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The Cold War on the Periphery, by Robert J. McMahon
More than any other single event, it was the Korean War that transformed American attitudes and policies toward Pakistan. Following the outbreak of hostilities in Korea, Truman administration analysts judged the Soviet Union to be a more aggressive, dangerous, and unpredictable adversary. Nations with a perceived strategic location, such as Pakistan, thus gained increased stature with American Cold War planners. The Korean fighting also precipitated grave concern among U.S. policymakers about the Western position in the Middle East, a region where chronic instability, vulnerability to external aggression, and fabulous oil wealth joined to create a potentially combustible mix. A growing number of top American strategists came to believe that the participation of Pakistani troops in a Middle East defense plan could help resolve the West's strategic dilemma in that critical area.
Desperately in need of external assistance to assure its very survival as a nation, Pakistan had been actively courting the United States since independence. But those efforts initially brought only frustration. The Korean War, and the broader fears about Western vulnerability that it sparked within the upper ranks of the Truman administration, gave Pakistan's leaders an opportunity to make a much more compelling case for a Pakistani-American connection. They seized the opening with skill and tenacity. By pledging their willingness to cooperate with Western-sponsored defense arrangements for the Middle East and contrasting their unblinkered support for U.S. Cold War policies with India's defiant independence, Pakistan's ruling elite managed to impress a growing number of American decision makers with the possible benefits of an alliance with Pakistan.
During its final two years in office, the Truman administration carefully weighed the potential advantages and disadvantages of such an alliance in view of broader American global and regional interests. Since Pakistan never generated an iota of the public and congressional attention--and controversy--that India attracted during this period, the deliberations remained the kind that governments like best: quiet and private, far removed from the conspicuous glare of public scrutiny. Truman's tenure in office expired before any formal commitments to Pakistan could be extended. Still, his defense planners succeeded in establishing a strategic rationale for a U.S.-Pakistani military relationship, a rationale that, for all of its flaws, the Eisenhower administration would inherit, refine, and ultimately act upon.
Like India, Pakistan supported the initial Security Council resolutions condemning the North Korean invasion. Liaquat Ali Khan, still in the United States at the outbreak of the conflict, issued a public statement on June 27 declaring that Pakistan "will back the United Nations to the fullest" in any action it took in response to North Korea's aggression. 1 On July 1, as the prime minister was preparing to depart the United States, he reiterated Pakistan's strong support for the American and UN stance. Pakistan accepted the Security Council's decision to aid South Korea "knowing full well what its implications are," Liaquat remarked. He predicted that Pakistan and the United States "will come even closer together in the troublous days ahead." 2
Delighted with Pakistan's helpful statements and votes, American officials requested even more positive action. In one area, Pakistan more than met U.S. expectations. At State Department urging, Pakistani diplomats explained the UN position to representatives of several skeptical Arab states, helping convince them of the need to stand firmly against North Korean aggression. Another U.S. request, for the provision of Pakistani ground forces, proved much more problematic for the Liaquat regime. 3
Within days of the North Korean invasion, the State Department formally requested Pakistan to contribute troops to the UN "police action." The administration believed that a positive Pakistani response would simultaneously serve several diplomatic and military ends. The deployment of Pakistani troops, which the Joint Chiefs of Staff considered the best-equipped noncommunist military force in Asia, would augment the UN's military counteroffensive. The presence of troops from a prominent Asian country would also bolster the collective security principle underlying the UN intervention, serve as an unmistakable indication of Pakistani solidarity with the West, and perhaps even influence perceptions about the Korean struggle in other Third World capitals. 4
On July 14, in Karachi, Liaquat assured Ambassador Avra M. Warren that the U.S. request for Pakistani troops was receiving his immediate and earnest consideration. The prime minister made it clear that he understood the meaning likely to be read into a positive response to the U.S. request, implying that he would not hesitate to offer clear proof of Pakistan's commitment to the West. He was troubled, however, by the increased military risk that Pakistan might face from India should he make a substantial diversion of his military forces, and he was worried that his countrymen might criticize such a commitment in the absence of a Kashmir settlement. Might the United States, he inquired, offer Pakistan some form of security guarantee to ease those concerns? 5
Ultimately, Pakistan decided against sending troops to Korea, even after the United States offered to equip a Pakistani brigade with modern weapons. After strenuous debate, Liaquat and his top aides calculated that sending troops to Korea would bring greater risks than benefits. In addition to a generalized fear of their nation's vulnerability to Indian aggression, they worried about the indefensibility of their airstrips against Soviet bombers in case of global war. Public opinion also conditioned that negative response. The Pakistani public evinced little enthusiasm for dispatching soldiers to a distant war; most Pakistani newspapers characterized the Korean conflict as another phase in the worldwide U.S.-Soviet struggle, a struggle that had little to do with Pakistan. India formed Pakistan's overriding security threat; the amorphous communist menace that so exercised decision makers in Washington in comparison generated negligible concern. Liaquat's cabinet feared that a strongly adverse public response might follow a decision to commit military forces outside the country, especially given India's intransigence on Kashmir. Retired Pakistani diplomat S. M. Burke, drawing on conversations with several of Liaquat's advisers, has written that those advisers could not agree "on the wisdom of intervening in a manner which might irretrievably commit Pakistan to the Western camp without getting anything tangible in return." 6 Unable to receive the security guarantees vis-à-vis India that he sought from Washington, Liaquat thus politely but firmly declined the American request for a Pakistani military presence in Korea. 7
Pakistan's decision in this regard is probably best explained within the context of its growing frustration with the Kashmir impasse and the seeming inability--or unwillingness--of the United States to break it. For Pakistan's leaders the U.S. position on Kashmir provided the acid test of Washington's reliability; and they found scant cause for encouragement in America's recent behavior. Following the truce agreement negotiated between Liaquat and Nehru on April 8, 1950, responsibility for negotiating a Kashmir settlement fell on the shoulders of Sir Owen Dixon of Australia. Dixon, appointed by the Security Council on April 12 as the United Nations Representative for India and Pakistan, followed on the heels of the ill-fated McNaughton mission of late 1949--and met with no more success. In a series of extensive negotiations with Nehru and Liaquat, beginning in May 1950, the Australian jurist endeavored to close the gap between the two parties so that a demilitarization agreement for Kashmir could be reached and preparations made for the long-promised plebiscite. Those talks were still going on when war broke out in Korea. By August, however, all interested parties realized that Dixon's mission was doomed; India's unwillingness to compromise, in the view of U.S. experts, rendered further talks fruitless. 8
The final phase of the Dixon negotiations coincided with and inevitably shaped Pakistan's deliberations about the troop commitment in Korea. "It was the collapse of the Kashmir talks," Ambassador Warren surmised, "and their byproduct of widening the gulf of suspicion between the two Governments that was the controlling factor in Pakistan's decision not to offer military assistance to the United Nations in Korea." 9
