Sarah Paine

It was worth $1.5 billion.

That's not something to be sneezed at.

For, I don't know, was it 90 million people?

It was a lot of people who might have starved to death.

And that didn't work out well at all because President Johnson at that point was so mad at the Indians because from his point of view, they were cuddling up to the North Vietnamese and the Vietnam War wasn't going well for Johnson.

So he was furious.

So he provided the aid, but he did it always at the last minute, ship to mouth.

And Indira Gandhi was furious.

She said, I don't ever want us ever to have to beg for food again.

And she never did.

So the United States got no gratitude for enduring anything.

Oh, and a whole other piece of it is India is not subject to famines anymore.

And part of it's from the Green Revolution.

And who does that?

It's the Ford and Rockefeller foundations who figure out the different strains of grains that you want to grow.

And does the United States get any credit for that?

No.

Zip.

And here is Krishna Menon, who is Nehru's controversial advisor, saying, look, we want to encourage a little competition between the donors.

And they did.