Indira's Cong took money from US, claims book

Indira's Cong took money from US, claims book

An allegation that the Congress party took money from the United States during the Indira Gandhi era has been made in a book to be released on Tuesday, but the party dismissed the charge as 'unsubstantiated and malicious.'

The allegation is contained in the book which is a collection of personal letters and journal entries of former US Senator and ambassador to India, late Daniel Patrick Moynihan. It is edited by Steven R Weisman, public policy fellow at the Washington-based Peterson Institute.

Moynihan, who was Washington's envoy to India during the crucial years of 1973 to 1975, refers to the then US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's meeting with Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on October 28,1974 in New Delhi.

'United States supported the Congress party'

In his journal entry, the ambassador says Kissinger had met the Indian leader alone, except for a few moments when her Principal Secretary P N Dhar was present.

"What exactly went on I shall never know, but evidently it went well enough," he writes. Moynihan nevertheless records that Gandhi began by saying that she assumed that Kissinger wanted to talk about the nuclear explosion conducted by India in May of that year.

"He (Kissinger) said yes, he wanted to talk about the bomb. India had one now...its interest is now to see that others do not get one," he wrote.

"Turning to CIA (Central Intelligence Agency, the US spy agency) he (Kissinger) said that the United States supported the Congress party. (A fact