In 1950, Mao claimed he had ‘liberated’ Tibet. The monks at Lhasa were powerless, the Dalai Lama was 15 years old, and the world ignored the event. Nehru, at the time, had friendly relations with China. The US was understandably nervous about China. Moreover, a subtle power struggle had commenced between Russia and China leaving everyone confused.

The CIA sprang into action, setting up a surveillance operation near Dhaka (in the erstwhile East Pakistan) and flying U2 spy planes over Tibet in the late fifties. They had been doing this from Lahore and Peshawar earlier – until one of their planes was shot down by the Russians. Soon they discovered the Lop Nor nuclear testing facility – and Mao found out about the spy planes. Perhaps he suspected Nehru of complicity as the planes had to cross Indian air space.

The Dalai Lama’s escape in 1959 and the Tibetan resistance were masterminded by the CIA. India gave him asylum and accommodated him at Dharamsala. Meanwhile in Pakistan Ayub Khan came to power in a military coup. India soon discovered that China had built a major highway across the Aksai Chin region which was a part of Kashmir. Nehru demanded China’s withdrawal but Mao stood his ground. From then on, relations between the two countries deteriorated. Nehru’s Forward Policy of pushing forward military outposts in disputed territories in Aksai Chin and the northeast sparked off violent incidents.

In January 1961, John F Kennedy assumed office as President of the United States. He chose John Kenneth Galbraith as Ambassador to India. In time, both men would prove themselves to be true friends of India in her hour of need.

On 17th August 1962, the USSR and India signed a treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation. China invaded India on 20th October 1962. At that precise moment, JFK was grappling with the Cuban missile crisis as the world came to the brink of nuclear war. Khrushchev was too busy to worry about India. Mao reportedly told him about his plans to attack India and the Russian didn’t bother to warn Nehru. (The treaty and his personal rapport with Nehru mattered little.) Khrushchev played a game with Fidel Castro as well, assuring Kennedy he would withdraw the nuclear warheads from Cuba, without consulting or informing Castro. It’s almost certain that Khrushchev had not told Mao about the nuclear missiles he had positioned in Cuba. Looks like he managed to fool everyone – except Kennedy.

Well, China grabbed Aksai Chin. And on 27th October, the hostilities ceased. The following day Khrushchev made a deal with Kennedy agreeing to remove the missiles from Cuba. The world breathed a sigh of relief. Nehru, however, had to eat humble pie, abandon his policy of nonalignment and send an SOS to Kennedy.

Washington’s response was swift and decisive. Besides Galbraith, the British and Canadian ambassadors in New Delhi appealed to their respective governments to join the effort to defend India. On 1st November, the USAF and RAF began airlifting arms and ammunition. Kennedy dispatched a high-level delegation to India. Ayub Khan demanded a slice of Kashmir as an inducement for staying out of the conflict. Kennedy, egged on by Galbraith, told him ‘don’t you dare’.

China attacked again on 16th November. The Indian army was completely routed on the north-eastern front and the narrow Siliguri corridor linking Assam, Nagaland Manipur and Tripura with the rest of India was on the verge of capture. India suffered heavy casualties. Thousands were taken prisoner, including Brigadier J P Dalvi who later wrote “Himalayan Blunder” castigating Nehru, Defence Minister Krishna Menon and Army Chief B M Kaul for their multiple follies. Indian politicians stayed away from the war zone. Indira Gandhi visited Tezpur near the Chinese frontline on 19th and 20th November. On 1st December China unilaterally withdrew from the occupied territories in India’s north-eastern sector. However, the Chinese held on to Aksai Chin. The war ended as abruptly as it had started.

Did Kennedy call up Mao and issue an ultimatum? Or was Mao dissuaded by the American response? It was revealed later had Mao had been making preparations for this assault for several years, building roads, infrastructure, and even POW camps along the border. Kennedy’s intervention undoubtedly saved India from dismemberment. His statesmanship during the Cuban missile crisis saved the world from Armageddon.

