Friday, 21 March

F.T. Cheng invited us to have lunch at Athenaeum Club, meeting with Sir Frederick Whyte. I went with Zhongxiong. Sir Whyte has been my old friend for some twenty years. When he was in the Liberal Party, he had been quite powerful. When the Party broke up, he had tried his best to mediate. Only until the mediation was of no avail did he left politics. Also, he had been the President of the new Central Legislative Assembly of British India for five years. The Indian Constitution was drafted by him, so I had a happy time chatting with him about the good old days. He knows Nehru and his younger sister quite well, as Nehru’s father had been a Congressman. He said the younger sister Mrs. Pandit was stronger than her brother in terms of political power. Nehru himself is a poet-styled scholar. His thoughts are the same as mine. That Mrs. Pandit returned from the United States to India to take up her post as a Congressman was probably with the aim of helping her brother cope with the difficult situation. Sir Whyte talked a lot about the condition of India and what he said was interesting. I asked him about his opinion regarding the international climate, and he replied that he should ask me. I told him a little bit and he offered some feedback. With regard to the strength of the Soviet Union, he still estimated it as being too low, whilst he estimated too high for that of the United States and Britain. We talked until three in the afternoon, then I left.