On September 15 Dixon reported to the Security Council that India and Pakistan could not reach an agreement on the demilitarization of Kashmir or on the necessary preconditions for the plebiscite. He requested, consequently, that his position be terminated. Pakistan placed the onus for this latest failure squarely on Indian shoulders. Liaquat and other Pakistani officials quickly urged the United States to step into the breach. Although they sympathized with the Pakistani position and agreed that primary blame for the impasse lay with India, American diplomats had no interest in launching a new Security Council initiative. Not only was the Truman administration preoccupied with the conflict in Korea, but it was actively cultivating Indian diplomatic support for the UN counteroffensive and hence wanted to avoid roiling the waters by assuming a lead role on such an explosive matter. 10 Indeed, Henderson informed the State Department that, in view of Nehru's "supersensitiveness" on Kashmir, he was carefully refraining from any mention of the subject at all. 11
On November 17, during a meeting with Pakistani Foreign Minister Zafrulla, Acheson and McGhee acknowledged their frustration with India's unhelpful attitude. At the same time, they argued that a new initiative was unlikely to break the impasse. "We are not prepared to take the lead," McGhee explained candidly. 12
Pakistani officials openly expressed annoyance and anger with American policy. Under the leadership of Mohammed Ali Jinnah and Liaquat Ali Khan, the founding Muslim League elite of Pakistan had consciously adopted a strong pro-Western orientation as the cornerstone of the new state's foreign policy. The predominantly West Pakistani civil bureaucracy and military establishment--fast emerging as rival power centers to the Muslim League politicians--fully supported that orientation. Pakistan's understandable preoccupation with the Indian threat, the possibility of renewed fighting in Kashmir, the need to defend its northern border in light of Afghanistan's irredentist claims to portions of the Northwest Frontier province, pressing internal security imperatives, and the woefully inadequate defense establishment inherited as its share of the partition settlement all combined to form a national security dilemma of nightmarish proportions. Defense spending absorbed nearly seventy percent of the central government's total revenue expenditures between 1948 and 1950, a burden that far exceeded Pakistan's modest financial resources and severely handicapped its fledgling economic development efforts. Politicians, civil administrators, and military officers agreed that Pakistan's multiple security and financial needs could be served best by forging a bond with an external patron. Only one nation, they were convinced, had the wherewithal to supply Pakistan with desperately needed economic and military assistance and help guarantee its security from external attack. 13
Whatever merits Pakistan's strategy of courting the United States contained in theory, in practice it had yet to bring the country any tangible returns. Not only had the United States refused repeatedly to meet Pakistan's requests for substantial military supplies, but it continued to tolerate Indian obstructionism on the issue most Pakistanis considered of inestimable importance. Moreover, the Korean War initially seemed to enhance India's international stature at the expense of Pakistan, despite Pakistan's more direct and forthright support for UN actions. Pakistani Foreign Secretary Mohammed Ikramullah spoke for many of his countrymen when he expressed his "growing bitterness" with the United States in an angry exchange with Ambassador Warren. He said that more and more splinter groups were breaking away from Liaquat's Muslim League and attacking the prime minister for his failure to secure a Kashmir settlement and for his failure to obtain concrete results from his pro-Western policy. If the present government fell from power, Ikramullah warned, it might be succeeded by an extremist group that would seek support from the Soviet Union. 14
Most American officials discounted the likelihood of Pakistan seeking common cause with the Soviet Union. Warren informed the State Department that Ikramullah's "tirade" just represented another bid for more active U.S. political support. During extensive consultations in London on South Asian matters, State Department and Foreign Office specialists agreed that, while Karachi might flirt with Moscow for tactical advantages, "the Pakistan leaders had no desire or inclination to move towards the Russian camp." 15 Nor, for that matter, did the Soviet Union see any major advantages to be gained by cultivating friendly relations with Pakistan; a bourgeois leadership actively courting an American connection hardly seemed worth Soviet attention. When, in April 1950, Liaquat indefinitely postponed his planned trip to Moscow, Soviet comments about Pakistan grew increasingly harsh. 16
Nonetheless, American and British analysts had good reason to worry about the stability of the Liaquat regime. They recognized that Pakistan's current rulers--largely British-educated, secular, and Western-oriented--were an unrepresentative elite in a nation where the masses tended to be devout Muslims who harbored deep suspicions about the West. American diplomats and intelligence experts monitored closely the rising tide of internal opposition and anti-Westernism within Pakistan; they feared that, unless curbed, it might lead to the fall of Liaquat and the emergence of a government less inclined to cooperate with the United States. "We believe there are unmistakable signs [of] growing unrest and mounting pressures against [the] Liaquat Gov[ernmen]t," the State Department noted, "and that opposition groups are using effectively [the] Kashmir issue to weaken [the] Gov[ernmen]t." 17
Pakistan's rising frustration with the United States underscored a basic dilemma at the core of the Truman administration's South Asia policy. The Korean War intensified American interest in the region for a variety of reasons. "With the now greatly increased strategic importance of the subcontinent," observed McGhee, "the necessity for strengthening these governments becomes one of present concern to the United States." 18 Yet in the months following the outbreak of hostilities, the United States displayed much greater solicitude for India, a nation which it found itself increasingly at odds with on international issues, than for Pakistan, a nation that according to a State Department assessment "went firmly down the line for the American position on all important questions." 19 Pakistanis deeply resented what they saw as American favoritism toward India, a complaint exacerbated by the collapse of the Dixon negotiation effort. Although American officials recognized the problem and some were troubled by the specter of an alienated Pakistan abandoning its pro-Western policy, most senior policymakers continued to believe through the end of 1950 that India represented the more valuable diplomatic prize. If they had to choose between India and Pakistan, the inclination of most U.S. officials ever since independence had been to choose India; the early months of the Korean War tended to fortify that inclination. At the same time, Truman administration strategists believed that making such a choice remained unnecessary. They clung unrealistically to the view that an evenhanded posture toward the subcontinent, coupled with steady Anglo-American pressure on both nations to reach an equitable Kashmir compromise, would permit friendly U.S. ties with India and Pakistan and simultaneously shore up pro-Western tendencies in each state.
By early 1951 the Truman administration had begun to reassess that position. The failure of the Dixon mission, the continued unwillingness of India to moderate its obstinate stance toward the Kashmir dispute, the mounting opposition within Pakistan to Liaquat's pro-Western policy, and the bitter disputes between Washington and New Delhi over the latter's policy toward the Korean War all contributed to that reassessment. But its origin lay especially in a broader strategic priority: the growing Anglo-American conviction that the Middle East must be defended if global war should erupt and the related belief that Pakistani troops could make a signal contribution to that fundamental goal.
