NEW DELHI, Dec. 8—Shortly before India's disastrous war with China in 1962, the popular commandant of the Army Staff College was accused by the then Defense Minister, V. K. Krishna Menon, of being unpatriotic for hanging portraits of British officers in the mess hall.

The accused officer was later exonerated, but he was under suspicion long enough to be kept out of command during the one‐month war.

Today the officer, Gen. Sam Hormusji Framji Jamshedji Manekshaw, 57 years old, has risen to be chief of the army staff and director of the conflict with Pakistan.

General Manekshaw, affectionately known as Sam, is widely considered a shrewd tactician and a stern disciplinarian. He is also known as a general with a common touch. He once spent an evening folk‐dancing with his troops even though he had a sprained ankle. The result: a broken ankle that had to be placed in a cast.

A slender man of medium stature, General Manekshaw has a kindly, genial face whose only military aspect is a bristling mustache. His hobbies include fishing, reading and music.
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During World War II he fought with distinction in Burma, where he was twice wounded and won the Military Cross, one of the highest military distinctions an Indian could attain in the British Army. A volunteer as an officer of one of the élite, fierce Gurkha regiments, he still wears the Gurkha cap.

Born in the Punjab city of Amritsar—now on the border with Pakistan—General Manekshaw was the son of a wealthy Parsi doctor. He studied medicine before attending the Indian Military Academy.

Unlike most senior officers of his generation he did not attend Sandhurst, the British military academy, but he has long been noted for following British military tradition.

He lives with his wife and two daughters in Army House in New Delhi, rising at 5:30 each morning for a small glass of whisky, the, news on the B.B.C. and an hour of puttering in his garden before going to work.

Two years ago, when he was elevated to his present post, a newsman remarked that one of his daughters was named Sherry and her daughter's name was Brandy —this in a country with a strong prohibitionist tradition. “I hope the Deputy Prime Minister doesn't object,” General Manekshaw replied, referring to Morarji Desai, a well‐known teetotaler.