While most of this week’s reporting on the India connection within the publicly-released emails of Hillary Clinton focused on her attempts to influence Pakistani counter-terrorism policy in the region, another theme of consequence to New Delhi found less mention – the U.S.’ continuing efforts to get India to accede to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) for nuclear weapons.
A close analysis of the emails of the former U.S. Secretary of State, which were published by the Department State under the Freedom of Information Act following a controversy over her use of a private email account, suggests a close nexus between Ms. Clinton, and Strobe Talbott, former Deputy Secretary of State during the Bill Clinton administration and a renowned India hand.
Between the two of them and other senior State Department officials such as Ellen Tauscher, former Under Secretary of State for Arms Control, the emails revealed an apparently focused effort to persuade India to sign and ratify the CTBT, even though the U.S. itself has not yet ratified the treaty.
The most significant email on the subject involved not only these officials but also current U.S. Ambassador to India, Richard Verma.
On July 21, 2009, Todd Stern, Special Envoy for Climate Change and a Hillary appointee, wrote to Mr. Verma, “Rich – I thought the admonitions S [presumably Strobe Talbott] gave to Ellen Tauscher about how we need a serious Hill strategy plan re Start and CTBT and that such a plan must necessarily inform the actual negotiating work that Rose does could have been applied word for word to climate.”
Mr. Stern added that he was going to raise the subject with Ms. Tausher again on her 2009 India trip, particularly that he would “make clear” that he may need to bring in a “completely dedicated high-level person” to take this agenda to the Indians especially because he had “a very hard time figuring out how you guys, with all you're up against, can do this yourselves.”
Meanwhile the emails published noted that on July 16, 2009, Mr. Talbott wrote a strong opinion piece titled “Clinton can deliver a tough message to India” in the Financial Times , in which he argued that although the Obama administration knew that it “cannot coax or bully India into formally joining the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty… [it hoped] that India's Congress party-led government… will join the U.S… bringing the CTBT into force… [and] Indians… need to be persuaded to see the urgency of prompt action.”
The possibility that Mr. Talbott, who currently heads the Washington-based Brookings Institution, was virtually speaking for Ms. Clinton in this case is hard to rule out, especially since he appeared to be close enough to her to directly email her with CVs of certain job applicants and vet an important policy speech that she delivered that month at the Council on Foreign Relations.
