Manmohan begins US charm offensive

Highly placed sources told the The Indian Express that as Robert Blackwill, a former ambassador to India and now Bush’s special adviser on Iraq in the White House, and National Security Adviser J N Dixit exchanged notes at the end of the meeting, Blackwill seemed exceedingly pleased at the outcome.

Over the next couple of days, Singh will visit the New York Stock Exchange where he will also have lunch with key American CEOs and do an interview with the Wall Street Journal.

The first engagement on the PM’s calendar today, the meeting with Bush, seems to have set the tone for the week ahead. Aides said their talks were ‘‘chatty and informal’’, to the point that the US President asked the PM if he had ever been to the Oval Office.

‘‘No,’’ replied Manmohan Singh.

‘‘In that case,’’ said Bush, ‘‘I must make sure that if I return to the White House that I will invite you to visit early next year.’’

Clearly, in between exchanges on the global war against terrorism—in the context of which Singh is said to have told Bush that the ‘‘war against terror cannot be segmented’’, referring to rising infiltration across the LoC—a promise to move the strategic partnership on high-technology transfer to a new level and discussions on the situation in Pakistan and Nepal, both leaders also found time to break out of the South Asian box and discuss Myanmar and China.

No less interesting was the hour-long interview of the Prime Minister by Charlie Rose, an elderly, highly acclaimed journalist with the public broadcaster PBS, soon after the encounter with Bush.

When Rose, well-known for his research, asked the PM when he knew he was going to be made prime minister, Singh replied: ‘‘Soon after the results came, when it became clear that the Congress would form the government, Mrs Gandhi called me,’’ he said.

It is believed, Charlie Rose added, that you did not even tell your wife? But Manmohan Singh merely smiled at the question.

Rose then went on to ask the Prime Minister about himself. ‘‘People say you’re a good man and a learned man, but are you also a tough man?’’

‘‘The proof of the pudding,’’ Singh replied, ‘‘is in the eating. I am not politically naive. People saw what I could do in 1991. There were many Doubting Thomases who thought I would fail and they were sharpening their knives hoping I would fail. But we succeeded in our reform programme and India is today a much stronger economy as a result.’’