As the Kao couple settled down in a nice house allotted to them, with two servants at their disposal, RNK discovered in a couple of days after arriving in Ghana that Yankey and Forjoe had done absolutely nothing since their return from India. They did not even report to the government of the training they had received from India. Everything had been kept pending for someone to come from India. ‘I found myself in a situation where I had to make a big inning from scratch, as there was nothing on the ground, whatsoever, when I reached Accra—not even an office table, stationary items or a typist. Everybody was, however, cheerful and being unfailingly courteous. Every day, I was assured that everything would be taken care of,’ Kao noted. However, the two Ghanaians who were trained in India had got the possession of a house—apparently suggested to them by the Prime Minister himself—to set up the headquarter. ‘When I arrived there, there was nothing except three tables, three chairs and a telephone in the house,’ Kao recalled.
Within the next few days, Kao learnt that the Ghanaian Prime Minister had himself selected 21 people, age ranging from 21 to 49 years, who were to be taken into the new organisation. Curiously, not one of them was a graduate and all of them were at that time employed in one capacity or another. The most intriguing thing was that the list had no police officer. One of them was working in the Trade Union Congress and another was an employee of the Convention People’s Party, the then ruling party in Accra. Meanwhile, Kao discovered that the British intelligence officer and another British named Mckay, who was in charge of the Ghanaian Special Branch, were making special efforts to be friendly to him. This somewhat reminded Kao of the situation he had encountered in Hong Kong three years earlier when he had gone there to investigate the Kashmir Princess Case. The attention which he was receiving from the British was not only very welcoming and reassuring but also substantially useful. ‘I much appreciated the courtesy and friendliness which I received from all the persons concerned, especially McKay and a gentleman called John Thomson,’ Kao wrote. Interestingly, while Kao found McKay and Thomson useful, frank and sincere, they had different personalities and adopted different approaches in dealing with Kao.
A sharp observer of human nature and their characteristics, Kao noted, ‘At the outset, however, I should mention that my first reaction in meeting British officers and businessmen in Ghana was somewhat of disappointment because on the whole it appeared to me that the British who went to West Africa were not of the same class as the British Civil servants and the British traders who went to India. This is understandable because it must not be forgotten that while India was regarded as the jewel in the British Crown, West Africa, for a number of years because of its bad climate, was known as the white man’s grave.’ RNK also had a thing or two to say about McKay and Thomson.
McKay had served in the Second World War and had been in Palestine when it was divided. He was a man of medium build with a freckled face and ginger hair. To Kao, he looked like an Irishman. Kao observed, ‘ Though he (McKay) had a quick temper, I think he had a heart of gold. It was somewhat pathetic to see these people were serving their terms in Ghana because it was clear to me that when the wind of change which was blowing throughout Africa these colonial servants felt out of place and unwanted. Considering that McKay had got four small children and a wife to support and that he had no special qualification besides his experience in the police, I think he faced up to this situation fairly well and during my stay in Ghana he continued to serve the Ghana government faithfully. Later, after my return from Ghana, I remained irregularly in touch with him and the last time I heard from him, he was in Swaziland in South Africa.’
John Thompson was slightly a different kind of person. According to Kao’s observation, he was a true-bred Englishman, who was quite bossy-looking, tall and a bachelor. He had a university degree since he belonged to the old Sudan Civil Service, which, in some ways, ‘approximated though it was a poor second to the Indian civil service.’ RNK felt, ‘In any case John Thompson had more characteristics of an empire builder and at this point was somewhat emphasised by the fact that he had with him a bearer call Abdullah whom he had brought from Khartoum.’
As he encountered these diverse characters during his first few days in Accra, RNK was still waiting to see the prime minister. Finally, almost a week after he had arrived in Accra, Dr Nkrumah met Kao in his office. One of the first things RNK told him was the inability of DIB Mullik in visiting Ghana. However, Kao assured the Ghanaian prime minister of his and India’s full commitment to help Ghana establish the Foreign Intelligence Service.
