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He covets publicity; he once fainted dead away during a U.N. debate, inquired immediately after reviving: "Where's the A.P. correspondent?" Menon speaks no Hindi, campaigns in English. "It is a political disadvantage," he admits, but feels that Gandhi traditions carried on by other politicians are just "good merchandise. I don't need it myself."
Goa's Liberator. He is widely hated by fellow members of the Congress Party, who feel that he has no political base apart from Nehru's friendship. Says one observer: "That wretched fellow won't last a year in government after Nehru's death." But Menon may in fact be winning some popularity. His role in "liberating" Goa won him near adulation among the masses, and he assiduously cultivates the movie stars of North Bombay's film colony for their publicity value in enhancing his own prestige. In the Defense Ministry he has made enemies by arbitrary promotions and by his manner—once he was overheard screaming into a phone, "Don't be stupid. Admiral !" —but he has also won favor with the military by boosting pay, improving living quarters, modernizing weapons. When a Gurkha regiment left to join the U.N. force in the Congo, Menon was at the airport to shake the hand of every man. "Don't squeeze too hard," whispered an officer to the tough little Gurkhas.
Menon is a vegetarian, touches neither tobacco nor liquor, survives on biscuits and up to 20 cups of tea a day—"flavored," says one longtime foe, "with malice." He is frail, has a racking cough, last fall was operated on for a brain clot. He affects a cane. "You can walk with Menon and wonder if he will be able to keep moving," says a colleague. "But if you and Menon are racing to catch a bus, it won't be Krishna who misses it."
In the political race, however, Menon and the Congress Party may be missing the bus on the major issues confronting India: Red China's aggression and economic progress.
The China Issue. Although the Communist Chinese have seized 14,000 sq. mi. of Indian territory, Menon and Nehru have consistently downgraded the incursions as "misbehavior" or a "momentary aberration," called the area occupied by the Chinese "barren mountaintops where not a blade of grass grows.'' Nehru and Menon hoped to appease the Chinese by not protesting the frontier violations. Menon failed to object to Red China's brutal conquest of Tibet, refused to vote in favor of a Tibetan resolution in the U.N. condemning the Chinese action. "What is the purpose of a U.N. debate?" asks Menon. "It does not help the Tibetans at all."