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As secretary of the league, Menon gave soapbox speeches, got sympathetic left-wing intellectuals like Laski, Bertrand Russell and Stafford Cripps to preach the gospel of Indian independence. Menon lived in a dreary bed-sitter in Camden Town in London's working-class borough of St. Pancras, eked out a living by writing occasional legal briefs, often lacked enough money for a meal. He became involved in Labor Party politics, served as a member of the St. Pancras borough council, where he is still remembered as "the best library chairman we ever had." For his work, he became one of the two men ever given freedom of the borough. The other: George Bernard Shaw.
Menon was close to Communist front groups but never joined the party. Says a friend today: "The Communists thought that they were using Menon. Krishna thought he was using them." He had a falling out with the Labor Party over his Red flirtations, resigned in 1941 when the Laborites voted not to press for Indian independence until after the war. "They weren't bad people." he says, with an inflection that makes them sound worse than idiots and not quite so bad as lepers. "Just moderates."
The 40-Year War. Menon's success with the India League had brought him into contact with Nehru, when he visited England during the '30s. Nehru had little in common with the stodgy, parochial Congressmen in India, found in Menon an intellectual equal who shared his passion for world affairs. Together they toured the trenches of the Spanish Civil War, "watched the bombs fall nightly from the air." After India gained independence in 1947, the new Prime Minister named his friend High Commissioner to Great Britain.
From then on, Menon took orders from no one else, even feuded with Nehru's powerful sister, Mme. Pandit, onetime Indian Ambassador to Russia, the U.S., and the U.N. On a visit to London, she was told by High Commissioner Menon: "You will not give interviews to the press unless I or one of my staff is present. I am ambassador here, not you." Mme. Pandit protested to her brother about Menon's arrogance, but to no avail. "Krishna can be both charming and irritating," she says. "But it's about three-fourths of one and one-fourth the other."
A malevolent-looking, tea-colored bachelor, Menon has carried on what a Western diplomat has called "a 40-year war with the rest of the world." He tends to see intrigue and conspiracy whenever he is opposed, questions the honesty of almost everyone with whom he comes in contact, calls India's press "those rags." Once at the U.N., he threw his papers down on the floor in a rage; when an aide stooped to pick them up, he kicked him in the backside because he did not do it fast enough. One journalist at the U.N. gets so exercised at the mere sight of Menon that he must leave the room whenever Menon comes in. While he feels persecuted, he also manages to believe that he is greatly liked, has told interviewers: "I suppose you wonder why Krishna Menon is so popular."