73. Memorandum From the Director of the Office of South Asian Affairs (Bartlett) to the Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern, South Asian, and African Affairs (Rountree)1
SUBJECT
- Your Pending Conversation with Mr. Sprague Regarding the Proposed “Package” Project to Ease Tension Between India and Pakistan
On December 23, 1957 you transmitted to the Honorable Mansfield D. Sprague, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, a copy of NEA’s memorandum regarding a possible “package” approach to the Governments of Pakistan and India with a view toward attempting to resolve the principal areas of conflict presently existing between these two countries. In your letter of transmittal you suggested to Mr. Sprague that you would like to discuss the proposal with him as soon as possible.2
The basic purpose of your meeting with Mr. Sprague would be to prepare the ground for eventually securing the consent of the Department of Defense to the military portion of the package. This, you will recall, involves both Pakistan’s and India’s limiting by mutual consent their military build-up and thus in effect controlling the present unfortunate arms race in which they are both indulging.
In presenting the Department of State’s view on this aspect of the “package”, you might wish to point out to Mr. Sprague that we have included arms limitation in the package for three principal reasons:
- 1.
- As long as Pakistan fears India’s military posture and intentions, Pakistan’s divisions, newly armed by the United States, will in effect be tied down to protecting West Pakistan’s eastern frontier and therefore unavailable for regional defense. This was clearly indicated even before our military assistance to Pakistan when, during the Korean war, Pakistan through fear of India was unwilling to send troops to Korea unless the United States was willing formally to guarantee Pakistan against possible Indian aggression. This the United States Government was at that time unwilling to do so that no troops were sent. With the Pakistan–Indian military position stabilized and with each country reassured of United States support in the event of aggression by the other, the Pakistan Army, Navy and Air Force would in effect be freed to perform the mission for which we have armed them. Thus the ending of the present arms race between the two countries would actually strengthen rather [Page 161] than weaken Pakistan’s military position as a member of the Baghdad Pact.
- 2.
- The immediate threat, particularly to India, but also to Pakistan, is more that of communist subversion than overt military action by the USSR or Red China. A sound economy is one of the best protections against such subversion, yet both India and Pakistan by indulging in an arms race between themselves are diverting domestic resources, badly needed for economic development, to unproductive military purposes. The Finance Ministers of both countries, but especially of Pakistan, have recently acknowledged and deplored this situation.
- 3.
- If Mr. Nehru could be presented with the challenge to arrange an armament limitation scheme between his country and Pakistan, he might have driven home to him some of the practical difficulties which we face in the larger East-West disarmament problem, and might, therefore, take a more appreciative attitude towards our basic position on disarmament than he has taken previously. If this were the case, his influence could be helpful to our larger objectives.