Dr Nkrumah was a man of medium height and medium built. He had a prominent forehead and bright large eyes. Kao’s own assessment of the Ghanian prime minister was that he was supremely self-assured and it was obvious that he considered himself a man of destiny who was to lead Africa in the struggle to realise their own distinctive personality. Doctor Nkrumah spoke and wrote English with great facility and was a good public speaker, particularly in his own language, and he was very eloquent and could sway the mass. RNK found Dr Nkrumah in a very neat well-cut two-piece suit. He wore fresh, white shirt and a bright, knotty tie, and it was clear that he paid considerable attention to his wardrobe. Kao’s first meeting with the Ghanian prime minister was in the castle where he lived and held his office. The castle had been the official residence as well as the office of the British governor during the colonial days.
As they settled down to discuss the task ahead, RNK asked the Prime Minister Nkrumah about his priorities. From his reply, it was clear that Dr Nkrumah wanted the Foreign Intelligence Service, later christened as Foreign Service Research Bureau or FSRB, to give first priority to the French-occupied territory that surrounded Ghana on its three sides. The next important thing, according to him, was to be the United Arab Republic UAR. In this context, the Prime Minister added that the UAR embassy in Accra had been doing a lot of offensive intelligence work. The next in priority, he felt, should come the intelligence activities of the British and the Americans. On communism, Dr Nkrumah said that he did not want to give it too much attention at that moment because he felt it did not constitute an immediate problem. Of course, he accepted that the Soviets had put enormous pressure on him to establish an embassy in Accra. He informed that until then, he had managed to resist this pressure but added that he would be interested in receiving any assessment or review from RNK on matters of the Russian design and international communist activities. This is a subject on which he said the British had offered to help him too.
Slightly taken aback by the huge expectations that the Ghanaian leader had from him and India, RNK explained to him various aspects of intelligence. ‘I recounted briefly to him the methods of work and the difference in the scope of positive intelligence and counterintelligence. He promptly said that he would like me to advise him on both, and that I should also see what the Special Branch under my care had been doing,’ Kao noted in his recollection.
RNK continued, ‘In my talk with the Prime Minister, I impressed upon him the importance of training and hinted that we might have to get some staff for this from India as well as some office people to organise the main registry. He immediately asked me to prepare a scheme and promised all assistance.’
Kao confessed being somewhat overwhelmed by the magnitude of the task suggested to him by the Prime Minister Nkrumah, and the total burden of responsibility which had he placed on RNK’s shoulders by promising to accept his advice totally. Kao remarked, ‘In a manner, he seemed so sincere that it never had crossed my mind that this could be opposed. In fact, it was not. I must record here that during my more than one year of stay in Ghana, I never had even the slightest suspicion of dubiousness or duplicity in Dr Nkrumah’s behaviour towards me. He was frank, free and friendly.’
RNK got down to the basic tasks of raising a new organisation. The newly recruited Ghanaian officers had to be trained further. He had to encourage Yankey and Forjoe to run operations on their own. Other officers of the Bureau had to
learn how to assess reports from the field, how to filter the truth from the embellishments of agents and how to prepare the finished product of the FSRB labours for the consumers, chiefly by the foreign ministry, but not always the Prime Minister.
Even as he was busy with training and raising the FSRB, Kao had to navigate his way through local politics, jealousies and palace intrigues. However, Dr Nkrumah’s British Secretary, Erika Powell, made RNK’s task easier by smoothening many wrinkles of daily functioning. Erika Powell, according to Kao, was ‘devoted in mind, spirit and motion to Dr Nkrumah.’ Kao wrote candidly about Erika—’She loved him, and she served him faithfully in every way possible.’ However, Erika had to go back to England, ‘a heartbroken and a defeated woman’, after the Ghanian leader married an Egyptian Coptic lady.
During his stint in Ghana, however, Erika was a great tower of strength for RNK. He records it thus—‘I received great kindness and consideration from her and I’m grateful for the tactful manner in which she unobtrusively removed various wrinkles, which a lot of people, for understandable reasons, tried to create in Accra while I was there. These persons were Ghanaians as well as a number of British officers. They regarded me as an intruder and somewhat resented the total trust which Dr Nkrumah had placed in me.’
