How the US went from being indifferent to fawning over India—because of China
On Oct. 11, 1949, at 4:40pm, Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru stepped off US president Harry Truman’s plane Independence onto the tarmac at Washington’s National Airport. Truman, along with three cabinet ministers and a 19-gun salute, greeted Nehru at the airport. Just ten days earlier, Chinese Communist Party chairman Mao Zedong had announced the establishment of the People’s Republic of China.