Bern, Jun 10 (UNI) A close shave on a Swiss road with actor Charlie Chaplin and India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru could have changed history.
According to a swissinfo.ch report by Anand Chandrasekhar, it was April 1953 and the Indian Mission in Switzerland was in a crisis. The ambassador Asif Ali – a highly respected diplomat and former freedom fighter – died suddenly of heart attack in the Swiss capital Bern. The timing could not have been worse. In five weeks’ time, a conference of Indian ambassadors was scheduled in Switzerland to be chaired by none other than Prime Minister Nehru.
A new ambassador was appointed in record time but still had only three weeks to make the arrangements for Nehru’s visit. The first problem was choosing a location for the diplomats’ conference.