”

As for the Americans’ reaction to Nehru, Truman’s Secretary of State Dean Acheson summed it up like this: “I was convinced that Nehru and I were not destined to have a pleasant personal relationship. He was so important to India’s survival and India’s survival was so important to all of us, that if he did not exist – as Voltaire said of God – he would have to be invented. Nevertheless, he was one of the most difficult men I have ever had to deal with.”

India Likes Ike

Of course, Nehru was not fortunate in having sympathetic secretaries at the State Department – both Acheson and his successor in the Eisenhower administration, John Foster Dulles, were not favorably disposed toward Nehru, who was seen as being under the spell of British socialists who couldn’t stand the Americans. To make things worse, Krishna Menon, Nehru’s protégé and India’s interlocutor in the U.S. in those days, was unapologetically anti-American.

It is not without reason that both Dulles and Menon were conspicuously kept out during Nehru’s second visit to the White House in December 1956 – which expectedly went off much better than the previous one. Nehru was probably right when he said, “One should never visit the United States for the first time.”

President Dwight Eisenhower and Nehru hit it off at a personal level even if they did not make progress on substantive issues pertaining to bilateral or international relations, including Kashmir and Korea – if New Delhi was suspicious about Washington’s intentions in Kashmir, the latter was doubtful about New Delhi’s neutrality in the Korean arbitration. But the nearly 14 hours of exclusive time the two leaders spent (without aides) at Eisenhower’s farm in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, enabled them to appreciate each other’s positions and compulsions.

Even if Eisenhower found Nehru to be “a personality of unusual contradictions” – a possible reference to the Indian leader’s democratic credentials juxtaposed against his sympathy for communist Russia and China – the U.S. leader also recognized his attitudes were conditioned by the West’s “condescension toward his people.”

Nehru, for his part, came away with the impression that the Republican president was “sincerely interested in India, its history, its aspiration and developmental efforts.”

In fact, the bonding between the two leaders was such that in 1958 when Nehru, sickened by bickering in his Congress Party and physically tired after leading the country for over a decade, expressed his desire to quit office, Eisenhower wrote a touching letter urging him not to do so. “It would indeed be a misfortune, perhaps for all of us, if at what may prove to be a critical formative period, your own influence were not actively present over any really protracted period.”

Their personal relationship and the ties between the two countries further improved when Eisenhower paid an historic and highly successful visit to India in 1959, which Nehru described as “exceeding his anticipations.”

In his widely acclaimed book, “Estranged Democracies,” Dennis Kux writes that millions of Indians, not seen since the celebrations of India’s independence, mobbed the streets of New Delhi to greet Eisenhower.

During the four-day visit, the first American president in India addressed Parliament, spoke at a public function in front of New Delhi’s historic Red Fort and visited the Taj Mahal. Kux sums up saying: “Eisenhower charmed India with his broad smile and friendly, open manner. The trip was a public relations triumph.”

The Kennedy Paradox

The Kennedy-Nehru relationship is a paradox. Nehru couldn’t have found a better friend of India than John F. Kennedy, who even before being elected president was an impassioned admirer of India. He regarded Nehru as one of the great political leaders of the 20th century, and in his first State of the Union address, spoke of the “soaring idealism of Nehru.”

Yet, Nehru, who was by then a tired old man, was least interested in the young American president and his ‘New Frontier.’ In fact, Nehru’s inexplicable lack of enthusiasm was also obvious when in 1951 the then Senator Kennedy visited India with his brother Bobby and sister Pat. Apparently, Kennedy was dismayed when after about 10 minutes into their meeting Nehru began to stare at the ceiling and tap his fingers on his desk, clearly indicating his boredom.

According to an account by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., historian and special assistant to President Kennedy, during lunch that day, Nehru completely ignored the Kennedy brothers to devote his attention to sister Pat.