American and British planners paid increased attention to the Middle East in the months following the onset of hostilities in Korea. Faced with what they now saw as a much more serious threat from the Soviet Union, defense officials in the United States and Britain agonized over how to protect the Western stake in the Middle East if global war should break out. Maintaining access to the region's oil supplies, and denying them to the Soviets, ranked as critical priorities in all American scenarios for a successful war with the Soviet Union. Truman administration planners also recognized the indispensable peacetime contribution of Middle Eastern petroleum to the economic health of Western Europe. During 1950-1951, American experts estimated, the Western European nations depended on the Middle East for fully seventy percent of their oil needs; without continued access to that basic energy source, European recovery would almost certainly come to a grinding halt. The Anglo-American desire to retain the mammoth British military complex at Cairo-Suez, a base that would facilitate devastating offensive air assaults on Soviet territory in a general conflict, lent additional strategic value to the Middle East. Yet American and British analysts also recognized and regretted that this vital region stood as one of the weakest links in the West's defense perimeter. 20
The fragility of the Middle East in the face of Soviet military power, a problem exacerbated by Great Britain's declining financial and material resources and an upsurge in worldwide revolutionary nationalist currents, lent new urgency to Anglo-American military planning for the region. "To retain the countries of the Middle East within the Western orbit is a vital cold war objective," stated a British planning document of October 1950, "and the Allies must be prepared to make military sacrifices to that end." 21 American defense officials agreed, although the Joint Chiefs of Staff, concerned with the overextension of U.S. troops throughout the world, opposed any measures that would commit American ground forces to the Middle East and recommended instead the substitution of friendly indigenous forces. 22
But where would such friendly forces be found? Turkish and Iranian soldiers were mentioned most often in British and American planning briefs of the time. Bitter Anglo-Iranian differences over the distribution of Iranian oil revenues, however, led many U.S. and British analysts to discount the political reliability of Iran. Some touted Pakistan's army as a possible substitute force. In September 1950, during wide-ranging discussions in London about the Middle East and South Asia, members of the British Foreign and Colonial Offices and representatives of the State Department debated the potential contribution of Pakistani troops. A consensus emerged that Pakistan, "which was the most progressive and capable of the Moslem countries," could help "in stemming any military advance towards the Persian Gulf and in the Near East generally" and that it might be willing to do so "if it were ever free from internal worries on the subcontinent." At present, however, the "hideous problems" posed by the deep rift between India and Pakistan rendered any Pakistani military support in the Middle East impossible. The disappointing results of the recent Dixon mission just underscored the severity of that rift and thus reinforced the inclination of U.S. and British planners to dismiss for the moment any serious consideration of a Pakistani contribution to Middle East defense plans. 23
Early in 1951 U.S. diplomatic and military personnel explored in greater depth the manifold problems and possibilities associated with Pakistan's involvement in the defense of the Middle East. A meeting of the U.S. chiefs of mission in the Middle East, held at Istanbul in February 1951, devoted considerable attention to the subject. Ambassador Warren, a career foreign service officer who had first served in Karachi as a consul accredited to the British Indian government nearly three decades earlier, took the lead. The World War I veteran argued that Pakistan could be persuaded to play a constructive role in the defense of the region, provided only that the Indian threat be neutralized. In summarizing the results of the conference, Admiral Robert C. Carney, commander of U.S. forces in the Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean, recommended that defense officials appraise Pakistan's military potential with a view to applying that strength "as [a] factor complementing [the] Middle East Security system." 24
Later that month a conference at Colombo, Ceylon, of State Department representatives resident in South Asia reached similar conclusions. "The most effective military defense of this area," the Colombo participants recommended, "would be provided by strong flanks which on the west would include Pakistan. . . . Pakistan can provide important ground forces now, either directly in [Southern Asia] or to the Middle Eastern flank, provided the Kashmir question is settled or an agreement is reached that will ease tension with India." Participants decried India's unwillingness to provide support for the West and judged Pakistan as potentially a more important and reliable wartime ally. Captain E. M. Eller of the U.S. Navy, commander of the small American Middle East Force, spoke to the issue most directly. He said that U.S. security "would be reinforced by moving at once in this critical period to develop Pakistan's capacity to support us in war," despite likely "unfavorable political repercussions in adjoining countries." In addition to Pakistan's "strong ground forces," which he saw as "worthwhile additions to our Middle East strength," Eller called attention to Pakistan's valuable air bases and Karachi's utility as a naval base for air and surface operations in protection of the vital sea lanes of the Persian Gulf. 25 As one junior American official prosaically summed up the proceedings: "We decided that Pakistan was a better bet than India." 26
American military representatives in the Middle East raised these points at a conference with their British counterparts at Malta in mid-March. The two delegations quickly arrived at a consensus. Both American and British commanders agreed that the West faced a grave military dilemma in the Middle East that might be eased by the contribution of Pakistani forces. The participants concurred that the protection of key points within the region, especially Egypt, Turkey, and the Persian Gulf oil fields, required defense of Iran and Iraq--the so-called outer ring. Since there were not currently sufficient troops available to permit an adequate outer ring defense, a problem exacerbated by Anglo-Iranian political tensions and growing instability within Egypt, the possible commitment of Pakistani or Indian forces to the defense of Iran and Iraq could help overcome that deficiency. At the conclusion of the conference, Admiral Carney and the British commanders in the Middle East sent a combined letter to the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff and the British Chiefs of Staff urging that they make every effort to draw Pakistan (and, if possible, India) into U.S.-U.K. military plans for defending the Middle East. 27
A growing number of policymakers at the Pentagon and at Foggy Bottom viewed Pakistani participation as essential to the defense of the Middle East in wartime. On April 2, 1951, during a meeting in London with British Foreign Office representatives, McGhee noted that Pakistan's contribution "would probably be the decisive factor ensuring defense of the area." His British interlocutors agreed, asserting that regional defense was "probably not possible without the effective support of Pakistan." Both American and British officials applauded Pakistan's well-trained army, its martial tradition, its strategic location, and its eagerness to cooperate with the West. 28 On May 2 McGhee underscored these points during a meeting at the Pentagon. "With Pakistan, the Middle East could be defended," the assistant secretary stated flatly; "without Pakistan, I don't see any way to defend the Middle East." General Omar Bradley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, responded that perhaps the United States should then arm Pakistan as well as Turkey. Although most leading defense officials judged the inclusion of Turkey and Greece in NATO as the greater strategic priority at this time, interest in Pakistan clearly was on the upswing. 29
In general, British and American strategic thinking in this regard was developing along parallel lines. Like their American counterparts, British planners relished the prospect of Pakistan providing several divisions for service in Iran or Iraq. Like their American counterparts, British planners held out little hope for any cooperation from India. That British defense officials readily accepted the newfound American emphasis on Pakistan's strategic value should hardly be surprising. Indeed, some British strategists had long advocated that position and almost surely influenced State and Defense Department analysts. Sir Olaf Caroe, a former senior member of Britain's elite Indian Civil Service, was particularly important in that regard, through both his writings and his personal contacts with U.S. policymakers. 30
Ironically, representatives of the American government proved substantially more enthusiastic at this juncture about enlisting Pakistani cooperation with Middle East defense efforts than did their counterparts in Great Britain. McGhee's London conversations of April 1951 revealed some of the differences. During those talks McGhee insisted that Pakistan could be persuaded to join Middle East defense planning provided only that the United States or Great Britain guarantee its security against an Indian attack. He considered such an arrangement eminently practicable. While McGhee admitted that a bilateral defense agreement between the United States and Pakistan would not presently be feasible, he thought some form of collective defense pact, without any direct U.S. participation, might accomplish the same purpose. If such an arrangement could be devised, McGhee said Washington would then be able to supply additional military equipment and training facilities to the Pakistanis. In response, Foreign Office representatives expressed concern with the repercussions in India of any security guarantee promised to Pakistan. One British diplomat rejoined skeptically that until Kashmir was settled any Pakistani participation in Middle East defense arrangements would be unlikely. 31
Responding to a formal American request, the British government explored these matters at length during the spring and summer of 1951. While agreed that Pakistani support for Middle East defense efforts was highly desirable, British authorities found the twin problems of formulating an appropriate guarantee and placating Indian opinion virtually insuperable. To be sure, there was no unanimity of opinion. The Chiefs of Staff judged Pakistan's support for regional defense planning vital and were willing to take some risks with India in order to obtain it. The Commonwealth Relations Office, on the other hand, argued that any guarantees to Pakistan would pose unacceptable risks vis-à-vis India, possibly leading it to withdraw from the Commonwealth. The Foreign Office tried to straddle those divergent viewpoints by exploring various schemes for guaranteeing Pakistani security without alienating India. None of its efforts, however, proved satisfactory. 32
