Stalin told him that Russia would not interfere in Indian independence, but noted that it was a time of grave dangers. This did not placate the British. “It would clearly be imprudent to take Stalin’s profession of non-interference at its face value, particularly having regard to certain recent signs to the contrary,” wrote the India secretary, Lord Pethick-Lawrence, to Mountbatten.13 Suddenly, the focus of President Truman’s campaign against communism shifted from Greece and Turkey—which had been worrying the United States for some weeks—abruptly eastward.