In fact, Nehru’s disinterest in the Kennedy men, as against the Kennedy women, was also noticed by U.S. Ambassador to India John Kenneth Galbraith, who wrote in his “Ambassador’s Journal” that during his visit to the Kennedy White House, an aloof and passive Indian prime minister only came alive whenever Jackie Kennedy entered the room. Needless to add, the First Lady’s visit to India in March 1962 was a resounding success, with Nehru at his charming best.

The Kennedy White House, which had gone out of its way to please the great Indian statesman, was disappointed to realize how tired and ailing Nehru was by then. The president himself acknowledged that Nehru’s visit “was the worst state visit I have had.”

The Johnson Turn

U.S.-India relations during the Johnson administration could have been worse. As vice president, Lyndon Johnson visited India and met with Nehru. Kux vouches that despite the fact that Johnson was the earthy, backslapping Texan who could easily set Nehru’s teeth on edge, the Indian leader was actually on his best behavior, thanks to a recent announcement of a major U.S. economic package to India. Nehru even broke with protocol to receive Johnson at the airport.

But things turned sour when, as president, Johnson abruptly cancelled a scheduled visit to the White House by Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri, who by then had succeeded Nehru. Shastri, already uncertain about his lack of experience in foreign affairs, took the cancellation as a personal rebuke.

Things deteriorated further with the outbreak of the India-Pakistan war of 1965, in which the U.S. came under flak for not restraining its ally Pakistan, which used U.S. supplied arms against India.

Nevertheless, the Johnson administration redeemed itself by deterring China from going to Pakistan’s aid, and also supporting the Soviet mediation in the Indo-Pak conflict that resulted in the Tashkent agreement.

Indira Gandhi, who took over the reins after the premature death of Shastri, quickly moved to restore good relations with the U.S. Her visit to the White House within three months of taking office was highly successful with Johnson taking to Gandhi in a big way. As an American observer remarked, Gandhi “set out to vamp LBJ and succeeded.”

Johnson himself remarked, “the visit of Prime Minister Gandhi was as perfect as any visit could be.” Legend has it that Johnson liked Gandhi so much, he told his aides he was willing to criticize her in public if it’d help her win election in India.

But a combination of factors – Gandhi’s domestic compulsion to win over the left wing of her Congress Party and rally the support of communist parties tied to Moscow, the unpopular rupee devaluation on account of (alleged) American pressure, and India’s undiplomatic attack on the U.S. war in Vietnam quickly undid the gains of the Johnson-Gandhi bonhomie.

The Nixon Breach

It is ironic that Richard M. Nixon was probably the one influential American politician to make the most trips to India. His visits included one as vice president, two as a private citizen during the 1960s, and a fourth as president in 1969, just months after his inauguration. And yet, he presided over the darkest period in U.S.-India relations.

Even if, contrary to popular notions, it was the unfortunate coincidence of secret American moves with regard to China and the Indo-Pak conflict of 1971 that was responsible for the state of affairs, and not necessarily the personal prejudices Nixon may have had against India. It must be said that despite his deep-seated cold war mentality and the consequent empathy for Pakistan, Nixon’s so-called “tilt” against India remained largely in his mind.

During his first three visits, both Nehru and Indira Gandhi, who harbored no particular liking for Nixon, treated him with just “appropriate protocol.” When Gandhi received former vice president Nixon in New Delhi in 1967, she was apparently so bored with the aimless conversation that she asked her foreign minister in Hindi how long the meeting was to last. On the other hand, the wily American was “lionized” by Pakistani authorities, who laid out the red carpet even during his private visits, thus accounting for Nixon’s contrasting personal disposition toward the two South Asian countries.

Gandhi’s visit to the Nixon White House, which took place amid all round inevitability of war in the subcontinent over East Pakistan, was an unmitigated disaster. ‘Dialogue of the deaf’ was the consensus characterization of discussions between Nixon and Gandhi. In a tit-for-tat kind of situation, Nixon even made Gandhi wait for 45 minutes for a White House meeting. At the official dinner, the two leaders apparently made no effort to make even polite conversation, and despite First Lady Pat Nixon’s attempts, the atmosphere at the table remained “frosty.”

