Personal Life
Menon was an intensely controversial figure during his life, and has remained so even well after his death. Widely described as brilliant and arrogant, he was known for the sheer force of his personality.
A complex man, Menon dressed expensively in bespoke Savile Row suits, while maintaining an otherwise ascetic lifestyle, abstaining from tobacco, alcohol, and meat.
The Sino-Indian War of 1962, marked a turning point in the life of Menon and he himself described it as a "grave mistake" to underestimate China.
Menon was widely reviled by Western statesmen who loathed his arrogance, outspokenness, and fiercely anti-Western stances. American President Dwight Eisenhower considered the outwardly courteous Menon a "menace ... governed by ambition to prove himself the master international manipulator and politician of the age". Western publications routinely referred to him as "India's Rasputin" or "Nehru's Evil Genius".
Read more about this topic: V. K. Krishna Menon
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