US officials lobbied Islamabad, unsuccessfully, to call off Pakistan's own border negotiations with Beijing and withdraw troops from the Line of Control in Kashmir. To build trust, they urged Nehru to provide Pakistan with data on Indian troop movements and convinced him to send a friendly letter to Pakistani President Ayub Khan.
But upon learning of US arms shipments to India, Pakistan was indignant, threatening to withdraw from two anti-Soviet alliances, CENTO and SEATO. National Security Council staffer Bob Komer noted, "The Pakistani[s] are going through a genuine emotional crisis as they see their cherished ambitions of using the U.S. as a lever against India going up in the smoke of the Chinese border war."
Washington stood firm. It rejected the idea of "balancing" support to India with increased arms to Pakistan and deflected demands to force India into immediate negotiations over Kashmir. Bearing an eerie relevance to contemporary US-Pakistan relations, Secretary of State Dean Rusk wrote to the embassy in India, "The esteem and friendship of the American people for Pakistan would melt away if Pakistan elects to draw close to those who are sworn enemies of freedom."
In the end, the US helped forestall any Pakistani adventurism by promising to draw India into deliberations over Kashmir after the resolution of the border war. Foreseeably, the negotiations proved futile.
Finally, we turn to America's most enduring imprint on the border war. Belying a lack of interest and expertise on the subject, in 1959 Secretary of State Christian Herter publicly insisted the US took no official position on the Sino-Indian territorial dispute. But at the war's outset, America's ambassador to India, John Kenneth Galbraith, grew determined to back India's claims in the "eastern sector," along the British-drawn McMahon Line.
A close confidant of the president, Galbraith wrote to Kennedy requesting his "frank protection" on this "major political decision." His concerns were not misplaced: The State Department initially rejected his proposal, requesting further time to examine the border dispute. "The McMahon line... is indeed sanctioned by all recent usage," Galbraith vented in another letter to Kennedy. "What a hell of a time to have to start a study."
Days later the ambassador got his wish. With "slightly reluctant permission" from the White House, Galbraith announced on October 27: "The McMahon Line is the accepted international border and is sanctioned by modern usage. Accordingly we regard it as the northern border of the [North East Frontier Agency] region." Fifty years later, Galbraith's basic formulation remains official US policy.
The US position on Aksai Chin, the "western sector" of the Sino-Indian border dispute, is noncommittal by comparison. At the time, Galbraith "resolved to maintain silence on the west," concluding: "The fact that the Indians had not discovered a Chinese road [in Aksai Chin] for two years seemed to suggest a tenuous claim." Today, the US considers Aksai Chin a disputed area "administered by China but claimed by India."
Three observations bear relevance to contemporary Indo-US relations.
First, as the US seeks to build on its new strategic partnership with India, one of its greatest challenges has been overcoming lingering doubts about its reliability as an ally. It need not shy away from its record of defending India in its darkest hour.
Second, the US has a longstanding position on the Sino-Indian border conflict that has assumed some ambiguity of late. A State Department spokesman confirmed there's been no public affirmation of the McMahon line in the past decade. If tensions over the border again flare, as they did in 2009, Washington may have to reconsider its studied silence on the issue.
Finally, New Delhi and Beijing are unclear about where America would stand in the event of any future Sino-Indian hostilities. So, it seems, are many in Washington. A precedent was set in 1962, even if it's been largely forgotten.
