[104-10071-10122.pdf — page 3]
General Comments.1.  I have not talked with many Ford Foundation people and many TCI people. As impressed by their quality. They are working hard and are doing it in a self-effacing manner. I have not heard one criticism of them from anybody. There are a few ends, of cour. I have not yet met them. They are here "to help India carry out her projects and her ideas" as one put it, and they seem to do not only democratically but with a very real warmth and sympathy yet they stay quietly in the background and take none of the credit. But I feel more strongly each week I am here that the work is solid and is having tremendously good effect in relieving tension and hostility between the two countries. The results of the actual work are apparent now and hope has recently increased among Indians, also their self-confidence. When confidence increases, sensitiveness decreases, of course.2.  From all I have picked up, the feeling is widespread that Ambassador Allen did a good job out here. As one put it, "he was exactly right for the period he was here, just as Bowles was right for the special problems of his two years." Both Indian and Americans highly raise both men.3.  We have a prize in Evelyn Hersey and somebody should thank God every night that she is here. She and her Diner are the most loved Americans in north India, certainly. Evelyn Hersey is known throughout India. She was Social Welfare attached at the Embassy beginning I think in 1943. The only one attached to any embassy anywhere, I understand. Her work was to interpret the social changes taking place in India, to become aware of the needs and problems and how these needs and problems were being met, and to offer her services and her experience whenever or wherever it was asked for. When the administration changed, she was dismissed by Republican on the grounds that this was a new idea; nobody else had ever done such a thing, that is no other foreign service and so why should the U.S. act. At Mr. Allens urgent insistence, she was sent back, this time under the aegis of TCI. She is, however, doing the same job. Her influence is very wide; she is admired and loved by literally thousands of Indians from the high echelons down to the sweepers and other horijans. She is called on for advice in numerous fields and by very high officials. She works behind the scenes and feels that her work would be ruined were she given credit for what she has actually done. She is vivid and full of life and one would hardly call her self effacing, and yet her work is done almost anonymously. I have been around her enough to see how wide her circle of Indian friends is; and how constantly and continuously they stream through her house. She goes all over India. Has travelled much more than 100 thousand miles. She says in recent months she has felt absolutely no antagonism toward her as an American. She is shrewd, has sharp eyes and ears; is knowledgable politically is nobody's fool; is strongly anti communist, is warmhearted and intellectually flexible. One of the best minds I have run into since coming out.4.  I wish we had five times the people in TCI. They carefully avoid politics. I think it is wise.