Word: menon
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When he is on the attack, which is most of the time, Menon's expression is ferretlike. Brain surgery last October for a blood clot deprived him of his elaborately curled silver locks, making his looks even fiercer. Though he has no known history of any leg ailment, he constantly brandishes a cane as if it were a weapon. A teetotaler and vegetarian, Menon, 64, dresses with Savile Row impeccability at the U.N.; at home in India, he wears a loose-fitting, collarless jibbah in which, says one Western observer, "he looks like Boris Karloff playing John the Baptist...
...crackling (and self-cultivated) Oxonian accents, he has put forth Nehru's ideas with a snarling eloquence all over the world, giving them a leftist spin that invariably directs them against the West. Menon bends over backward to make allowances for the Communists, in 1956 voted against a U.N. resolution calling for the removal of Russian troops from beleaguered Hungary. He mouthed the Russian line at the Geneva conference on Laos last summer, has echoed Russia's call for an uninspected nuclear test ban. Once criticized by the former Senator William F. Knowland for his consistent advocacy...
...Menon is a leader of the U.N. at tack on "imperialism," but the mere hint of self-determination for the disputed northern Indian province of Kashmir, which is claimed by Pakistan, brings forth a geyser of indignant oratory. In January 1957 he defended India's right to Kashmir with the longest speech in U.N. history-7 hr. 48 min. Blithely Menon also ignores Russia's satellite colonialism. Questioned about East Germany's fetters, he answered: "Self-determination can't be applied in such a way as to be impractical." Indian critics say that in his post...
...most disliked lead ers in India, but there are several reasons why Nehru values him highly. They are old friends, and have been ever since Menon's 22-year self-exile in Britain. Son of a middle-class law yer, Menon took degrees at the London School of Economics, also became a barrister. In 1935, when Nehru visited England, Menon went all out to build him up as Gandhi's successor. He arranged annual Nehru birthday celebrations, set up speaking engagements in England, got Nehru's first books published...
Nehru finds Menon witty, intelligent, provocative. Besides, he serves as a kind of lightning rod for other left-wing Indian intellectuals who might harass (and bore) Nehru far more if it were not for Menon's position close to the Prime Minister. Involved in a close race in the last general election in 1957, Menon expects another tight contest against the widely respected coalition candidate, Acharya J. B. Kripalani next February. The "conquest" of Goa probably gives Menon the edge he needs to carry his North Bombay constituency handily...