Policymakers in Washington found the practical problems involved in associating Pakistan with regional defense planning equally daunting. In May 1951 Elbert G. Mathews, director of the State Department's Office of South Asian Affairs, told a member of the British embassy that while the Truman administration still saw advantages in associating Pakistan with Middle East defense efforts it was "completely stumped" on the question of providing appropriate inducements. 33 On June 30 the State Department informed its representatives in the Middle East that there was now "great uncertainty" as to any possible Pakistani contribution to defense of the area. While this remained an important policy goal, the department counseled that a gradual, patient, and tactful effort would be required before it could be realized. At the current time, the instruction continued, it appeared inappropriate to go much beyond small measures for two principal reasons. First, some Middle Eastern states--Egypt, Turkey, and possibly Iran--would resent a Pakistani campaign to gain leadership in the region, especially if they learned that the United States was promoting it. Second, the department feared that any U.S. effort to increase Pakistani influence in the Middle East would be opposed immediately and staunchly by India, almost surely resulting in additional Indo-Pakistani and Indo-American discord. 34
Another factor caused the abrupt halt in U.S. plans for bringing Pakistan into Middle East defense planning. Indo-Pakistani relations deteriorated progressively throughout the spring and early summer of 1951, yet again raising the specter of outright warfare between the two countries. Security Council reconsideration of the Kashmir case together with political developments within Indian-occupied Kashmir prompted an alarming cycle of charges, countercharges, posturing, inflammatory speeches, and, most ominously, troop movements. With 90,000 Indian troops and 46,000 Pakistanis facing each other uneasily along the Punjab border in July 1951, the State Department feared that, even though neither government wanted war, "an incident could lead to hostilities and to communal war throughout the subcontinent." 35
This latest war threat sprouted from the same roots as the earlier crises in Indo-Pakistani relations. Essentially, India's unwillingness to risk losing any part of the territory it controlled in Kashmir blocked any realistic prospect for a compromise settlement and stymied all attempts to implement Security Council directives. It will be recalled that two UN resolutions, both still in effect, had established the broad framework for a settlement. The first, adopted by the Security Council on August 13, 1948, called for a cease-fire, a truce agreement, and a free plebiscite in Kashmir; the second, approved on January 5, 1949, set down the conditions and basic principles of the proposed plebiscite. Before Admiral Chester Nimitz could function in his designated role as plebiscite administrator, the contending parties needed to reach two agreements: first, on a process for demilitarizing the disputed territory; and second, on the conditions that would govern the plebiscite. On those nettlesome issues, however, negotiations invariably stalled. Neither McNaughton nor Dixon, the two outside negotiators appointed by the Security Council, managed to break the impasse. Infuriated by the veritable stonewall posed by Indian negotiators during the Dixon mission, Pakistani leaders again appealed to the United States and Britain for support. 36
The appeal did not fall on deaf ears. American and British officials with intimate knowledge of the tortuous negotiations agreed with Pakistan that India deserved the lion's share of blame for the failure of the McNaughton and Dixon efforts. In January 1951, with U.S. encouragement and support, Britain endeavored to mediate the outstanding differences during a Commonwealth conference that brought both Nehru and Liaquat to London. But that effort, too, foundered on Indian intransigence. Concerned about mounting Pakistani frustration in the wake of the disappointing Commonwealth conference, American and British experts agreed reluctantly that they had no choice but to initiate another Security Council effort. Inaction on Kashmir, they feared, would only further erode the credibility of the Liaquat regime and play into the hands of those who sought to bring it down. 37
Consequently, on February 21 the United States and Britain cosponsored a Security Council resolution designed to breathe new life into the negotiating process. Pakistan supported the resolution which, in an amended version, received Council endorsement on March 30. The new resolution appointed former North Carolina Senator Frank P. Graham to succeed Dixon as the United Nations Representative for India and Pakistan. It instructed Graham to proceed to the subcontinent and, after consultation with the two governments, to effect the demilitarization of Kashmir. He was instructed, further, to report to the Security Council on the progress of his mission within three months after his arrival. Cognizant of previous failures, the resolution stipulated that, if the parties failed to reach a full agreement on demilitarization during this round of talks, all remaining disputes would be submitted for arbitration by an impartial panel, or individual, appointed by the president of the International Court of Justice. 38
Truman personally selected Graham and judged him an "excellent choice" for this most difficult assignment. A man with rich and varied experience in diplomacy, government, politics, and education, Graham had earlier achieved remarkable success in a comparably daunting international conflict. In 1947-48 he served as the key member of the Security Council's Good Offices Committee for the Dutch-Indonesian dispute and proved instrumental in securing the landmark Renville agreement of January 1948. The former president of the University of North Carolina was subsequently appointed by Truman to fill a vacated seat in the U.S. Senate. After his bid for reelection in 1950 was thwarted by a viciously racist campaign that characterized the liberal Graham as a civil rights sympathizer out of step with the still-segregated South, Truman appointed him to a position in the Department of Labor. The president was happy to relieve Graham from that responsibility to tackle a more urgent matter, one for which the North Carolinian seemed unusually qualified. 39
Graham learned quickly that the odds against success in his new assignment were astronomical. Settlement of the Kashmir tangle required a fundamental transformation in the Indian position. Yet India showed no more interest in a good-faith negotiating effort after passage of the March 30 resolution than it had earlier. Indeed, India had objected strenuously to the resolution, leading American officials to reach the reasonable conclusion that its minimum goal in Kashmir was to make the present cease-fire line a permanent political boundary. India was convinced, Ambassador Henderson observed, that it would eventually lose parts of Kashmir it currently held if it entrusted arbitration of the dispute to the UN. "It therefore hopes [the] SC will drop [the] dispute and [the] present temporary partition will gradually be accepted as permanent." 40
On April 30 the ruler of Indian-occupied Kashmir, Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah, issued a politically explosive proclamation that lent further weight to those suspicions. He called for the formation of a state-wide constituent assembly to determine the future "shape and affiliation" of the disputed territory. Pakistan, understandably, saw India's hand behind the proclamation and, despite Indian protestations to the contrary, suspected a preemptive move to undercut the Graham mission. Pakistani representatives complained to the United States that they were "thoroughly dissatisfied" by this "retrograde step." 41
An exchange of accusations between the Indian and Pakistani governments ensued, precipitating a war of nerves that increased steadily in intensity during the weeks before Graham's arrival in the subcontinent. Liaquat and other Pakistani leaders insinuated that they might employ direct means to achieve justice in Kashmir; some Pakistani politicians even talked loosely of the need for an Islamic "holy war" to dislodge the Indian occupiers. For his part, Nehru made a series of impassioned speeches in June, revealing an even more uncompromising Indian stance toward the dispute. On June 29, in the midst of this volatile situation, Graham landed in India, the immediate threat of war rather ominously overshadowing the delicate diplomatic mission he had undertaken. 42
With Pakistani and Indian combat forces massed across tense borders in the Punjab and Kashmir, and no abatement in the angry propaganda barrage, American analysts feared that even a minor incident might trigger war. On July 25 the Truman administration expressed its grave concern and enjoined both sides to step back from a conflict that could bring calamitous consequences. Following the State Department's instructions, Ambassadors Warren and Henderson cautioned Liaquat and Nehru respectively that open hostilities would result in a wave of bloodshed, shatter the economic life of the two countries, and possibly even jeopardize their very existence. 43
American analysts believed that India would seek to avert war because it already possessed the most desirable part of Kashmir. They reasoned that Pakistan would seek to avoid conflict because its leaders, aware of Indian military superiority, recognized that "all-out war would most likely be suicidal." General Jacob L. Devers, Graham's military adviser, guessed that neither government wanted war since "both realize that a war could only mean disaster." 44 Nonetheless, U.S. experts worried that an enraged public in Pakistan might force the issue, and they feared that in the electrified atmosphere currently prevailing events beyond the control of the Liaquat regime--such as a border incident, communal disorder, or new tribal incursion--might be sufficient to light the tinderbox. 45 On September 10, during a meeting in Washington with British Foreign Minister Herbert Morrison, Acheson voiced concern that "events were moving very rapidly toward a collision." 46
Another armed collision between India and Pakistan would not only wreak havoc with the Truman administration's hopes for stability in the region, but would gravely subvert broader U.S. security interests as well. An interdepartmental intelligence estimate, issued by the CIA on September 14, spelled out the likely consequences for the United States of an Indo-Pakistani war. "War would increase the risk that US policy might alienate one or both of the parties and adversely affect their positions in the East-West conflict," it stated. Economically, it would impede the shipment of important raw materials from the subcontinent. Politically, it would spark "internal deterioration" in India and Pakistan. Finally, war would temporarily cripple Pakistan's strategic value to the United States. "Militarily," the estimate noted, "war would almost certainly remove any early prospect of Pakistan's joining in plans for defense of the Middle East against a Communist attack. US security interests would also be affected directly through the denial, by an immobilized or neutralist Pakistan, of potentially important air base sites that could be used for bomber strikes against any part of the USSR." 47
As the intelligence report made clear, the threat of renewed Indo-Pakistani fighting made it virtually impossible for the United States to separate its Kashmir policy from its deliberations regarding Pakistan's potential role in the defense of the Middle East. So long as the Kashmir dispute remained Pakistan's predominant concern, American planners calculated that its ability--and willingness--to contribute meaningfully to Middle East defense efforts remained severely circumscribed. As a result, more than any other factor it was the war scare that reached a peak in the summer of 1951 that forced defense officials to shelve temporarily their plans for enlisting Pakistan in Middle East defense efforts.
