RED CHINA: The Rock of Difference

Smiling his way through mountainous Nepal, whose King was visiting the U.S. (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS), Red China's Premier Chou En-lai was still inwardly seething at the chilly treatment he had received in New Delhi, where neither his charm nor his bullying had produced concessions by the Indians on the prickly frontier squabble. In Parliament, India's Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru defended Chou's visit but minced no words. "The only alternative was to sit and curse like an old woman, or go to war." His talks with Chou, he said, had foundered on "a rock of entirely different sets of facts . . .

His set of facts—or the set of what he considers facts—and our set of facts are basically different." Hearing of Nehru's criticism,Chou, in obvious anger, called a press conference, huffed: "This is not the right way to treat a guest. It was unfriendly. I did not go to Delhi to be called an aggressor."