Turning Points

India rejoiced last week in two victories: the Chinese were thrown back in a local action on the embattled mountain border; former Defense Minister Krishna Menon, long a virulently anti-Western appeaser of Communism, was thrown out of Nehru's Cabinet.

The new Chinese thrust came after a ten-day lull in the fighting and was apparently aimed at driving down the Luhit River valley toward India's important oil fields at Digboi, 90 miles from Walong, in the North East Frontier Agency. The Chinese seized a mountain slope above Walong, but Indian troops "went into an attack and cleared this position, throwing back the Chinese aggressors."

Freeze & Famine. The military good news was long overdue, though minor in scope, and indicated that General Brij Mohan Kaul, 50, the border commander, was beginning to use to good advantage the U.S. and British automatic weapons and heavy mortars being flown in around the clock. At Kaul's headquarters in Tezpur, India's venerable President Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, 74, visited hospitalized Gurkha, Sikh and Jat soldiers, many of whom had wandered famished and freezing through the mountains for 17 days after the big Chinese breakthrough last month. "Morale is high," Radhakrishnan told newsmen. "All the troops say, 'Give us the tools and we will regain our lost territory.'" He blamed last month's defeat on the fact that India had "trusted the Chinese because we were carrying on negotiations with them. Our credulity and our negligence cost us the initial reverse." Survivors of the attack were still angrily asking why they had been so outgunned by the Chinese, whose light, automatic weapons fired at a rate 20 times faster than the single-shot Lee Enfield rifle, standard in the Indian army. Said a senior Indian officer: "The troops feel they have been let down."

So did all India. Chief blame for the nation's unreadiness continued to be placed on Menon, who as Defense Minister since 1957 was reluctant to buy arms abroad and, in his socialist suspicion of free enterprise, would not let private firms bid on defense contracts. Military orders were funneled into state-run arsenals that were supposed to turn out everything from jet fighters to harness straps for army mules. Most of Menon's arsenals are still in the blueprint stage.

Hunched & Silent. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, who sees qualities in Menon invisible to others, was reluctant to fire his friend of 30 years. At first he tried to pacify critics by taking over the Defense Ministry himself and downgrading Menon to Minister of Defense Production. Nehru's task was not made any easier when Menon arrogantly told newsmen, "I am still a member of the Cabinet and still sitting in the Defense Ministry." Army officers, the press, politicians and delegations from Nehru's ruling Congress Party all joined in demanding that Menon go.

Nehru pleaded, accurately enough, that he too was responsible for India's defense policy failures. But at last he gave in. As Menon sat near by, hunched and silent, Nehru told a meeting of Congress Party M.P.s that he was accepting Menon's resignation from the Cabinet. The legislators cheered. Menon's defiant last words: "I still have a bright political future." No one believed it.

With Menon disposed of, India settled down to deal with the Chinese. New Delhi sent word to the U.N. that it wanted to withdraw "as soon as possible" its 5,700 troops in the Congo. Police rounded up scores of Communists suspected of holding "pro-Chinese" feelings, even though India's Communist Party had belatedly come out against "Chinese aggression."

Words & Action. As for Nehru, his painful education was continuing. As he rejected phony Peking suggestions of "compromise" and cease-fire that would only benefit the aggressors, he complained: "Everyone is advising us to be good and peaceful." It was the kind of advice he himself had been handing out in every international crisis created by Red aggression. He still regretted that China was not in the U.N., refused fully to equate "Communism" with China's aggression, and insisted that India was still nonaligned. U.S. Ambassador Kenneth Galbraith soothingly agreed, explained that Western arms aid did not mean that India must join any entangling military alliances.

Nevertheless, Nehru called the Chinese attack a "turning point" in the history of India, Asia and the world. When he strongly declared in Parliament that India had accepted Peking's challenge, the M.P.s cheered and pounded their desks. He denounced China as a "wholly irresponsible country that does not care about peace," an imperialist power in the 18th and 19th century tradition. He won the Indian nation with his refusal to negotiate until the last Chinese soldier left Indian soil.

It was evident at week's end that more than strong words were needed to stop the Chinese. At Ladakh, on the western end of the 2,500-mile frontier, Chinese troops outflanked Indian defenders and forced the evacuation of the key military post guarding the entrance to Karakoram Pass. The Chinese moved in tanks and were massing supplies, presumably to seize Chushul airfield which, at 14,000 ft., is one of the world's highest. India's response was to airlift light tanks to Chushul, since, if the airfield falls to the Chinese, all of Ladakh may have to be abandoned to the enemy.

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