Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Volume XIX, South Asia

155. Memorandum of Conversation⁰

Washington, July 19, 1962.

SUBJECT

• U.S.-Pakistan Relations

PARTICIPANTS

• The Secretary of State
• His Excellency Aziz Ahmed, Ambassador of Pakistan
• Phillips Talbot, Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs
• Mr. M. Masood, Minister, Embassy of Pakistan
• Mr. Salman A. Ali, Counselor, Embassy of Pakistan

The Ambassador called at his request to convey his Government’s response to three suggestions that the Secretary had put to him privately on May 28.¹

1. The Ambassador said his Government welcomed the Secretary’s suggestion for continuing and frank discussions between the two governments to identify clearly areas of agreement and disagreement between the United States and Pakistan. The Government of Pakistan did not, however, feel that there were major areas of disagreement, even though the Pakistani press and public opinion at times had been quite critical of American policy. The Secretary suggested further that he and the Ambassador might fruitfully engage in a fairly broad review of matters of common concern and that the Embassy and Mr. Talbot might work out an informal agenda. The Ambassador also welcomed this suggestion.

2. With reference to the Secretary’s idea that broadened contacts at all levels between Pakistan and India would demonstrate Pakistan’s good intentions and help Indo-Pak relations, the Ambassador said that his Government, considering India’s present aggressive mood and the Kashmir position, doubted it could do anything now to ease tensions between the two countries. Rather, it feared that anything it might do or say could well produce the opposite result. It had concluded, therefore, for the time being it was better to say nothing, although unfortunately it was hard to prevent the Central and Provincial Assemblies from breaking silence, especially in the aftermath of communal riots. The current tensions were regrettable, the more so because something might have been done to improve over-all relations about two and a half years ago, when the mood was better. The Pakistan Government would have liked to be able to find some hopeful prospect of opening up discourses with moderate leaders in India at this time when the transition of power seemed imminent, especially as it felt tragedy would ensue if Krishna Menon should gain strength enough to succeed Mr. Nehru.

The Secretary expressed his appreciation of the thought the Pakistan Government had given to this question, adding that there might come a moment, perhaps at very short notice, when effective contact across the border would be important. He recalled that six or seven years ago at a time of trans-Atlantic frictions Prince Bernhard started a valuable program of bringing official and non-official Europeans and Americans together for private and frank talks about trans-Atlantic relations. Would there be anything like this on the Indo-Pak scene that would be worth encouraging to stimulate contacts on a private basis? For example, could the Pakistan Institute of International Affairs make contact with the Indian Council of World Affairs, both being bodies comparable to Chatham House? The Ambassador agreed to consider this question further with Mr. Talbot. In the meantime he suggested that it might be helpful if the American Ambassador in New Delhi could keep in touch with the Pakistan High Commissioner there to consider such possibilities.

3. On the Secretary’s third point—that Pakistan might consider making a formal unilateral declaration abjuring the use of force in disputes with India—the Ambassador affirmed his understanding that this was related to Pakistan’s aide-memoir of May 28. He assumed that the Secretary had meant that if the United States should, as requested in that aide memoire, agree that it would come to Pakistan’s aid should Pakistan be attacked by India, then India would ask the United States what assurances could be given that Pakistan would not launch an attack against India. The Secretary agreed. The Ambassador said his Government feared that if it were to make the suggested statement, India would ask it to sign a “no war” declaration. That would return the two countries to a controversy that had continued for two and a half years over a question of what alternative machinery could be set up, if war were ruled out, for the settlement of disputes existing between them. There had been talk of tribunals but at that time Mr. Nehru had not agreed to the inclusion of an independent member of any tribunal, nor had he any other proposal as to how to proceed if the Indian and Pakistani members of tribunals should fail to agree on any issue. Doubting that Mr. Nehru had changed his views, the Pakistan Government believed that nothing would be gained by reopening the controversy. Also, Pakistan understood that the Indians believed they already had full assurance that the United States would come to India’s aid in the event of a Pakistani attack. Mr. Bowles had made this statement in a speech in Delhi last August. The Secretary observed that we had better look at the text of the speech. What bothered him, the Ambassador, however, about our giving assurances to India against a Pakistani attack, along with assurances to Pakistan against an Indian attack, was that it hardly fitted the spirit of the alliance between the United States and Pakistan to assure a non-allied country against aggression by one of the partners in the alliance.

The Ambassador stated that Indian armed forces had doubled in the past five years and that expenses were still rising. Pakistanis wanted to know against whom India was arming itself. Since Goa there had been statements which if not outright threats had been indicative of provocative intentions. The Indians were now saying much that concerned Pakistan; it was not Pakistan that was threatening India.

The Ambassador added that “they” (presumably his Government) had also said that even if India gave the requested assurances Pakistan would still worry about any military assistance that might be given to India by the West, i.e. by the United States, or by Britain, or by France. Such action would be resented by the Pakistani people, since their Government could not tell them of the secret assurances they had extracted from India. The Pakistani Government also would not rule out the possibility of an Indian attack against Azzad Kashmir. Indeed, the Ambassador feared that it had been the encouragement that India had drawn from Western policies that had freed India to get on with its military buildup. The Indians thought they could get away with anything.

The Ambassador then gave reactions to statements he had heard from Mr. McGhee about the idea that the British might give the Indians an alternative to the reported Russian offer of supersonic aircraft to India. Mr. McGhee had made four points, as the Ambassador had understood him. These were: (1) that acquisition of MIGs would open up unlimited opportunities for Soviet involvement in the Indian military establishment; (2) that this would strengthen Krishna Menon’s position; (3) that it would jeopardize the security of British military equipment in use by the Indian armed forces; and (4) that the reaction in this country would be very bad if India concluded a MIG deal. The Ambassador felt, however, that actually it would be good if India’s actions should bring an adverse reaction in this country, because only in that way would India learn. At the moment India’s foreign reserves were in an extremely parlous state. How could it be talking about getting supersonics? None of Krishna Menon’s designs could succeed unless India continued to get aid from the United States. The MIG deal would doom him because the Congress Party, which was led and financed by a largely conservative group, would be unhappy with the resulting impact on American aid. As for the question of British military security would not the Russians be taking a comparable risk? Why were they not afraid of such a result? In fact, to the Ambassador these arguments looked wide of the mark. He thought the real explanation of British interests might be found in the comments of two British newspapermen who had told him that “for us this is purely a commercial deal; that is all.”

The Secretary interjected that that statement had not a shred of reality.

Continuing, the Ambassador said that the Indians had always maintained a military disparity of about three to one (the United States, he said, had called it two and a half to one but there was not much difference between the two estimates) over the Pakistani armed forces but in aircraft the disparity was seven to one. The Indians had been informed in 1960 about Pakistan’s coming acquisition of F-104s and they knew Pakistan was getting only 12 of them. Why should this number of aircraft trouble the Indians so much? Why should they be expressing their agitation only now?

The Secretary suggested that this could be related to matters concerning China and the northern border of India. The Ambassador doubted this. He said the Soviets had told the Pakistan Ambassador in Moscow that the Indians had deliberately planned the northern border excitement to assure aid from the United States.

0. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 611.90D/7-1962. Confidential. Drafted by Talbot and approved in S on August 13.
1. The three suggestions noted here were not recorded in the memorandum prepared on Rusk’s conversation with Ahmed on May 28; see Document 126.