Pakistan, of course, had long recognized the critical interrelationship between its desire for an equitable Kashmir settlement and its willingness to accept formal alignment with the West. Only Western support, its leaders believed, could balance the presently uneven military scales between India and Pakistan and thus generate the pressure necessary to force a Kashmir settlement. If America's desire for a cooperative partner in the Middle East, or its need for Pakistani military bases, represented the price to be paid for U.S. support vis-à-vis its Indian rival, that was a price Liaquat was prepared to pay.
As tensions on the subcontinent eased somewhat in the late summer of 1951, Pakistani representatives reopened the issue. On September 18 Foreign Secretary Mohammed Ikramullah told Warren that the time was now ripe for discussions between the United States and Pakistan on Middle East defense matters. Several weeks later, Mohammed Ayub Khan, the newly appointed commander-in-chief of the Pakistani army, made a similar appeal to Warren. These overtures once again aroused the hopes of Defense Department planners, who urged that Pakistan be asked to join the proposed Allied Middle East Command (MEC) and to provide forces for regional defense in time of war. It is indicative of the importance the Truman administration attached to Pakistan that on October 12, at a time when talk of war in the subcontinent had barely subsided, it requested the British government's reaction to a joint U.S.-U.K. approach to Pakistan regarding the MEC. 48
London's negative response to this latest American initiative revealed a growing cleavage with Washington over South Asia policy. Pakistani participation was desirable, the Foreign Office admitted, but in the short run it would not spur Egyptian adherence to the MEC, the key to that organization's prospects, and would only confuse an already confused situation. The Foreign Office, moreover, saw little chance of Pakistan providing battle-ready formations for service outside its borders for the foreseeable future. Karachi, furthermore, would almost surely demand a high political price for its cooperation; just as likely, New Delhi's reaction would be one of vehement opposition. "We are anxious," cabled the Foreign Office to its embassy in Washington, "lest United States impatience with India should lead them to discount risks involved with India." 49 In a brief for Foreign Secretary Morrison, dated October 16, the Foreign Office expressed concern that the United States might develop a unilateral approach toward South Asia, breaking with the well-established tradition of pursuing a joint approach under the leadership of Britain. "It is possible," the brief cautioned, "that the present American interest in problems in Middle East defence may lead her still further towards a pro-Pakistan and anti-Indian viewpoint." More seriously, if the British kept resisting American "pressure" with regard to Pakistan, warned one Foreign Office specialist, it might have "unpleasant effects" on Anglo-American relations. 50
At the very time that American and British officials were airing their conflicting perspectives on South Asian policy, a tragic event with potentially far-reaching implications occurred in Pakistan. By the middle of 1951 Liaquat Ali Khan found himself increasingly embattled, his political authority weakened by a growing chorus of opponents who derided the empty promises of Pakistan's pro-Western foreign policy. Liaquat's willingness to risk his nation's future by going to the brink of war with India probably resulted in good part from the enormous political pressures buffeting his regime. Yet Liaquat had little to show for his confrontational approach to the Kashmir problem. The latest round of negotiations proved just as inconclusive as previous ones; the careful evenhandedness of Graham's long-awaited report to the Security Council, issued finally on October 15, 1951, disappointed Pakistanis who expected at least some censure of India for its continued intransigence. A large crowd gathered in Rawalpindi the next day to hear the beleaguered prime minister deliver a political address that was sure to offer a response to the Graham report. As Liaquat stepped up to the speaker's dais, several shots rang out. They found their mark, killing the prime minister almost instantly and plunging the crowd into chaos. In the ensuing melee, the assassin too was murdered, raising questions that to this day have never been answered about the assailant's motives and the possibility of a conspiracy. 51
U.S. officials were shocked by the murder and saddened by the abrupt removal of a leader who had staked his political survival on cooperation with the West. Analysts in the Truman administration predicted that the Liaquat assassination would not present any immediate threat to Pakistan's political stability or its moderate character. According to a special CIA estimate of October 22, all of Pakistan's major political leaders shared Liaquat's pro-Western inclinations. His successor as prime minister, former Governor-General Khwaja Nazimuddin, although "unlikely to provide as firm leadership as Liaquat," was a capable leader who was friendly to the United States. "But," the CIA added, "the unsettled state of the Kashmir dispute, plus increasing anti-Westernism in the Moslem world, particularly as a result of the Anglo-Egyptian crisis, will make it more difficult for Liaquat Ali's successors to maintain a pro-Western orientation." 52
Acheson echoed those concerns in a memorandum of the same date for Truman. The secretary of state said that the government of Pakistan maintained order impressively in the difficult days following Liaquat's assassination; all signs pointed to a smooth transition of power. Both Nazimuddin and Ghulam Mohammed, the new governor-general, were "men of moderation" who were "known to be friendly to the United States and Great Britain." Kashmir, however, remained a potential powder keg. Unless either the Security Council or Graham moved soon to implement the controversial plebiscite, Acheson warned, "the Pakistan Government may feel compelled to jettison the policy of relative moderation which it has pursued to date. In addition, failure by the UN in this matter will likely result in a relatively sharp decline in Pakistan's regard for and support of the United Kingdom and the United States." 53 The administration, Acheson acknowledged in another message to the president, needed to counter "a growing feeling that we are not really interested in Pakistan and its problems." 54
Pakistani diplomats pressed the United States hard on a number of fronts in the weeks following Liaquat's death. They pushed for still another effort by Graham to break the negotiating deadlock on a demilitarization agreement, a request the United States honored by helping steer such a directive through the Security Council on November 10. They also renewed their pleas, with growing desperation, for U.S. defense supplies. Former Foreign Secretary Ikramullah, who had been appointed by Liaquat to head a military mission to the United States, arrived in Washington only days after the prime minister's assassination. He explained that his goal was "to get as much military equipment as he could," either "as a gift, under a loan arrangement, or by outright purchase." Ikramullah expressed to Acheson, Secretary of Defense Robert Lovett, and other top officials his government's willingness to participate in Middle East defense planning and its eagerness "to hear what the US wanted of Pakistan" while insisting that Pakistan urgently needed to acquire military equipment for its own protection. "The time was past for words," he exclaimed to several State Department officials; "Pakistan wanted action." With a strong show of emotion, he insisted "you must make up your mind about Pakistan. . . . If Pakistan does not get assistance from the West, the Government's position will be grave. Pakistan may turn away from the West." 55
Ikramullah's emotional outburst, born of anger and frustration, once again laid bare the fundamental dilemma Pakistan posed for the architects of American foreign policy. They appreciated Pakistan's consistent support for U.S. Cold War initiatives. Its "cooperative and conciliatory attitude" toward the Japanese peace treaty in September 1951, which stood in sharp contrast to India's boycott of the San Francisco signing ceremony, served as but the most recent example of Pakistan's reliability. A New York Times editorial lauding Pakistan as America's "one sure friend in South Asia" reflected a view held by many within the Truman administration. 56 But how could Washington properly reward Pakistan for its cooperative policy? And what might be the consequences if it continued to ignore Pakistan's pleas for military assistance?
