58 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
authority lead him, however, arc a different matter, and we shall soon come to that.
He proceeds right away to explain the title of the book— "In Washington I learned as an adult what I had known as a child, which is that the world is a dangerous place— and learned also that not everyone knows this." The whole book is then devoted to the proposition that the world is indeed getting to be an increasingly dangerous place for the United States, followed by attempts to find solutions to this crisis.
We can conveniently divide our review into two major parts. In the first, we shall see what he says about India. His revelations about the Indian political leadership have already assumed the form of political dynamite. In the second part, we shall examine his analysis of the American crisis in diplomacy and international affairs and his solutions to that crisis. This is really what the book is all about.
Indian Ruling Class Connivance with U S Imperialism
To us in India, the bombshells coming from a highly placed authoritative source such as Moynihan serve to confirm a central fact of Indian political life which had long been suspected—the notorious role of US imperialist influence and money in Indian politics with the enthusiastic connivance of our own ruling classes. His disclosures rip off the veil of hypocrisy worn by our top political leadership.
Moynihan writes, "But in 1974 Mrs. Gandhi was still making speeches about the ever-present danger of subversion by the GIA, whilst I was meeting with the relevant Indian officials about our common interest in China.
"In New Delhi I had pressed the Embassy to go back over the whole of our quarter-century in India, to establish just what we had been up to. In the end I was satisfied we had been up to very little. We had twice, but only twice, interfered in Indian politics to the extent of providing money to a political party. Both times this was done in the face of a prospective Communist victory in a state election, once in Kerala and once in West Bengal, where Calcutta is located. Both times the money was given to the Congress Party, which had asked for it. Once it was given to Mrs. Gandhi herself, who was then a party official.
"Still, as we were no longer giving any money to her, it was understandable that she should wonder just to whom we were giving it. It is not a practice to be encouraged.5'