The United States under the Truman administration leaned towards favouring India in the late-1940s as a consequence of most U.S. planners seeing India more valuable diplomatically than neighboring Pakistan. However, during the Cold War Nehru's policy of neutrality was awkward to many American observers. American officials perceived India's policy of non-alignment negatively. Ambassador Henry F. Grady told then-Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru that the United States did not consider neutrality to be an acceptable position. Grady told the State Department in December 1947 that he had informed Nehru "that this is a question that cannot be straddled and that India should get on the democratic side immediately". In 1948, Nehru rejected American suggestions for resolving the Kashmir crisis via third party mediation.