52. Airgram From the Embassy in Pakistan to the Department of State1
For Rountree from Langley. I submit the following as my considered judgment as to an opportunity I believe the U.S. should not miss.
In the past year even the Government of Pakistan has progressively moved away from stout advocacy of its alliances with the United States, European nations, and Muslim members of the Baghdad Pact. Instead, the attractions of neutralism are being voiced more and more, in terms of Arab nationalism and Muslim unity, and as a consequence of increased U.S. aid to neutral India.
A great psychological blow to U.S. prestige in Pakistan occurred with the launching of Sputnik I. Subsequent launching of U.S. satellites and even the voyage of atomic submarines under the North Polar ice cap have not served to offset this psychological defeat. Had the first U.S. rocket to the moon miraculously succeeded, more lost ground would have been recovered, but in the meantime U.S. handling of its relations with India have convinced most Pakistanis that the U.S. rewards those who snub it, takes its sworn friends for granted, and is hesitant in forceful direct action in the cause of international justice.
It is impossible to satisfactorily explain to Pakistanis, at any level, why her ally, the U.S., should give extensive aid to India unconditionally. Pakistan, of course, thinks such aid should be contingent upon enforcement of United Nations resolutions which provide for demilitarization of Kashmir and a plebiscite by its people. The U.S. supported such resolutions and India long ago was committed to them.
The argument that the U.S. is trying to save India from Communism, that if India goes Communist Pakistan will also be doomed to that fate, and that despite the lack of stated conditions attached to U.S. [Page 137] aid implied obligations are being assumed by India which will wean it away from its obtuse neutralism to the point of ultimate settlement of its differences with Pakistan, fall upon deaf ears in Pakistan.
Pakistanis are not afraid of Nehru, but they think the U.S. is officially, as do a lot of Americans. Pakistanis believe that the U.S. coddles Indian Premier’s inflated ego beyond all reason. So the U.S. loses respect in Pakistani eyes.
To Pakistanis Kashmir is an international issue towards the settlement of which the U.S., as a member of the UN, has defined obligations which transcend considerations for Nehru’s false claims that Kashmir is an internal Indian problem. Some Pakistanis believe that no matter what the U.S. does, its aid to India has been another case of too little, too late, as in China, to save India from Communism or disintegration. Because they distrust and dislike Hindus so much, they are not inclined to care too much if this should be India’s fate, even though they know in their hearts that would also mean the subsequent Communist subjugation of Pakistan itself, East Pakistan first, and then West Pakistan.
The fact that more recently President Mirza, at Ankara, endorsed U.S. action in going to the aid of Lebanon with troops; that Prime Minister Noon joined in the London declaration2 and in press conferences here has defended Pakistan’s foreign policy, and that H.S. Suhrawardy had defended the American position even more vehemently than the President or Prime Minister, is not reliable evidence of the temper and tone of this country today.
In the Pakistani press the relatively few editorial expressions favorable to U.S. foreign policies are mostly plants [less than 1 line of source text not declassified]. Against these are multiple antagonistic and even vicious jibes. That many of the latter are dishonest and unfair does not alter one fact, rather they tend to prove it—the U.S. is losing ground in its efforts to save democracy in the sub-continent.
While the old sores, Kashmir, the canal waters, border disputes, etc., continue to escape solution, both Pakistan and India are edging closer and closer to bankruptcy and Communism.
U.S. policies are based upon the assumption that if an attempt is made to be direct and realistic in dealing with India, Nehru will go into a huff and turn to Russia, or even China, for assistance. He might be so inclined, but the chances of the Communists giving India the kind of assistance Nehru’s country needs is dubious in such circumstances. Indian bankruptcy would more quickly play into the hands of the Communists and they know it.
[Page 138]At the present moment the further negotiations for loans to India, not only from the United States, but from World Bank, Canada, the U.K., Japan, etc., create a different situation than existed only a few months ago, when the U.S. alone tried to bail India out with advances of $325,000,000 in aid and loans. The U.S. now would not be alone in attaching conditions to the prospective further assistance of another third of a billion dollars, with two more thirds to follow successively six and 18 months from now. And India’s condition is more desperate daily.
The overall problem is not India, or Pakistan, but the sub-continent, and should be treated as such. Pakistan, no less than India, is at a point where further assistance should be conditional if it is not to be money thrown away. Pakistan does not have so well-advertised a five-year plan as does India, but it has one. Like India’s, the Pakistan five-year plan needs revision in the light of a lot of considerations. Such a revision is in process, because there are in Pakistan a very few in the government who are realistic enough to know their country is in bad trouble. This effort has been encouraged by the U.S. Embassy.
The distractions of Pakistan’s first national election campaign make serious and concentrated attention to internal and external policies more difficult but shrinking foreign exchange reserves are helping to compel official consideration of these problems.
U.S. prestige is not so important in the sub-continent as is the latter’s achievement of economic and democratic stability. The disproportionate military expenditures by both Pakistan and India in their present circumstances are dissipating much of the aid being given to each by the United States. Neither can be prevailed upon to reduce such economically wasteful expenditures, however, unless they can come to agreement on other issues between them.
The U.S. has attempted to bring them together secretly. This approach, we may as well admit, has not worked, nor is it likely to work unless some of the facts of international life are impressed upon Nehru. So long as we wait upon Nehru’s every whim he is apparently going to let us wait. There is no compulsion working in favor of action by him to solve the joint issues between India and Pakistan because of the secret character of the approach we have attempted, without conditional aid.
There can be compulsion if India’s creditors make the most of their current negotiations with him. He will want another third of a billion dollars by next March. He could be made to understand that unless he pursues the secret negotiations in earnest and with good faith, the creditors must at some point decide not to throw good money after bad. By sincere use of the offer of the services of the [Page 139] United States, in secret, he could not only do a great service to the sub-continent, but he and the Pakistanis could win degrees of world respect neither of them at present enjoy.
The United States has everything to win and very little to lose in such an approach.
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, 790D.5–MSP/9–258. Secret; Limited Distribution. Also sent to New Delhi, Lahore, and Dacca.↩
- See Document 317.↩