The following year the young president was assassinated in Dallas. Six months later Nehru died. In 1965 Pakistan attacked India and after 23 days of intense fighting, agreed to a ceasefire. Mao did not help Ayub Khan and his Defence Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto who made several visits to China to seek help. During the 1971 Indo–Pak war that culminated in the liberation of Bangladesh, China remained aloof, despite some prodding by Nixon and Kissinger. Senator Edward Kennedy on the other hand visited India in August 1971, toured the refugee camps in Bengal and deplored that American weapons had facilitated the massacre in East Pakistan. By the time the Kargil conflict erupted in 1999, India’s nuclear capability was no secret – and naturally China refused to get involved.

Bruce Reidel has done a decent job of analyzing data from various sources and drawing plausible conclusions. The book leaves us wondering if the fate of Asia would have been different if Kennedy had lived just a while longer.

Overall Assessment: Eminently readable – and historically valuable.

JFK’s Forgotten Crisis: Tibet, the CIA, and The Sino-Indian War
AUTHOR: BRUCE RIEDEL
PUBLISHER: Bookings Institution Press.  (HarperCollins India in 2016)
PUBLICATION DATE: November 2015

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Reviewer: Pushpa Kurup lives in Trivandrum, India and works in the IT sector.

Did Fidel Castro mastermind the assassination of John F Kennedy? This book by a CIA veteran throws new light on the mystery. The author gives details about the assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, his adoration of Castro, his failed attempt to migrate to Cuba, his brief sojourn in the Soviet Union, and a host of other clues that serve to deepen the mystery rather than provide open-and-shut answers.

In June 1987 when Florentino Aspillaga Lombard sought asylum at the American embassy in Vienna, his spectacular revelations about Cuba’s clandestine operations sent shock waves through American intelligence circles. How terribly the CIA had underestimated this impoverished Caribbean island! Lombard was no ordinary spy. He had in July 1979 played a crucial role in ensuring of the victory of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. He had been in Angola where Castro had engineered a Marxist revolutionary takeover. He provided the CIA with a goldmine of information. Cuban intelligence had knowledge about the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. No wonder it turned out to be such a disaster! It comes as no surprise that the head of Cuban intelligence was Fidel himself.

Through the book, we get a rare glimpse of Castro’s spectacular intelligence network. We also glean interesting details of the now well-known Armageddon Letter of 1963 where Castro urged Nikita Khrushchev to launch a nuclear attack on the USA, the role played by Cubans in fomenting revolution elsewhere in the Americas, and the impressive scale of training and indoctrination provided to wannabe revolutionaries. Latell opines that Che Guevara’s Bolivian venture was a suicidal mission. As he puts it, “Fidel always thought strategically, many moves ahead, like a grand master moving pieces on a giant chess board. Venezuela was an opponent’s queen, Bolivia a pawn. …..If by some fluke, Guevara were to win, he, Fidel, could take credit for sponsoring and masterminding the victory. And if the roving Argentine incendiary were to die in the quest, that would reverberate even more enduringly. Cuba would have a martyred patron saint.”

Latell also suggests the possibility that Hugo Chavez or his elder brother, Adan, could have been spotted and recruited by Cuban intelligence long before the former won power in Venezuela. How else could a career military officer become an adoring disciple of the leader of another country?

Overall Assessment: Must read! History, politics and intrigue make a deadly cocktail!

TITLE: Castro’s Secrets- Cuban Intelligence, the CIA and the Assassination of John F Kennedy
AUTHOR: Brian Latell
PUBLISHER: PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
DATE OF PUBLICATION: 2012

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Reviewer: Pushpa Kurup lives in Trivandrum, India and works in the IT sector.

Gandhi spent 21 years in South Africa practicing law. They called him the ‘coolie barrister.’ And he called the indigenous people ‘kaffirs.’ The scantily clad man Indians recognize as the ‘father of the nation’ had an image makeover on the eve of his departure from South Africa in 1914. Gone was the coat-suit ensemble. In came the oh-so-humble dhoti. This meticulously researched book by Ashwin Desai and Goolam Vahed (South African professors of Indian origin) unravels many facets of the saint-in-the-making. Quoting extensively from ‘The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi’ as well as newspaper publications including ‘Indian Opinion’ of which Gandhi himself was co-founder, they paint an unfamiliar portrait of a familiar global icon, leaving the reader shocked and saddened.

