By Full Moonlight

Proclaimed Radio Peking: "People's (i.e., Chinese Communist] Army units ... have been ordered to advance into Tibet to free 3,000,000 Tibetans from imperialist oppression and to consolidate national defense of the western borders of China . . ." The Red army was striking from Sikang and Tsinghai provinces, in China's far west, toward the formidable 15,000-ft. passes into the bleak Tibetan plateau.

In New Delhi, India's Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru could hardly believe the news. For months he had championed China's Communist regime, urged a seat for it in the U.N., pictured its leaders as popular reformers, served them as a channel to the skeptical non-Communist world. He thought he had Mao Tse-tung's promise that the Tibetan issue would be settled amicably. He expected that Tibet could keep its traditional autonomy under nominal Chinese sovereignty.

Nehru even encouraged negotiations between the Tibetans and the Red masters of China. Last April a seven-man delegation, headed by Finance Minister Tsepon Shakabpa, made the arduous trip to New Delhi from Lhasa, the remote, lamasery-studded capital of Tibet. They waited five months for the arrival of General Yuan Chung-hsien, the new Chinese Communist Ambassador to India. When he arrived, the Red envoy suggested the Tibetans go on to Peking. It was so arranged. The delegation, like Nehru, had its dreams; Tibetan Minister Shakabpa scornfully brushed off talk of an impending attack on his country: "How can there by any invasion when both Chinese and Tibetans are hoping to have a peaceful settlement?"

"Extraordinary." Shakabpa & Co. were about to fly to Peking, when the invasion reports reached them. Shaken by the announcement, they delayed their flight until Lhasa sent them fresh orders.

Their Indian friends suffered ideological shock. Disturbed and dismayed, Nehru summoned his cabinet in emergency sessions. Impatiently he cabled his ambassador in Peking, bearded Kavalam Madhava Panikkar, who is proud of resembling Nikolai Lenin and who has an unshakable belief that India can get along with Lenin's disciples. Panikkar did not answer for two days. Then he belatedly confirmed the news, lamely explaining that he had first heard of it through the papers.

"Extraordinary," fumed New Delhi's Foreign Ministry. Then it bitterly announced: "The Government of India . . . have communicated their surprise and regret ... to the Chinese Government.. ."

A spokesman added that India would now give "very careful review" to her sponsorship of Red China. But in New York, Sir Benegal Rau, India's U.N. delegate, indicated that India was still a glutton for diplomatic punishment. Said he: "If the new government of China had been seated in the U.N., . . . [it] might have deterred any invasion."

"Element of Fear." In Kashmir over the weekend, Nehru still clung to his confusion. He attributed Red China's attitude toward Tibet to an "element of fear" in Peking. He also saw the Peking regime as "the strongest government China has ever had in all her history ... [a] basic fact [that] cannot be ignored in formulation of policies by nations."

India's press, less muddled, was outraged because the Chinese Reds had implied that India might have imperialist designs on Tibet. Protested the Hindustan Times: "The wolf in Aesop's fable had better justification for swallowing the lamb."

When Indian newsmen in New Delhi converged on the Chinese Communist Embassy, they were told that Ambassador Yuan had just left. He was off on a holiday to view the Taj Mahal by full moonlight.

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