Presidential Papers, Doc#104 Top secret To John Foster Dulles, 25 March 1953. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower
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Doc #105

Document #104; March 25, 1953
To John Foster Dulles
Series: EM, AWF, International Series: India ; Category: Top secret
The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, Volume XIV - The Presidency: The Middle Way
Part I: Charting a New Course; January 1953 to April 1953
Chapter 2: "A number of misunderstandings": Party and International Struggles

 

Memorandum for the Secretary of State: I had hoped to talk to you this morning about the Kashmir situation.1 If you believe that Paul Hoffman could do some good by going on a private mission I think we should, by all means, send him at once.2 Our world simply cannot afford an outbreak of hostilities between these two countries, and I would risk a great deal to prevent any such eventuality.

1 Since 1948 a U.N. commission had been trying to settle the problem of where the states of Jammu and Kashmir properly belonged--with Moslem Pakistan or Hindu India. In February 1953 ministerial talks began under U.N. auspices at Geneva, Switzerland. "The Kashimir situation is becoming increasingly acute and war between India and Pakistan is a not remote possibility," Dulles had written the President the day before. "The UN effort has bogged down. Would you think that Paul Hoffman might go on a private mission to explore confidentially the attitude of the two parties to some partition of Kashimir?" (see State, Foreign Relations, 1952-1954, vol. XI, Africa and South Asia, pt. 2, pp. 1311-16, and U.S. Department of State Bulletin 28 [May 11, 1953], 694-98.

2 Hoffman would meet with Eisenhower on March 30. On Hoffman's meetings with Indian and Pakistani officials in late April and his view of the Kashmir situation after returning home see State, Foreign Relations, 1952-1954, vol. XI, Africa and South Asia, pt. 2, pp. 1316-21.

Bibliographic reference to this document:
Eisenhower, Dwight D. Top secret To John Foster Dulles, 25 March 1953. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, ed. L. Galambos and D. van Ee, doc. 104. World Wide Web facsimile by The Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Commission of the print edition; Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, http://www.eisenhowermemorial.org/presidential-papers/first-term/documents/104.cfm

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