Some State Department officers argued that a positive response to Karachi's arms requests might help quell rising anti-Western sentiments within Pakistan and shore up the new Nazimuddin government as well. Accordingly, in November 1951 the Truman administration approved the sale to Pakistan of a small portion of the military equipment it had requested. At the same time, the administration offered to provide Pakistan with technical and economic development assistance under the terms of the Point Four program. On February 2, 1952, U.S. and Pakistani representatives signed the proposed agreement, formally bringing Pakistan into America's mutual-security program. Those modest commitments only partially eased Pakistani suspicions about American intentions, however. In fact, one Pakistani official complained in Karachi that the "paltry" sum of $10 million in aid awarded to Pakistan under the U.S. technical assistance program was almost insulting. "Pakistan's pro-Western attitude is apparently so taken for granted that we seemed to have been left out," he huffed. 57 Plainly, a U.S. commitment to sell, loan, or give Pakistan all the military hardware it considered essential to its security would have rendered such rebukes groundless. But in the absence of a formal Pakistani adherence to the Western collective security system such a commitment remained exceedingly problematic. Pakistan had on numerous occasions expressed interest in associating itself with Middle East defense planning, but the hesitance of their British counterparts invariably gave U.S. strategists pause.
Despite London's unambiguous rejection of Washington's earlier overture, American officials persisted in their effort to gain British support for Pakistan's association with the proposed Middle East Command. With London's economic and military power rapidly declining, along with its regional prestige in the face of resurgent nationalist regimes in Iran and Egypt, Washington increasingly took the lead on Middle Eastern matters. Acheson and the State Department's regional specialists were agreed that Britain's faltering position in the Middle East necessitated a bolder and more forceful U.S. policy lest the forces of revolutionary nationalism and neutralism gain ascendancy. "Anglo-American solidarity on a policy of sitting tight offered no solution," Acheson observed sardonically in his memoirs, "but was like a couple locked in warm embrace in a rowboat about to go over Niagara Falls." 58 The Truman administration consequently urged the new Conservative government of Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill throughout late 1951 and early 1952 to join with it in making a joint appeal to Pakistan regarding membership in the MEC. Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden complained to Churchill that the United States was "pressing us hard" on the issue. Cutting to the heart of the differences between London and Washington, Eden wrote: "The Americans take the view that we are inclined to sacrifice the advantages to be obtained from a Pakistani contribution to the defence of the Middle East for fear of antagonising India." 59
That was precisely the American view. Donald Kennedy of the State Department's Office of South Asian Affairs underscored this point during a meeting with British Ambassador Franks. The deterioration of its position in the Middle East was so serious, he argued, that the West could ill afford to waste any opportunity for strengthening Pakistan. There was little hope for India beyond neutrality, continued Kennedy; accordingly, the Indian view could not be allowed to hold up progress on this critical matter, especially given Pakistan's strategic position on the flank of any possible Russian move into the Middle East. Franks remained unmoved by the argument. His government's position was clear: any proposals for increasing Pakistan's military potential would lead to severe reactions from India; Indo-Pakistani relations would in turn deteriorate immediately, thus foreclosing prospects for a Kashmir settlement; Pakistan's contribution to collective defense efforts, furthermore, would remain negligible until a Kashmir accord was reached. Eden reiterated his government's reservations during a trip to Washington in December. Yet, as one Foreign Office official subsequently noted, the State Department "apparently finds it hard to take No for an answer." 60
American persistence of course was due in large measure to the belief that Pakistan could make a valuable contribution to a vital national security objective: preservation of Western influence in the Middle East. On April 15, 1952, a joint State-Defense working group reported that Pakistan's accession to a regional defense organization "would contribute significantly to the military and political strength of the Organization." Pakistan, the report noted, "has a large body of trained troops which could be expanded without too much difficulty and possesses the greatest military potential in the Middle East next to Turkey." 61 The following month Paul Nitze, director of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff, offered a wider historical perspective on that recommendation in a paper prepared for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Noting that effective deterrents to Soviet expansion had been established in Europe through NATO and in Asia through the Korean intervention, Nitze deplored Western fragility in the Middle East. "Such continuing weakness," he cautioned, might "constitute an invitation to a shift in the theater of primary pressure if further Communist progress were to be successfully blocked in other areas." Although it was long-standing U.S. policy to trust Britain with primary responsibility for regional defense, the principal author of NSC 68 stated frankly that present "capabilities available to the British are wholly inadequate to defend the Middle East against Soviet aggression." Consequently, the Policy Planning Staff paper underscored the necessity for direct U.S. involvement in the area. One form that such involvement could take, Nitze suggested, was "influence with Pakistan, coupled with supply assistance as practicable to increase Pakistan's capability of contributing to the defense of the Middle East." 62
Although U.S. planners still feared the ultimate possibility of a Soviet military thrust into the area, they were more concerned at this juncture with political turbulence within the Middle East. A National Security Council paper, approved by Truman in April 1952, stated the problem clearly: "Currently, the danger in this area to the security of the free world arises not so much from the threat of direct Soviet military attack as from acute instability, anti-western nationalism and Arab-Israeli antagonism that could lead to disorder and eventually to a situation in which regimes oriented toward the Soviet Union could come to power." The Truman administration was troubled more, in short, by the internal disintegration of the Western position in the Middle East than it was by any external military threat. As that disintegration continued apace, Pakistan's strategic stock soared. 63
Yet the precise contribution that Pakistan could render to the resolution of the region's formidable political and security problems remained curiously vague in American planning. The Truman administration's initial interest in Pakistan's military potential emerged at a time when it feared that full-scale war might erupt, inviting a Soviet military thrust into the Middle East. U.S. and British planning for the region continued to assume that in time of global war a Soviet attack through the Caucasus and across the Turkish Straits was still possible, even if unlikely, and thus needed to be defended against. But by early 1952 American analysts were convinced that the region's political unrest, from which the Soviets might ultimately benefit, posed the more immediate danger. That unrest, U.S. specialists recognized, stemmed from an amalgam of factors: "rising Arab nationalism, the Anglo-Egyptian dispute, the Israeli-Arab conflict, [Iran's nationalist prime minister Mohammed] Mosadeq, the preoccupation of Pakistan with Kashmir, the declining prestige of the U.K., France, and the U.S. in the area, and plenty of other things." 64
If the paramount problem was now political rather than military in character, how precisely could Pakistani troops offer meaningful assistance? Most planners at the Pentagon and the State Department continued to focus primary attention on Pakistan's military value, sidestepping the political dimension of regional instability. Former Assistant Secretary of State McGhee, appointed ambassador to Turkey late in 1951, used his new post in Ankara to press for greater military cooperation between Turkey and Pakistan. He argued that they were the two strongest and most reliable states in the region. If the Soviets knew with certainty that there would be a military reaction from Turkey and Pakistan, "it would be an important deterrent to their potential aggression in Iran and the Middle East." 65 Some officials did draw an indirect connection between the military and the political-psychological benefits that might accrue from Pakistan's adherence to a regional defense organization. They speculated that any Western-supported command structure, no matter how weak, would demonstrate visibly and dramatically the West's commitment to the security of the Middle East and thus might have a stabilizing impact on Egypt and the other Arab states. But the logic of such thinking, in view both of Pakistan's monumental internal problems and the tidal wave of anti-Western nationalism sweeping the region, appears stretched and shallow. 66
