Old-Shoe Diplomacy

In his first fortnight as U.S. Ambassador to India, ex-Adman Chester Bowles gave signs of being a revolution in diplomacy and a revelation to New Delhi. He got off to an auspicious start by forgetting to pack his striped pants and morning coat. For the formal presentation of his credentials to India's President Rajendra Prasad, Bowles borrowed a pair of suspenders from his public-affairs officer, and a morning coat (too tight) and striped trousers (too big) from the Italian ambassador.

New Delhi was fascinated by a western diplomat with so little regard for pomp & circumstance. Reporters thronged Bowles's first press conference, came away impressed with his smooth answers to touchy questions. Do Americans want war? "The average American," said Bowles, "is no more a warmonger than the average Indian." What did he have to say about lynchings in the U.S.? "This terrible heritage is being rapidly liquidated . . . but we are a long way from being perfect."

The rest of the Bowles family joined in the comfortable, old-shoe diplomacy. They moved into a small, three-bedroom bungalow instead of the mansion-sized Embassy (mostly because the residence was being divided up into apartments for staffers). At their buffet dinner for the staff, they broke precedent by inviting the lowliest Indian employees. Mrs. Bowles, at first overwhelmed by the idea of ten servants, took to calling them by name, grimly began studying "Hindi in Thirty Days." The three Bowles children astounded New Delhi citizenry by pedaling their own bicycles to a public school held in a tent, where they are the only white pupils.

Even the anti-American newspapers were impressed. The Lucknow National Herald appraised Bowles as "an American transcending inhibitions of a mere ambassador." New Delhi's Indian News Chronicle editorialized: "Expectations of better Indo-American understanding . . . seem to be well justified." There was no guarantee that winning friends would influence Pandit Nehru's bewildering brand of isolationism, but there was much to be said for finding out.

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