Terming as 'ordeal' his strip-search twice in Dulles airport in the US capital area when he was defence minister, George Fernandes on Sunday said he had decided not to visit America in future.
Fernandes told reporters at Muzaffarpur circuit house that despite repeated request of the Indian ambassador to the US, the American officials strip-searched him once on an official visit to Washington and on another occasion en route to Brazil.
The former defence minister said he had told the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee about the incident.
''I cannot forget the ordeal which I underwent in the US and have decided not to go there in future," said Fernandes who had come on a two-day visit to his Muzaffarpur parliamentary constituency.
Former US deputy secretary of state Strobe Talbott in his new book Engaging India - Diplomacy, Democracy and the Bomb, had referred to the incident saying he was told this angrily by Fernandes himself when he had visited India in February this year as part of a delegation.