As days and months passed, Kao gradually put in place a basic structure to run the newly-created FSRB. One year passed quickly. As planned, after six months, RNK and Malini Kao came back to India for a brief period and went back to Accra. By all accounts, they were a popular couple in the Ghanaian capital during their stint. But DIB Mullik wanted Kao back to do more pressing jobs in India. A replacement had to be found since India had committed to depute an officer for two years in Ghana.
By a strange quirk of fate, RNK’s successor in Ghana turned out to be Kao’s brother-in-arms, Sankaran Nair, who wasn’t the first choice, incidentally.
As Nair narrates in his book, Mullik had chosen Amrit Midha to succeed Kao in Ghana. Midha had finished his training for the assignment. Nair was summoned by Joint Director Hooja, who was in charge of the training. He surprised Nair by revealing DIB’s Mullik’s new instruction that he (Nair) should go to Ghana and not Midha. A surprised Nair asked for time to accept the sudden assignment. After checking with his wife Indira, who had no objection, Nair thought of taking one more input. ‘So I went to consult my friend philosopher and guide, Ramji, about the offer. He told me to accept the offer without any hesitation. I realised that his advice was one of the best that I had received. Exposure to foreign countries, foreign races, foreign customs, food and manners, I have found, is the best postgraduate education one can get. Such exposure demolishes racial prejudices, national arrogance and broadens the mental horizon,’ Nair wrote.1 The Nair couple landed in Accra in December 1959 and stayed till early 1961. Nair had an equally distinguished stint in Ghana like his mentor RNK. Apart from running and improving the efficiency of the FSRB, Nair as the Indian representative, was the centre of attention for many intelligence operatives stationed in Ghana. While the British representative had a close liaison with Nair, the Israelis who had wormed their way into Nkrumah’s inner circle, approached Nair many times to convey a message about Israel’s desire to open diplomatic relations with India. ‘I said step the Israeli officials overture diplomatically as this was none of my business, so he lost further interest in me,’ Nair remembered.2
Five years later, in 1966, both RNK and Nair had an interesting and what turned out to be their last encounter with Dr Nkrumah. As Nair wrote, ‘In February 1966, years after I had left Ghana and returned to Delhi, Nkrumah went on an official visit to what was then Peking under Mao Tse Tung, halting en route to Delhi for a brief meeting with Mrs (Indira) Gandhi, who had become Prime Minister of India. The President of Ghana unwittingly embarrassed Mrs Gandhi by kissing her on the cheeks western style which Indians have not adopted. Kao and I were not official invitees for this. So while protocol greetings took place, the two of us stood aside till the Ghanaian President made his way to the ceremonial pandal. We then stepped out of the shadows and greeted Nkrumah who after a moment’s hesitation recognised us and reciprocated our salutations with utmost affection. The protocol boys of the foreign ministry were wondering what sort of worms had creeped out of the woodwork. From Delhi, Nkrumah continued his journey to Peking the next day and shortly thereafter we heard that he had been overthrown by a military coup. Nkrumah never returned to his motherland and was given asylum by his friend, President Sekou Toure of neighbouring Guinea, which, for some years, had a tenuous union with Ghana. The Redeemer died some years later of cancer, a forgotten hero.’3
Thus ended India’s Ghanaian dalliance but RNK and Nair’s association—already strong—turned into a deep friendship because of their common ‘Ghanaian heritage’, which was to benefit India in later years when they founded the R&AW.
1 K. Sankaran Nair, Inside IB and RAW: The Rolling Stone that Gathered Moss (New Delhi: Manas Publications, 2019).
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
EIGHT
The 1962 Shock and the Formation of ARC
The Indian debacle in the 1962 war with China prompted many changes in the Indian security establishment, especially in the intelligence set-up. The IB, which was the sole agency handling both internal and external intelligence, felt the need for specialised organisations that could look after the gathering of technical intelligence, run clandestine operations into Tibet and even operate behind enemy lines across the Himalayan frontier. As a result, two new important organisations—the Aviation Research Centre (ARC) and the Special Frontier Force (SFF)—were created under the IB.