Here’s a sample of Gandhi’s pronouncements during his South African sojourn:

• We believe also that the white race in South Africa should be the predominating race. (1903)
• We have never asked for political equality. We do not hope to get that…I have never asked for the vote. (1914)
• About this mixing of the Kaffirs with the Indians, I must confess I feel most strongly. I think it is very unfair to the Indian population….(In a 1904 letter to the Medical Health Officer of Johannesburg, he demanded that Kaffirs be withdrawn from a residential area peopled predominantly by Indians.)
• Should they (Indians) be assigned a permanent part in the Militia, there will remain no ground for the European complaint that Europeans alone have to bear the brunt of Colonial defence. (1906)

The saddest part is that Gandhi failed to acknowledge African suffering. During the Boer war, he served the Empire as stretcher bearer. In 1906 when the Zulus in Natal revolted he seized the opportunity to demonstrate his loyalty to the British Crown. He wrote in Indian Opinion on 14th April 1906, “It is not for me to say whether the revolt is justified or not. We are in Natal by virtue of British power. Our very existence depends upon it. It is therefore our duty to render help….” In stark contrast, the ‘arch-imperialist’ Winston Churchill condemned the ‘disgusting butchery’ and referred to ‘this wretched colony’ as ‘the hooligan of the British Empire.”

Gandhi’s associates from outside the Indian community were all whites. He remained aloof from the blacks. The authors suggest that “Gandhi’s Anglophilia possibly played a role in developing his theory of satyagraha.” They point out that he conveniently forgot the principles of non-violence and satyagraha whenever the Empire was at risk. His strategy was one of whining, petitioning, lobbying, negotiating, compromising and surrendering. At the same time he was a great publicity agent. He had Joseph J Doke write his biography in 1909. It was published with the assistance of N M Cooper in England. Gandhi purchased all 600 copies and had them distributed in Britain, Rangoon, Madras and South Africa. Ironically, the Introduction to the book was written by Lord Ampthill who sat in the House of Lords from 1909 to 1935 and opposed every move in the direction of Indian self-governance.

In 1906, Gandhi announced his vow of celibacy. Authors such as Kathryn Tidrick have suggested that it was possibly in South Africa that Gandhi commenced the practice of sleeping with nubile nymphs ostensibly to ‘test’ his self control. Gandhi hailed as his ‘soul-mate’ a German Jew, Hermann Kallenbach. They met in 1903, shared a house from 1907/1908 to 1910 and wrote inexplicably intimate letters to each other ever after. (The letters were purchased for $1.3million by the Government of India in 2012 and the contents remain under wraps.) In May 1910 Kallenbach purchased an 1100 acre farm near Johannesburg for Gandhi’s use. It was named Tolstoy Farm. Residents were compelled to practice celibacy and vegetarianism.

Gandhi’s Indian benefactors financed his activities in South Africa. Among them were the Maharajas of Bikaner and Mysore and the Nizam of Hyderabad. Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Gandhi’s mentor, visited South Africa in 1912 and helped revive his sagging political fortunes. In October 1913, Gandhi failed to get majority support within the Natal Indian Congress and he formed another outfit called Natal Indian Association. The 1913 strike by Indians workers across the mining and plantation sectors underlined the futility of passive resistance. In a letter to Marshall Campbell on 23rd December 1913, the future Mahatma wrote: “We were endeavouring to confine the strike area to the collieries only. Whilst I was in Newcastle I was asked by my co-workers in Durban what answer to give the coastal Indians who wanted to join the movement, and I emphatically told them that the time was not ripe for them to do so….(but) after my arrest….the movement became not only spontaneous but it assumed gigantic proportions.”

On 20th December 1913, following his release from prison, Gandhi appeared at a public meeting at Durban wearing dhoti and kurta. He no longer had a moustache. In July 1914, he announced he was returning to India for good.

Historians and history buffs are wondering what to make of the book. It is too compelling to be wished away.

Overall Assessment: Deeply disturbing. A must read for every Indian.

THE SOUTH AFRICAN GANDHI – STRETCHER BEARER OF EMPIRE
AUTHORS: ASHWIN DESAI AND GOOLAM VAHED
PUBLISHER: NAVAYANA PUBLISHING & STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
PUBLICATION DATE: 2015

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Reviewer: Pushpa Kurup lives in Trivandrum, India and works in the IT sector.