Monthly Archives: October 2011

December 8, 1944-April 1945: Mme. Pandit’s U.S. Visit

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  • Mme. Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit arrives in New York just before Christmas, with the approval of the State Dept. on a flight coordinated by U.S. air force commander General Stratemeyer. Though Pandit visits her daughters in college, her trip’s real purpose is to raise support for Indian independence by making a cross-country lecture tour (Kux, 36-7)

Kux, Estranged Democracies (1993)

  • Kux describes Pandit’s visit as “well-publicized and successful” by giving “the Indian nationalist cause in the United States” a “substantial boost” (36-37)
  • Eleanor Roosevelt invited Pandit to lunch at the White House: “a further sign of U.S. desire to keep on good terms with Indian nationalists” (37)

Gould, Sikhs, Swamis, Students, and Spies (2006)

  • trip endorsed by Gandhi (379)
  • “Vijayalakshmi’s sharp intellect, enormous charm and striking appearance enabled her to be a highly effective spokesperson for a viewpoint with which the mainstream American diplomatic establishment still felt far from comfortable” thereby making her a valuable asset to the India Lobby (379)
  • describes lunch with Eleanor Roosevelt as an important media opportunity (380)

Hess, America Encounters India (1971)

  • “As the sister of Nehru and a leader in the National Congress for two decades, she was the only important nationalist figure permitted to visit the United States during the war” (151).
  • “her charm, keen mind, fist-hand experience, and sincerity made Mrs. Pandit the most effective voice of the nationalist cause heard in American during the war” (152)

June 26, 1945: U.N. Charter Signed in San Francisco

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  • Conference began on April 25, 1945
  • India’s official delegates: Sir Ramaswami Mudaliar, Sir Firoz Khan Noon and V.T. Krishnamarchari
  • Walter White, along with W.E.B. duBois and Mary McLeod Buthune, served as a black advisor to the U.S. delegation

Gould, Sikhs, Swamis, Students, and Spies (2006)

  • Mme. Pandit “upstaged the official Indian delegation to the Conference” (383)

Hess, America Encounters India (1971)

  • “Although she attracted much favorable publicity to the nationalist cause, Mrs. Pandit’s attempt to bring the question of India before the San Francisco Conference was utterly futile. Neither the United States nor any other member was inclined to challenge the credentials of the Indian delegation” (153)

India Today

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Courtesy of the University of Bucknell

 

Courtesy of the University of Bucknell

July 1944, courtesy of the University of Bucknell

 

August 9, 1944 appeal (part 1), courtesy of the University of Bucknell

Appeal (continued), courtesy of the University of Bucknell

J.J. Singh's proposed solution (part 1), courtesy of the University of Bucknell

Singh's solution (part 2), courtesy of the University of Bucknell

William Phillips (1878-1968)

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Phillips, 1922, Courtesy of the Library of Congress

  • Career diplomat stationed in England, China, the Netherlands, Canada
  • Assistant Secretary of State, 1917
  • Ambassador to Italy, 1936-1941
  • Director of the OSS in London in 1942 until appointed Roosevelt’s personal representative to India on October 31, 1942 until FDR accepted his resignation on March 17, 1945

Online Reference Sources

William Phillips, American National Biography

Primary Sources

Ventures in Diplomacy. Boston: Beacon Press, 1952.

Papers, Harvard University

  • Hess does not believe the Phillips papers add much substantial information (189)

Reminiscences of William Phillips: oral history, 1951, Columbia University.

 

 

 

Louis Fischer (1896-1970)

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  • Foreign relations journalist (reported from Soviet Union for 14 years) who worked to promote Indian independence cause in the U.S.
  • Met extensively with Gandhi and later published a biography, The Life of Mahatma Gandhi (1950), which the Oscar-winning movie is based on

Primary Sources

The Great Challenge. New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1946.

  • Includes account of Fischer’s, May 1942 trip to India and his meetings with Nehru and Gandhi
  • “No one imagines that independence will solve all of the problems of India. It will create problems. Freedom merely opens the door to the solution of the problems” (135).

The Life of Mahatma Gandhi. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1950.

  • Ch. 38 “My Week with Gandhi”
  • Gandhi gave Fischer a letter to deliver to Roosevelt. Gandhi later asked if Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms: “include the freedom to be free?” (376)

Walter White (1893-1955)

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Image Courtesy of the New Georgia Encyclopedia

  • Executive secretary of the NAACP from 1931-1955
  • Advocate of Indian Independence
  • Member of U.S. delegation to UN Conference in San Francisco, 1945

Online Reference Source:

Walter White, American National Biography

Biographies

Janken, Kenneth Robert. White: The Biography of Walter White, Mr. NAACP. New York: The New Press, 2003.

  • “Before World War II the NAACP had exhibited only limited interest in the international dimensions of race.” (278)

Primary Sources

  • Papers located in the James Welldon Johnson Collection at Yale University
  • A Rising Wind. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Dorian and Company, Inc., 1945

White’s account of his information-gathering trip on the conditions of African-American soldiers in England, North Africa, the Middle East and Italy from January to March 1944.

  • At a London dinner party, White notes that none of the dinner guests made a connection between, “the American attitude toward Negroes whose skins were black or brown and the British attitude towards Indians whose skins were brown” (31).
  • “World War II has given to the Negro a sense of kinship with other colored–and also oppressed–peoples of the world” (144)
  • “If already planned race riots and lynchings of returning Negro soldiers “to teach them their place” are consummated, if Negro war workers are first fired, if India remains enslaved… World War III will be in the making before the last gun is fired in World War II” (154).
  • “Can the United States, Britain, and other ‘white’ nations any longer afford, in enlightened self-interest, racial superiority?” (154)
  • “The United States, Great Britain, France, and other Allied nations must choose without delay one of two courses–to revolutionize their racial concepts and practices, to abolish imperialism and grant full equality to all of its people, or else prepare for World War III” (154)
  • A Man Called White, The Autobiography of Walter White. New York: Viking Press, 1948.
  • Papers of the NAACP, Library of Congress