Trying to Cap a Hot Volcano

"I am sitting on top of a volcano," said India's Prime Minister Indira Gandhi before leaving London last week, "and I honestly do not know if it is going to erupt." The volcano is the menacing, brink-of-war situation on the borders of India and Pakistan, brought about by the civil conflict that has ravaged East Pakistan since last March and sent nearly 10 million refugees flooding into India. To cap the volcano before it strained India's economy beyond its limits or led to all-out war, Mrs. Gandhi was pinning her hopes on the U.S.

There was more than a little irony in that fact. Relations between Washington and New Delhi were at their lowest point since India won independence in 1947, largely as a result of the Administration's continued arms shipments to Pakistan. New Delhi hoped to persuade Washington to withdraw its economic and military support from Pakistan, whose President, Agha Mohammad Yahya Khan, is carrying on a policy of attrition against East Pakistan. Washington, for its part, hoped to dissuade New Delhi from striking out against Pakistan.

Tormented Faces. Richard Nixon gave Mrs. Gandhi a gracious welcome on the South Lawn of the White House. It was a glorious autumn day in Washington, with the flags snapping in the wind and monuments gleaming in the sunshine. Thirteen silver trumpets sounded a fanfare from the White House portico. Then Mrs. Gandhi, regal in a brown sari and cashmere cape, reviewed the troops with the President.

With a flourish, Nixon declared: "Today we stand in Washington on Nov. 5, a winter day. In our country, we call this kind of a day Indian summer." As it happened, it was Nov. 4--autumn, not winter--and Indian summer derives from American Indians, not Indira's countrymen. But, the President said, the weather was "a good omen for our countries"--and indeed it seemed so. Concluding with a passing allusion to the treaty signed recently by the Soviet Union and India, Nixon said that India and the U.S. are bound by a "profound morality that does not need a legal document to make it live." Plainly, the U.S. is edgy because Moscow has become India's chief armorer and the most influential foreign power in New Delhi--despite $9 billion in American aid over the past two decades, roughly six times the Soviet outlay.

Mrs. Gandhi, responding to Nixon, was brief and eloquent. "It has not been easy," she said, "to get away at a time when India is beleaguered. To the natural calamities of drought, flood and cyclone has been added a man-made tragedy of vast proportions. I am haunted by the tormented faces in our overcrowded refugee camps reflecting the grim events which have compelled the exodus of those millions from East Bengal. I have come here looking for a deeper understanding of the situation in our part of the world, in search of some wise impulse which, as history tells us, has sometimes worked to save humanity from despair."

Longest Talks. There were indications that Mrs. Gandhi found at least in some measure a deeper understanding --if not Administration support--for her policies. Her two meetings with the President ran for three hours 15 minutes --one of the longest discussions Nixon has ever held with a visiting head of government. Nixon was said to have urged restraint on Mrs. Gandhi, stressing that he was privately making the same point to Pakistan. The President also pressed for mutual withdrawal of troops from the borders, where incidents between Pakistani and Indian forces are now reported almost daily, and called on Mrs. Gandhi to open negotiations with Pakistan. Though arms shipments already "in the pipeline" to Pakistan would go through, the President indicated, no further deliveries would be forthcoming. He assured Mrs. Gandhi that all efforts would be made to restore the money earmarked for India in the foreign aid bill voted down by the Senate two weeks ago.

For her part, Mrs. Gandhi pleaded that the refugees be dealt with on an international basis rather than as an exclusively India-Pakistan problem. India cannot withdraw her troops from the border, she said at the National Press Club, because "we don't trust Pakistan to withdraw." As for negotiating with Pakistan, she was adamant in her refusal. As she told an audience in London, "You could have said, 'Let's have a talk with Hitler.' But you didn't. You fought on for four hard years. That is the situation today." At the White House State dinner, she asked: "Has not your own society been built of people who have fled from social and economic injustice? From those who value and uphold democratic principles, we expect understanding and, may I add, a certain measure of support."

Handsome Bearing. Some high-ranking U.S. officials remained unconvinced by her arguments; they feel that India may be trying to encourage the disintegration of Pakistan. But as one Western diplomat put it recently, "Pakistan is a drowning dog. India doesn't have to push its head under." Nonetheless, Mrs. Gandhi's handsome bearing, forthright manner and ranking as Prime Minister of the world's largest democracy (pop. 547 million) won her new friends in Washington--and new support. Fred Harris of Oklahoma introduced a resolution in the Senate urging that the U.N. Security Council call an emergency session on the India-Pakistan situation.

After taking India's case to Paris and Bonn this week, she will head home. If the volcano should still explode, no one could say that Indira had not tried.

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