The ARC was established on 4 June 1963, and RNK headed the organisation from 1 September 1963 until 1 November 1966.
The ARC was the product of an intelligence cooperation agreement between India and the US in the immediate aftermath of the 1962 war. Eight C-46 aircraft and four smaller planes with their pilots were deployed to a secret Indian air base, code named ‘Oak Tree’. Now we know that it is at Charbatia in Odisha. Later, the ARC started operating from Sarsawa in Uttar Pradesh, Doomdooma in Assam and Palam in Delhi. Its task was to get photographic and technical intelligence from inside Tibet and Xinjiang.
The SFF was formed on 14 November 1962, a week before the Chinese declared a unilateral ceasefire. Initially, it was known as ‘Establishment 22’ or ‘two-two’ because its first chief, Major General Sujan Singh Uban, had earlier commanded the 22 Mountain Brigade, revealed author and historian Claude Arpi.1
On 19 November 1962, the Chinese Peoples’ Liberation Army (PLA) had come close to Tezpur in the plains of Assam, having made almost unimpeded progress through the Kameng sector in the then North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA)—now the state of Arunachal Pradesh. Faced with this dire situation, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was seeking urgent military help from the US.
Arpi added, ‘On 19 November, the day after Nehru sent two panicky letters to the US President, a crucial meeting to answer Nehru was held in the White House. The then Secretary of Defence Robert McNamara, the Secretary of State Dean Rusk, as well as his Assistant for Far Eastern Affairs, Averell Harriman, a most respected diplomat and politician, were present. The CIA bosses were also in attendance. The declassified US archives tell us: “McNamara urged that the first move be to find out what the real situation was. If we were to put our prestige and resources at risk, we must find out the score. He proposed sending a small high-level military mission immediately to Delhi. including State and Intelligence people in order to concert a plan of action with the Indians.”’2
Nehru’s letter to then President of US, John F. Kennedy (JFK), was a desperate appeal to prevent the Chinese from taking control of the Northeast. He wrote, ‘The situation in the NEFA command has deteriorated still further. Bomdila has fallen and the retreating forces from Sela have been trapped between Sela Ridge and Bomdila. With the advance of the Chinese in massive strength, the entire Brahmaputra Valley is seriously threatened an
d unless something is done immediately to stem the tide, the whole of Assam, Tripura, Manipur and Nagaland would also pass into Chinese hands. The Chinese have amassed massive forces in the Chumbi Valley between Sikkim and Bhutan another invasion from that direction appears imminent…’3
Nehru then went on to ask for immediate assistance in strengthening the Indian Air Force (IAF), which, he said, was not well equipped.
‘We have repeatedly felt the need of using the air arm in support of land forces, but have been unable to do so as in the present state of our air and radar equipment, we have no defence against retaliatory action by the Chinese. I therefore request that support be given immediately to strengthen our air arm sufficiently to stem the tide of the Chinese invasion.
‘“I’m advised that for providing adequate air defence a minimum of 12 squadrons of supersonic all weather fighters are essential. We have no modern radar cover in this country. For this also we seek your assistance. Our needs are most immediate. The United States Air Force personnel will have to man these fighters and radar installations while our personnel are being trained…” Any action to be taken against the Chinese beyond the limits of our country for example in Tibet will be taken by IAF planes manned by Indian personnel…’4
McNamara’s delegation arrived in India three days later; during their stay, the CIA officials held lengthy discussions with Mullik. According to Jonathan Knaus, author of Orphans of the Cold War: America and the Tibetan Struggle for Survival, the CIA station chief in India, ‘The Indians were interested in the Tibet program because of its intelligence collection value… Mullik was particularly interested in paramilitary operations.’ In the end, the Chinese declared a unilateral ceasefire on 20 November, obviating the necessity of immediate American military aid. Over the next six months, the Americans helped India in different ways.
R N Kao Page 9