Nixon was contemptuous when he later wrote saying Gandhi was being “duplicitous” when she assured him she would not attack Pakistan, although she had already made up her mind to do so when she met with him in Washington. Years later, Indira Gandhi too acknowledged she had good relations with all the American presidents she met, the sole exception being Nixon.

Healing Time

U.S.-India relations began the gradual healing process under President Jimmy Carter and Morarji Desai, the first non-Congress Party prime minister of India. The two, who had a shared commitment to morality in international affairs, quickly established a personal rapport, even if the two countries moved cautiously on bilateral issues.

Carter’s visit to New Delhi in the fall of 1977 was a success, barring an embarrassing moment during a public reception when the visiting president, unaware of the live microphone, was heard telling his Secretary of State Cyrus Vance about writing a “cold and blunt” letter to Desai about U.S. supply of nuclear fuel for the Tarapore Atomic Plant, an issue that was coming to a head at the time. Desai made light of the gaffe saying the remarks “not intended to be heard, were not heard.”

Despite differences over Tarapore, which the Americans were seeking to bring under the newly enacted Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act, Desai’s visit to Washington the following year went off well. In an unprecedented gesture, after a White House dinner, Carter took Desai on a private and impromptu visit to the Lincoln Memorial. But the most interesting part of this phase was that the underlying concerns and irritants in U.S.-India relations could not be overcome by the narrowing of political differences and the personal bonding between the heads of government. If Carter could not reconcile his nonproliferation goals despite his confidence in Desai’s Gandhian credentials, Desai could not prevent his maverick ‘socialist’ minister George Fernandes from driving out Coca-Cola and IBM from India in a meaningless and self-defeating move. The substantive aspects of bilateral relations thus remained in limbo.

But the worse was yet to come. Following the fall of the Desai and Charan Singh governments, Indira Gandhi returned to power and immediately set the Carter White House afire with her rationalization of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Even though Gandhi soon softened her pro-Soviet stance, India’s hands were once again tied when Washington decided to arm Islamabad in an effort to launch a proxy war against the Soviets.

The Reagan Charm

Here was a president who was all set to “roll back” the “Evil Empire” and displayed no compunction in arming Pakistan to its gills. A tailor-made candidate for worsening U.S-India relations? Wrong. What really set the ball rolling was the personal chemistry between Gandhi and President Ronald Reagan when they met during a multilateral summit in Cancun, Mexico. The evidence can be found in a rare photograph in which Gandhi is seen smiling broadly as she sat listening to an effusive Reagan on a hotel terrace in Cancun. Reagan’s considerable charm obviously worked wonders with Gandhi, and the atmospherics in India-U.S. ties changed thereafter. The two had also worked a simple formula to move the bilateral relations forward: sidestep irritants and build on common areas of agreement.

Of course, credit also goes to Indira Gandhi, who in the 1980s, was less enthusiastic about her Russian friends who ignored her during her exile from office and was ready to cultivate the Americans, who treated her courteously when she was out of power.

The seasoned politician that she was, Gandhi too went on a charm offensive during her 1982 visit to Reagan’s Washington. In a throw back to her 1966 visit, she also wowed the American media. Once again, however, the personal chemistry didn’t translate into policy.

In 1984, amid a host of bilateral irritants, Gandhi confessed she saw U.S. policies as being opposed to India, but her good relations with Reagan were “entirely on a personal basis.”

Upon her tragic assassination a month later, Reagan paid a handsome tribute to Indira Gandhi by sending a group of very distinguished Americans headed by Secretary of State George Shultz to represent the U.S. at her funeral.

