Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume XXV, South Asia

67. Telegram From the Embassy in Pakistan to the Department of State¹

Karachi, August 11, 1964, 6 p.m.

301. Deptel 108.²

1. August 10 at Murree I had first meeting with President Ayub since my return. Meeting lasted about 90 minutes. Only others present were FonSec Aziz Ahmed, and FonOff note-taker. Ayub was in warm responsive mood, despite serious aspects of occasion. He showed lively interest in my account of Washington consultations, with marked degree of personal affability.

2. I started with recital of favorable developments on economic front which took place during period of consultations, including impressive consortium outcome and hopeful outlook for Karachi steel mill and for Indus River dam studies by World Bank.

3. I then delivered President’s oral reply to Ayub letter of July 1. After stressing President’s message of greeting and high personal regard, I made the three substantive points clearly and directly, although as considerately and non-abrasively as I could. I expounded the reasoning supporting the President’s position, spelling out the variety and the depth of the strong assurances, and safeguards which Pakistan enjoys and inescapable responsibility resting on US as nation bearing heaviest share of burden of ChiCom containment to determine for itself how it could best contribute to countering of rising ChiCom pressures on India, which threatened all of South Asia.

4. Ayub took this exposition in good spirit, and heartily reciprocated President’s expression of good will and high personal regard. Although he could not break down all of premises underlying US exposition, he recognized the predominant share of the load which US bears for preserving freedom and stability in Asia. He acknowledged that we have the right and obligation to make our own independent decisions after we have listened to our friends and allies.

He still urges US to weigh seriously and point-by-point his argument that China has no motivation to move militarily against India, that India has no legitimate justification for the huge military establishment she is acquiring, and that India’s disproportionate military establishment will actually play into Communist hands by: (A) breaking India economically (witness the current food riots as one small forerunner) and (B) driving her distrustful small neighbors toward China as a make-weight against an overbearing India in an unbalanced situation.

5. I then made use of most of the remaining material contained in reftel. I laid particular stress on the seriousness with which whole American nation regarded ChiComs challenge, even before last week’s Gulf of Tonkin crisis. I told him why we considered that ChiCom shadow would be even longer and more ominous than the Soviet one for next few years. I described the conviction of the American Government and people that we are entitled to ask our allies and indeed every free country to stand up and be counted in the current dangerous confluence of events. I indicated the disappointment in the highest quarters of our government that the GOP had not yet seen fit to make even a token non-strategic contribution in Viet Nam.

6. Ayub confirmed that the GOP was not making a contribution in Viet Nam. He expressed his regret at inability to do so and said reason was “impossibility of enlarging Pakistan’s political or military commitments in that area” owing to increased vulnerability of Pakistan vis-a-vis India. I asked Ayub if he thought a token contribution in the non-military field would represent any enlarged political or military commitment. He said in his opinion it would, and furthermore “people would not understand.” I replied that undoubtedly the Chinese Communists would profess not to understand. Ayub said his own people would not understand either. I surmised that if so, it would be because of the conditioning they had received in recent months from official and other public news media. Ayub then made puzzling remark that if there was any contribution from Pakistan to the US which we needed or thought might be useful, we should let him know. He would want to comply and would make every effort to do so. But a contribution to some other government in the Southeast Asia area he would have to rule out.

7. I probed for precise meaning of GOP intimation that it might be obliged to “re-examine its policy.” This was in the light of my unvarnished presentation of the President’s position that in such regrettable event we would correspondingly have to re-evaluate our policy. Ayub then gave me most significant pronouncement of meeting. He said that what he had had in mind as a possibility was a re-examination of Pakistan’s tie to SEATO. Only this and nothing more. He said that Pakistan had never had a deep intrinsic interest of its own in SEATO anyway. Pakistan had joined in 1954 only as a cooperative gesture to the US. (He turned aside my observation that East Pakistan was very close to the treaty area with the remark that East Pakistan was surrounded by India.) Pakistan had been prepared through 1961 to contribute armed forces in fulfillment of her treaty obligations. Pakistan was embarrassed by her current inability to pull her weight in the organization because of liabilities nearer home and therefore it might be the most honorable and realistic course for Pakistan to withdraw. He did not intend for any “re-appraisal” to go beyond this.