In July 1952 Prime Minister Nazimuddin helped bring some of those issues to a head by dispatching a military delegation to Washington in a new effort to procure arms. This was "a matter of vital importance," he wrote in a personal letter to Acheson, given Pakistan's "growing sense of insecurity." 67 The mission, headed by Mir Laik Ali, special adviser to Pakistan's minister of defense, once again appealed urgently for U.S. military equipment. Ali requested $200 million in military supplies for Pakistan's army and air force along with a sizable line of credit in the United States to help fund Pakistani purchases. In a meeting with Secretary of Defense Lovett, he insisted that the weapons were intended not for use against India but against possible communist aggression. Sounding the tune that he thought Americans were most likely to respond to, Ali said public alarm with regard to Soviet intentions was so strong in his country that he feared a "psychological surrender" if Western help was not soon forthcoming. At the same time, the Pakistani representative softened that dire forecast by intimating that his nation would be willing to enter into an "active and positive" alliance with the United States in opposition to the Soviet Union. 68
The Ali mission occurred at a time when the internal stresses that had plagued Pakistan since its birth were reaching near-crisis proportions. By mid-1952, ethnic, class, religious, and regional tensions worsened almost daily. A growing spirit of provincialism, especially among the Bengalis of East Pakistan, raised fundamental challenges to the national political leadership, which was dominated by West Pakistanis. Traditional religious leaders, who sought to extend their power at the expense of secular politicians, posed another serious threat to the Nazimuddin government. In addition, food shortages sparked riots in Lahore and other cities while periodic agitation erupted over emotionally charged language and refugee issues. The Pakistani Communist Party, although small in size and influence, sought to capitalize on the political ferment and, much to the consternation of U.S. observers, experienced some modest success. To make matters still worse for the beleaguered Nazimuddin, the Graham-sponsored negotiations on the Kashmir dispute dragged on without any sign of an imminent breakthrough, their inconclusiveness providing another focus for popular discontent with the government in Karachi. 69
Economic reversals also contributed to Pakistan's woes. Normally able to produce a surplus of food grains, Pakistan suffered from a poor harvest in 1952 that forced it to import several hundred thousand tons of wheat. Reduced prices for jute and cotton, Pakistan's most important export commodities, cut the country's foreign exchange earnings at the very time that it needed additional revenue to finance wheat purchases from abroad. The United States helped by providing a $15 million loan in September 1952 to help fund the purchase of U.S. wheat supplies, but American analysts worried about Pakistan's ability to finance simultaneously the purchase of food and arms. 70
This bewildering potpourri of problems complicated the American response to Pakistan's latest plea for military equipment. On the one hand, U.S. diplomats in Washington and Karachi decried the Nazimuddin regime's declining stability. Embassy officers viewed the prime minister as a hard-working and honest man but one who was "in a job that is too big for him." Under such weak leadership, they anticipated continued "hesitancy and indecision" in Pakistan's foreign policy. "This means, in the Embassy's opinion, that for the time being there is little or no prospect that Pakistan can be drawn into closer formal relationships with the Western powers." 71 On the other hand, U.S. analysts saw Nazimuddin continuing Liaquat's pro-American foreign policy and feared that a negative response to Pakistan's request for defense supplies might exacerbate the regime's problems while undercutting the position of the Western-oriented ruling elite. 72
Once again the Truman administration sought to resolve the dilemma by reopening with the British Foreign Office its long-stalled request for Pakistani participation in Middle East defense efforts. This time, after further detailed study, Whitehall proved more receptive. On November 5 representatives of the British embassy informed the State Department that their government would now welcome Pakistan's association with such efforts. Changing emphases in regional defense planning along with shifting political currents within the Middle East largely explain Britain's reversal on this controversial matter. U.S. and British planners had in June 1952 scrapped plans for a formal Middle East command structure, principally due to Egypt's adamant opposition. Current thinking held that a less formal arrangement, dubbed the Middle East Defense Organization (MEDO), would be far more effective in rallying indigenous Arab support. Since participating countries would not be required to contribute permanent forces but only to enter into joint planning and consultative exercises, British authorities believed that Indian objections would be less strenuous. Additionally, the steady deterioration of British relations with both Egypt and Iran in the face of aroused nationalist movements in those nations greatly increased the value of Pakistan's participation. Pakistani forces could help compensate for the present unavailability of Egyptian or Iranian troops. As an Islamic nation, added a Foreign Office assessment, Pakistan could bring security and stability to an area with which it had many strategic, political, and cultural links. 73
British officials raised two caveats about any approach to Pakistan in this regard. The first concerned India. In addition to India's fears of a militarily strengthened Pakistan challenging it, they noted that "India has always been nervous of moves which might be regarded as tending to entangle the subcontinent in the Western-Soviet struggle." While such suspicions could probably not be dispelled entirely, "it is very desirable that every effort should be made to ensure that the Indian attitude towards M.E.D.O. and toward the approach to Pakistan is not unfriendly." British analysts sounded a second cautionary note on the question of military aid, strongly urging that no additional arms or aid be provided to the Pakistanis as a reward for joining MEDO. 74 While American officials wholeheartedly agreed that the utmost care be taken to soothe Indian fears, the latter issue proved more nettlesome. In a meeting of November 5, the Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended that funds be obtained at once for grant military assistance to selected countries in the Middle East region, including Pakistan, in order "to help attain strategic objectives." American officials plainly viewed Pakistan's price for cooperation with the West more realistically than did their British counterparts. Some U.S. military aid, they recognized, would be essential to ensure Pakistani adherence to MEDO. U.K. efforts to decouple the two struck U.S. planners as fanciful. 75
Before those Anglo-American differences could be narrowed or any specific initiatives pursued, a complicating factor soon arose. In November 1952 Indians reacted with angry indignation to a series of rumors about Western plans for including Pakistan in MEDO. Indian leaders complained that the Pakistanis wanted arms only to strengthen themselves vis-à-vis India, and that Pakistan's supposed contribution to Western-led collective security measures was a ruse. Nehru testily informed Bowles that any arms transferred from the United States to Pakistan would more likely be used against India in the future than against the Soviet Union. The prime minister's vehement reaction to the rumors regarding MEDO stemmed from a characteristic mixture of the ideological with the practical. Hopeful that South Asia could avoid entanglement in the East-West conflict, Nehru had long argued for what he was convinced was the morally superior posture of nonalignment. At the same time, he genuinely feared that an influx of American armaments might embolden Pakistani leaders to seek a military solution to the Kashmir problem; at the least, U.S. military aid would force India to increase its own arms expenditures. 76
As noted earlier, Bowles essentially agreed with the Indian analysis. He feared that a military arms pact with Pakistan would inevitably lead to another sharp downturn in Indo-American relations. The impact of a U.S.-Pakistani arms deal on India and on the whole region, he emphasized repeatedly, would be catastrophic. Any prospect for an amicable resolution of Kashmir and other regional disputes, he forecast, would be dealt a death blow. Moreover, the Soviet Union would be granted a golden opportunity to enhance its position in the region. 77
The Truman administration's failure to consummate an arms deal with Pakistan probably had less to do with the impassioned arguments of Bowles and the Indians than with the administration's lame-duck status. The decisive Republican electoral triumph of November 1952 made any bold new foreign policy initiatives imprudent, especially given the incoming administration's insistence on taking a new look at America's overseas commitments. To be sure, Bowles's warnings and India's fulminations were weighed carefully and may well have slowed down a decision on aid to Pakistan. Yet, as Donald Kennedy confided to a British embassy representative in December, the risk of a strong Indian reaction was well recognized, but had to be weighed against the positive advantages of Pakistan's association with MEDO. The result of that balancing act, he said, definitely lay on the side of going ahead. Since the State Department judged the prospects for an imminent breakthrough in the long deadlocked Kashmir negotiations highly unlikely, there was no compelling reason to postpone a decision. 78 An internal examination of overall national security priorities, prepared by the Truman administration during its final days in office, stressed the importance of gaining "Pakistan's active cooperation in defense of the Middle East" and recommended that "the first installment of substantial military aid to Pakistan should be supplied at an early date." 79 Only the quirks of the American electoral calendar prevented the administration from going forward with this much-debated initiative. Truman's defense planners had, however, left an important legacy. Their vision of Pakistan assuming a central role in Western defense planning for the Middle East would form the basis for the alliance between Washington and Karachi forged by Truman's successor.
