Mrs. Gandhi talked at some length about differences between American and Russian relations with India.
“You see”, she said. “The United States seems to have a thing about the Soviet Union which seems very strange to us. We do not support the Soviet Union any more than we support America-or we support both equally, whichever way you like to look at it, negatively or positively.
“The point is that the Soviet Union supports us in basic things for which we have stood and for which we have fought earlier on. And it is on these issues that we have been with them at the United Nations. Now, earlier on, you said something about American help. We are very grateful to the United States and they have helped us enormously in a number of ways. But at a time when we wanted to develop the state sector, they did not help the state sector, but the Soviet Union did”.
“We certainly get on far better with Americans as individuals”, she added later “then, say, we would with Russians or anybody else. Language is partly the cause. But I personally greatly admire the American quest for technological and scientific advance”.
