What the U.S. Thinks . . .

For weeks India's usually loquacious Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru has been uncommonly silent on his favorite subject: foreign affairs. In New Delhi a fortnight ago, where the All-India Congress Committee was meeting, Nehru managed to get through 2% full days of handshaking and speechifying without once mentioning foreign affairs. Last week, before the Lower House of India's Parliament, Nehru finally spoke on foreign affairs, but confined himself for the most part to a discussion of problems directly affecting India, e.g., Pakistan, Goa, Kashmir. On Hungary, which the 'Indian delegation will in effect ignore when the U.N.'s report comes up this week, Nehru came down ever so softly on the right side: "We do not believe foreign forces should remain there."

Nehru's relative continence in discussing other nations' foreign affairs was refreshing, but it was not mysterious. The truth is that India is in grave, potentially even catastrophic financial difficulties; and the only possible source of salvation is an immediate, large-scale U.S. loan. How much? To the New York Times's Henry R. Lieberman, Nehru confided last week: from $500 million to $600 million.

Scraping & Pruning. Ever since it became apparent that India's overambitious second five-year plan was more of a bite than India's unmobilized resources could chew (TIME, Aug. 5), resourceful Finance Minister T. T. Krishnamachari has been doing his best to 1) reduce the scope of the plan itself, and 2) attract the foreign capital, government or private, that the country needs to keep going. Three weeks ago, while Nehru was still diligently distilling euphoria from the plan's prospects,

Krishnamachari rose in Parliament to announce that there would be "some scraping and pruning of the edges of the plan. Future planning will be motivated by realism." Krishnamachari declared that the government was still determined to hold onto the core of the plan--power, coal, steel and transport--but he warned bluntly: "Make no mistake: we need large amounts of foreign aid to save even the core."

The Finance Minister's increasingly tough stand had the support of many Cabinet members and a large segment of Congress Party M.P.s. Even Krishnama-chari's personal political enemy, Home Minister Pandit Pant, has been privately buttonholing M.P.s to warn them that by jumping headlong into foreign affairs problems that do not concern India, the country has needlessly alienated those countries best prepared to help it, i.e., the U.S., England, West Germany. Pant's foreign-policy solution: stay with neutralism but stop meddling.

The question is whether India has waited too long to change its tune. Nehru's request for -L-200 million was turned aside by Britain during the last Commonwealth Conference in June. The British advised Nehru to try private capital, but private capital is showing itself understandably reluctant about investing in what appears to be a highly unpredictable economy. Besides, private investors are a little uncertain as to the extent and fervor of Indians socialist ambitions. Russia recently agreed to lend India $126 million, reportedly might cough up another $25 million, which would not be much help.

Asset or Liability. In Washington, State Department officials have privately advised Indian diplomats that they could hardly expect an economy-minded U.S. Congress to lend a sympathetic ear to a loan request from a nation that has repeatedly gone out of its way to irritate U.S. opinion in foreign affairs; proven friends and allies of the U.S. are having a hard enough time getting U.S. aid.*

As evidence of this reluctance, Republican Senator Thomas Kuchel of California urged the U.S. to "weigh carefully" any Indian loan: "Her foreign policy is of course her own business. But, it seems to me, America's helping hand ought to be extended to nations which share our goals." Countered one of the Democrats' leading lights on foreign affairs, Montana's Senator Mike Mansfield: "I believe that underneath this neutralism, India would, if the chips were down, be on the side of the West. Our faith in India's future may well be the decisive factor in the race between Communist China and India." In New Delhi a U.S. official summed it up: "Six months ago I was worried about what India thought of the U.S. Now I am only worried about what the U.S. thinks of India."

-* One possible avenue of approach for Krishnamachari would be .a request that the U.S. create a "standby fund" of from $600 million to $800 million, which India would use as its currency backing while drawing on sterling reserves in London for ready cash.

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