CIA: A Storyflo podcast.

Declassified. A Storyflo podcast. This episode features a declassified C-I-A record, dated May seventeenth, nineteen-sixty, outlining a National Intelligence Estimate on Sino-Indian Relations. This document provides a snapshot of U.S. intelligence perspectives during a crucial period of geopolitical tension between China and India. The full document is available at documents2.theblackvault.com. This document, identified as C-I-O-one-three-eight-three, was approved for release in June two-thousand-four. It was declassified by the C-I-A's Historical Review Program, providing public access to historical intelligence assessments that were once classified at the secret and confidential levels. National Intelligence Estimate Number One-hundred-two-sixty: Sino-Indian Relations. Submitted by the Director of Central Intelligence. The following intelligence organizations participated in the preparation of this estimate: The Central Intelligence Agency and the intelligence organizations of the Departments of State, the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, and The Joint Staff. Concurred in by the United States Intelligence Board on May seventeenth, nineteen-sixty. Concurring were the Director of Intelligence and Research, Department of State; the Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Department of the Army; the Assistant Chief of Naval Operations for Intelligence, Department of the Navy; the Assistant Chief of Staff, Intelligence, U-S-A-F; the Director for Intelligence, The Joint Staff; the Assistant to the Secretary of Defense, Special Operations; and the Director of the National Security Agency. The Atomic Energy Commission Representative to the U-S-I-B, and the Assistant Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation, abstained, the subject being outside of their jurisdiction. Secret. Confidential. Central Intelligence Agency, May twenty-fourth, nineteen-sixty. Memorandum to Holders of N-I-E One-hundred-two-sixty, “Sino-Indian Relations,” dated May seventeenth, nineteen-sixty. Please insert the attached map number twenty-eight-seven-one-five in the back of your copy of this estimate. Sino-Indian Relations. The Problem: To assess Sino-Indian relations and their international implications. Conclusions: One. Sino-Indian border clashes have shattered the appearance of cordiality between the two states. Early agreement on the boundary dispute is unlikely. However, both sides are probably willing to live with the present stalemate for some time, although further border clashes may occur. In the event of a prolonged failure to resolve the dispute, the climate could alter significantly, particularly if Nehru leaves the scene before a settlement. Nevertheless, we are inclined to believe that an eventual settlement could be achieved—probably involving Indian concessions in Ladakh in return for Chinese recognition of India’s claims in the North East Frontier Agency (N-E-F-A). However, even if the border issue is settled, it is unlikely that the friendly relations which existed in the past can be fully restored. Two. Peiping’s moves have sharply increased anti-Chinese sentiment in India. They have also tended to create in India a more sympathetic view of U.S. policies, though India remains dedicated to the principle of nonalignment, and will also be influenced by interest in continued large-scale Soviet aid and by some hope that the U-S-S-R will restrain Communist China. The position of the Indian Communist Party has been made more difficult, but it has not suffered a critical setback. Three. To date Communist China has outstripped India in economic growth. The present wide gap in growth rates is expected to narrow, but the absolute disparity between the economies will probably continue to widen. As a result China will be able to maintain—and probably increase—its military superiority over India. However, as long as India is making significant economic progress, most Asian countries will probably continue to derive encouragement from India’s example. Four. Communist China’s growing strength and its aggressiveness have caused a more somber assessment of Chinese Communist motivations among Asian leaders. Even if the Sino-Indian border dispute is resolved through negotiations, the more apprehensive Asian view of Communist China that has recently developed probably will not be erased. Nevertheless, it is likely that Communist China’s strength and dynamism and its ambitions for political hegemony will figure more prominently in Asia than will India’s influence. Discussion: Development of Sino-Indian Relations. Five. The Tibetan revolt and the border clashes which took place during nineteen-fifty-nine precipitated a crisis in Sino-Indian relations and forced both countries to re-examine their policies toward each other. Six. Communist China’s leaders have long regarded the Indian Government as a bourgeois regime with which there could be no permanent cooperation. However, they considered that India was not ripe for Communist revolution and sought to take advantage of India’s policy of nonalignment and of its support for a larger role for Communist China in world affairs. Peiping regarded this policy as profitable since it demanded little of Communist China beyond lip service to peace, Sino-Indian friendship, and Asian solidarity. Seven. India’s attitude toward Communist China reflected the belief that good relations between the two were essential for the peace of Asia. Most Indian leaders initially regarded the Chinese Communists as more Asian than Communist in outlook, and welcomed their revolution as a major step in Asia’s resurgence. Nehru hoped that by befriending China, supporting its admission to the U-N, and publicizing assurances of Peiping’s peaceful intent—as in the case of the Panch Shila (Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence)—the likelihood of Chinese expansionism could be reduced and its ties to Moscow lessened. India also surrendered the special rights in Tibet which it had inherited from British India, and recognized Tibet as part of China. Eight. Nevertheless, India had some suspicions of Chinese intentions, particularly after the occupation of Tibet in nineteen-fifty-nineteen-fifty-one. Recognizing its military weakness vis-à-vis Communist China, India sought to protect itself by obtaining assurances of an autonomous status for Tibet and by negotiating new treaties with Nepal, Bhutan, and Sikkim aimed at insuring India’s primacy in these areas. India’s misgivings increased steadily after nineteen-fifty-six because of the hardening of Peiping’s policy, as indicated by its support of the U-S-S-R in the crushing of the Hungarian revolution and the execution of Nagy, by Chinese attacks on Yugoslavia, by the abrupt termination of the brief “hundred flowers” period of liberalism, and by the imposition of the communes. Indian leaders were also disturbed by Peiping’s continued publication of maps showing as part of China large areas claimed by India. The Border Conflict Nine. A border dispute was inherent in the absence of a jointly recognized boundary and the inability of either side to make a clearcut case for its border claims. However, until nineteen-fifty-nine when the seriousness of Communist China’s claims first became clear to India, the issue was largely quiescent and both countries attempted to keep it from public view. The one-hundred-ten-mile Sikkim-Tibet border is the only part of the two-thousand-four-hundred-mile Sino-Indian frontier that has been demarcated. In the east, the dispute concerns the North East Frontier Agency (N-E-F-A) in Assam State, an area of about thirty-thousand square miles inhabited by about seven-hundred-thousand primitive tribesmen. India claims that the border in this area is the McMahon Line, which generally follows the Himalayan watershed. This line was drawn at the nineteen-fourteen Simla Conference by representatives of the United Kingdom, Tibet, and China, but the Simla agreement was not ratified by the Chinese Government. China—both Communist and Nationalist—claims that the boundary is at the southern edge of the Himalayan foothills. Although Chinese maps show about three-thousand-three-hundred square miles in eastern Bhutan adjoining N-E-F-A as Chinese, Chou En-lai stated in New Delhi in April nineteen-sixty that Peiping had no claims on Bhutan. In the west the dispute centers on the ten-thousand square mile Aksai Chin plateau in the Ladakh region of Kashmir State. This area, which lies between the Karakoram and Kunlun Ranges, is desolate. This is what the public record looks like at its most ordinary. Find more at storyflo.com and documents2.theblackvault.com/CI01383.