Nehru discussed the entire matter with Dr Homi Bhabha and GP Parthasarathy, and rejected the offer. “Kennedy, who was an admirer of India’s democracy and held its leader Jawaharlal Nehru in very high esteem, felt that democratic India, not Communist China, should be the first Asian country to conduct a nuclear test,” he said. Rasgotra was speaking at the release of his new book “A Life in Diplomacy” at ORF. India need not have had to make desperate efforts now to get membership of elite NSG had former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru accepted the then US President John F Kennedy’s offer of helping the country detonate a nuclear device much before China did in 1964, according to former foreign secretary Maharajakrishna Rasgotra. Kennedy’s hand-written letter was accompanied by a technical note from the chairman of the US Atomic Energy Commission, setting out the assistance his organisation would provide to Indian atomic scientists to detonate an American device from atop a tower in Rajasthan desert, the release said.

Source: Hindustan Times June 14, 2016 05:19 UTC