Ford Broadcasts, 1965-1966: 12237637

Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.

cow regime is relaxing its destalinization. Do you think that perhaps enhances the prospect of a heal in the rift between Russia and Red China?

MRS. GANDHI: Not at this moment, no.

MR. POTTER: Do you anticipate they might come together again at some future time?

MRS. GANDHI: Not in the near future.

MR. BRITTER: Mrs. Gandhi, would you agree that your present visit to the United States and the help you are getting from Washington does amount in effect to a turning point in your country's history, because what it means is that the United States is now committed to helping you to tackle these problems, which would otherwise be insurmountable, and that therefore the United States has really committed itself to helping India to achieve its destiny? If that is so, what would be your reaction, your response to such an interpretation?

MRS. GANDHI: I think that all the countries which have resources should help those which don't have, because only that way can you make the world a better place for everybody to live in.

MR. BRITTER: But isn't this a very remarkable gesture which Mr. Johnson has made to your country? Very generous, I mean to say?

MRS. GANDHI: It is indeed. It is generous, it is bold, and I think it is in the right direction.

MR. BRITTER: Do you think India will be able to respond by, say, being less non-aligned than it has been in the past? More friendly with the United States?

MRS. GANDHI: I think we have been very friendly with the United States, and I don't think it would help the United States if we were regarded, say, as a satellite or as a follower. I think we would be much more helpful to the United States if we remain not only remain but are known as independent-thinking.

MR. HARRISON: Does that concern, to have it appear that you are independent, extend to our economic aid relations and the flow of American private capital to India? You said earlier that you welcomed private capital but it had to be consistent with the national interest. Right now one of our big oil companies is negotiating for a fertilizer plant in India. You need fertilizer, and yet the President of your party, Mr. Kamaraj, has said that this deal would be atrocious and unacceptable. Do you agree with him?

MRS. GANDHI: Not entirely. We have accepted this fertilizer agreement, because we consider that it is necessary for our country to have fertilizer in as large a quantity and as soon as possible.

MR. HARRISON: Why do you think there is so much suspicion

in a country such as India, of American private or other foreign private capital?

MRS. GANDHI: You know our history, Mr. Harrison, and I think you can well imagine that a country which has been exploited economically from outside will always be very wary of any such thing happening again.

MR. HARRISON: Just how much scope is there, then, for the influx of massive foreign private capital as a contribution to India's development?

MRS. GANDHI: There is plenty of scope within that.

MR. SPIVAK: Prime Minister Gandhi, are there any steps which you think the United States can take unilaterally towards a peace in Viet Nam?

MRS. GANDHI: We appreciated President Johnson's stoppage of the bombing, and I think that could have led to the next step, and we were very distressed and concerned that it did not. I can only say that perhaps if it had been extended, some new possibility might have arisen.

MR. SPIVAK: Would you be in favor of another stoppage? MRS. GANDHI: I would, yes.

MISS FREDERICK: Madame Prime Minister, you have said that one way to try to contain the spread of Chinese expansionism is to have independent, economically and politically independent states in Asia. Would you include North Viet Nam in that group?

MRS. GANDHI: I would, yes.

MISS FREDERICK: Do you think the bombing of North Viet Nam is helping to undermine the stability of North Viet Nam so that it might not be able to be that barrier to Chinese expansionism?

MRS. GANDHI: I don't know about affecting the stability, but certainly it may create greater friendship for China. I don't think that the people of North Vietnam are basically friendly to the Chinese because they have suffered in that area in the past. But naturally if things happen which make them less friendly to the United States or the other countries, then there is that much more danger of Chinese influence.

MR. BRITTER: Mrs. Gandhi, I think during the recent riots in India you and some of your government officials said that they were inspired—the ones in West Bengal and the ones in the southern state of Kerala—by Communist Chinese influence. Does that mean that you believe there is a sizeable fifth column of Chinese-inclined Communists in your country, and is Peking more likely to succeed by subversion than by outright attack?

MRS. GANDHI: No, Mr. Britter, I don't think this had anything to do with China. It did have to do with our Indian Communist Party. This, as you know, is pre-election year in India, and in such a year there is a tendency of opposition parties to