8. I gave him the background for our action in Tonkin Gulf crisis, building it around the President’s statement in his Syracuse University speech that “aggression unchallenged is aggression unleashed.” I told him that although it might seem a paradox at first blush, the course we had followed was actually the most prudent and the one best calculated to preserve the peace. Ayub was clearly sympathetic to our case in Viet Nam, but he voiced a neutralist line of thinking, stressing the importance of immediate conciliation and negotiation with a view to prompt compromise agreement with the Communists. This neutralist stance was unnatural and out of character for President Ayub and I told him so. I told him that it would not work to negotiate with the Communists from a position of disadvantage. The Communists would not abide by any agreement unless they had to, or unless it served their interests. This meant that an agreement with the Communists must be virtually self-enforcing in order to survive. Unhappily the forces of freedom are not yet in that position of strength in Southeast Asia. This was the reason that we were opposing a neutralist-slanted 14-nation conference now, and this was why we regretted the hasty and public GOP endorsement of such a conference without any consultation with us. Ayub almost admitted that he agreed with our reasoning, saying rather defensively that he had thought perhaps we could conduct a conference negotiation while still carrying on the war.

9. I told Ayub that we regret the rather unfavorable press treatment in Pakistan so far on the Tonkin Gulf incidents. The government news media had been carefully correct and impartial in their publicity over the radio and elsewhere, but the private press generally had made considerable use of Communist propaganda releases, and had ranged from unsympathetic to hostile in its news and editorial treatment of the US action. I thought that the press attitude, combined with the recent government policy of attentiveness to Communist China, had confused the public, and had caused the Pakistani people to take a distorted view of the fundamental confrontation in Southeast Asia, the successful outcome of which was vital to the freedom and national integrity of Pakistan, as of all other peoples of Asia. I thought that this distorted view might have contributed to the regrettable attack on the USIS Library in Dacca by a student [garble]August 6 and the anti-US demonstrations in Chittagong on August 7. I mentioned the apparent lack of alertness on the part of the Daiw police in dealing with the Dacca incident. Ayub said he greatly regretted these incidents and he was investigating the reported shortcomings of the police. He thought the East Pakistan troubles were fomented by organized Communist agitators operating in Dacca with guidance and support from Calcutta. In response to my observation that it was a tragic irony that the Pak public seemed to be extending its sympathies to the wrong side when Pak freedom would eventually be jeopardized by the loss of freedom in Viet Nam, Ayub thought the Pak public was confused by the authoritarian and hard-fisted nature of the present GVN, and by apparent intervention of the USG as an outside government in favor of an unpopular and unrepresentative government of General Khanh. I asked if the GOP could not do some educative work over the radio and in the press so that the people would understand which side their vital interests were really identified with. But he was skeptical that his government could do anything effective along this line.

10. In referring to India, I expressed the Department’s commendation of the constructive and conciliatory words and actions of the GOP toward India at the time of Nehru’s death, Shastri’s accession, and thereafter. I expressed guarded optimism that notwithstanding the setback of Shastri’s illness, favorable developments might be in the offing, with some ferment still in process in Kashmir, and with the Indians clearly groping for some positive initiatives. I said we fully recognized the decisive part that a Kashmir settlement could play in an Indo-Pak détente and the frustrations of ChiCom machinations on the sub-continent (an aspect which Ayub had broadly hinted at early in the conversation). Without being coercive, we would continue to encourage the search for a settlement. Ayub said he had had a frank talk with TTK at the London Prime Ministers conference. TTK had invited Ayub to pay an official visit to India soon. Ayub told him he was ready for a meeting with Shastri as soon as Shastri was physically able, provided there was first tangible evidence of a genuine Indian disposition to mend relations. Ayub indicated a dislike of TTK’s idea that he (Ayub) should do a lot of traveling about India on his visit to make himself known and “sell” the Indian people on the need for a settlement. Ayub felt that the selling was a job for the Indians to do for themselves and that he should not pay a visit until there was some positive prospect for real accomplishment. He felt that an unsuccessful or inconclusive visit would do more harm than good. But he told me he is ready for a visit when he gets a meaningful Indian signal, with or without a preparatory meeting at the Ministerial level. FonSec Aziz Ahmed made his only contribution to the conversation at this point, interjecting that he had just heard from the GOI that Swaran Singh was agreeable to a preliminary Foreign Ministers meeting with Bhutto. Aziz Ahmed obviously favored this.

The President bade me goodbye very cordially. He and I agreed that the meeting had been a useful one and had cleared the atmosphere considerably, although problems remain which have not been fully plumbed. A few additional subsidiary items from conversation and comments will follow.

McConaughy

1. Source: National Archives and Records Administration, RG 59, Central Files 1964–66, POL 7 PAK-US. Secret; Priority; Limdis. Repeated to London and New Delhi.
2. Telegram 108 to Karachi, July 29, reviewed for Ambassador McConaughy the instructions he had received from President Johnson during their July 15 meeting; see Document 65.