Rajiv Gandhi, who succeeded his mother, did not have much trouble in endearing himself to Washington, which he visited in June 1985. Young and modern in outlook, Rajiv Gandhi was given the honor of addressing a joint session of the U.S. Congress, an honor that was accorded to his grandfather decades ago, but was denied to his mother in her three official visits. He was also the first Indian head of government to be invited back to the White House after an interval of just two years.

Apart from restoring a sense of balance to bilateral relations, the Reagan years witnessed the renewal of defense ties, a deepening of scientific and technological cooperation, and an increase in bilateral trade.

The Hiatus

Following Rajiv Gandhi’s 1987 visit to Washington, it would be another seven years before an Indo-U.S. summit. India could not build on the personal friendship Rajiv Gandhi and George H.W. Bush forged during their four meetings when the former lost power in 1989. And with the end of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty and the end of the cold war, the U.S.-India summits were largely robbed of both personal glamour and political drama.

The next invite to the White House went to Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao, who met with President Bill Clinton in 1994. Although Clinton came to office professing a Kennedy-like enthusiasm for India, bilateral relations suffered during his first term because of the low priority accorded to them and over-emphasis placed on nonproliferation and human rights issues. While Rao’s somewhat low-key visit did set the relationship on a better footing, there was no evidence of any special relationship between the much older and scholarly Rao and a domestically preoccupied Clinton.

While Clinton accepted Rao’s invitation to visit India, only First Lady Hillary Clinton managed to make it during his tenure. Clinton visited India in March 2000, at the tail end of his second term, and, rather ironically, after it became an overt nuclear weapon power. Even though he was a lame duck president by then, he managed to charm the Indians and laid a strong framework for deepening bilateral relations.

By the time Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee visited the White House in September 2000, India’s status as a nuclear power and a brimming economic powerhouse had rendered Indo-U.S. relations immune to chemistry or charisma of leadership on either side.

At last, relations between the world’s largest democracies have matured to a stage when one can probably find faults in style rather than in substance.

Indira Gandhi, Bess Wallace Truman, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, President Truman and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru at a reception at the Indian Embassy in Washington, D.C. in October 1949. Ceremonial aspects apart, the Truman-Nehru summit was a failure.

Prime Minister Nehru, on his first visit to the United States, receiving an honorary degree from General Eisenhower at Columbia University, New York, in October 1949. When journalists asked him how the visit went, Nehru made one of his oft-quoted quips: “One should never visit the United States for the first time.”

Left, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, during his official visit to Washington, with President John Fitzgerald Kennedy at the White House in November 1961. Kennedy said Nehru’s was the worst state visit he ever had. Above, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi with President Lyndon Johnson and First Lady Lady Bird Johnson at a White House reception in 1966.

Above, President Nixon with Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in New Delhi in August 1969. Nixon was the second U.S. president to visit India. Below, a frosty Nixon and Gandhi at a White House reception in November 1971, just weeks before the India-Pakistan war. There was no love lost between the two leaders.

Prime Minister Morarji Desai and President Jimmy Carter at the Oval Office in June 1978. Below, President Carter and First Lady Rossalyn Carter being received by Prime Minister Desai and External Affairs Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee at Palam Airport in New Delhi in January 1978. The two leaders shared a moralistic perspective of international affairs that helped them to forge close personal relations.

Above, President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Indira Gandhi at a Rose Garden ceremony at the White House in July 1982. The two charismatic leaders had an excellent personal chemistry, coinciding with the resolve on the part of both countries to deepen relations. Below left, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Vice President George H.W. Bush during the former’s visit to Washington, D.C., in June 1985. Below right, Gandhi addressing a joint session of the U.S. Congress, an honor denied to his mother.

Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi responding to President Ronald Reagan’s welcoming remarks at a White House ceremony in June 1985. Below, Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao and President Bill Clinton at a White House press conference in May 1994.

Having neglected relations with India during his first term, President Clinton made up for it with a highly successful visit to India in March 2000.