In retrospect, the strategic thinking that gave shape to that vision appears to have been rooted in a series of illusions. The notion that Pakistan's adherence to a Western-initiated regional command structure--which American officials admitted would be little more than a paper organization--might help quell political restiveness nurtured by deep-seated historical animosities toward the West seems almost whimsical. The idea that Pakistan, a nation beset with monumental political and economic difficulties, in addition to unresolved disputes with hostile neighbors, could provide sufficient forces to deter or slow down significantly a Red Army thrust into the Middle East strains logic. Yet the chimerical hope that Pakistan, in conjunction with Turkey, could hold off or delay a Soviet military advance to the south, thereby temporarily safeguarding the Persian Gulf oil fields and the Cairo-Suez base, provided the only substantive military rationale for Pakistan's association with Western defense planning. Truman administration analysts possessed a reasonably shrewd understanding of the underlying causes of regional ferment. But the gap between the problems they identified and the solutions they advanced, at least in the case of Pakistan, was enormous.
The American gravitation toward Pakistan as an important component of U.S. Middle Eastern strategy was essentially a palliative born of desperation. By the early 1950s Pakistan had emerged as a focal point for Truman administration national security planners largely by default. Against the increasingly ominous backdrop of a Cold War suddenly turned hot in Korea, American analysts viewed developments in the Middle East with a combination of alarm and exasperation. An area of vital peacetime and wartime importance to the United States, both for its unrivaled petroleum reserves and for its invaluable military bases, appeared ready to sever its historic ties to the West. The bitter Anglo-Egyptian and Anglo-Iranian disputes testified powerfully to the decline of British strength, prestige, and influence in the region, a decline that American analysts correctly surmised to be irreversible. Those disputes demonstrated as well the ascendancy of anti-Western currents in an area undergoing near-revolutionary transformations. The Arab-Israeli conflict further clouded the prospects for regional stability, making the task of American policymakers intent on forging peace, order, and security out of the Middle Eastern morass even more problematic.
Their tentative embrace of Pakistan as a potential ally must be placed within that broader context. Convinced that Britain could no longer play its traditional role in the area, and fearful that the Soviet Union might capitalize on regional unrest and instability to further its own interests, by 1951 the United States increasingly took the initiative on Middle East policy. American planners were convinced of the need to strengthen the Western position in the region through some form of collective defense pact or regional planning arrangement in order to impress skeptical local rulers, anxious allies, and opportunistic aggressors alike with American strength and resolve. The unwillingness of Iran and most of the Arab states to join such efforts enhanced the importance of any state, such as Pakistan, that openly advertised its pro-Western inclinations. Convinced that they needed to do something to staunch the sense of drift in Western policy toward the Middle East, a growing number of American policymakers thus fixated on Pakistan as a partial, if imperfect, expedient. This tendency to situate Pakistan increasingly within a Middle Eastern rather than a South Asian context, although based on a host of dubious assumptions, contained far-reaching implications for future U.S. relations not only with Pakistan but also with India.
Note 1: Quoted in Burke, Pakistan's Foreign Policy, p. 127. Back.
Note 2: Quoted in ibid., p. 127; Hare to Acheson, July 4, 1950, 790D.5/6-2050, DSR. Back.
Note 3: Memcon between Acheson and Ispahani, July 5, 1950, Memoranda of Conversations, Acheson Papers, HSTL; Acheson to the Embassy in Pakistan, July 1, 1950, FRUS, 1950, 7:274-75. Back.
Note 4: Mathews to McGhee, September 12, 1950, Briefings for McGhee folder, SOA Lot 54 D 341, DSR; James F. Schnabel and Robert J. Watson, The History of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: The Joint Chiefs of Staff and National Policy, vol. III, The Korean War, pt. 1 (Wilmington, Del.: Michael Glazier, 1979), p. 153. Back.
Note 5: Warren to DOS, July 14, 1950, 790D.00/7-1450, DSR. Back.
Note 6: Burke, Pakistan's Foreign Policy, pp. 127-28. Back.
Note 7: Mathews to McGhee, September 12, 1950; Warren to DOS, September 6, 1950, 790D.00/9-650, DSR. Back.
Note 8: FRUS, 1950, 5:1411-29. On the Dixon mission, see especially Gupta, Kashmir, pp. 211-30. Back.
Note 9: Warren to DOS, September 6, 1950, 790D.00/9-650, DSR. Back.
Note 10: Henderson to DOS, August 28, 1950, FRUS, 1950, 5:1427-29; Warren to DOS, August 30, 1950, ibid., pp. 1429-31; Webb to the Embassy in Pakistan, September 22, 1950, ibid., pp. 1431-32; Webb to Truman, September 19, 1950, 85-P Kashmir Commission, OF, HSTP, HSTL. Back.
Note 11: Henderson to DOS, August 25, 1950, FRUS, 1950, 5:1426-27. Back.
Note 12: Memcon between Acheson, McGhee, and Zafrulla, November 17, 1950, ibid., pp. 1435-39. Back.
Note 13: Jalal, State of Martial Rule, pp. 60-78, 93-100; Stephen P. Cohen, The Pakistan Army (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), pp. 136-38.. Back.
Note 14: Warren to DOS, November 18, 1950, 790D.00/11-1850, DSR. Back.
Note 15: Record of informal U.S.-U.K. discussions, September 18, 1950, FRUS, 1950, 5:204-5. Back.
Note 16: Choudhury, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, p. 14. Back.
Note 17: Acheson to the Embassy in Great Britain, December 27, 1950, FRUS, 1950, 5:1444-45; Walter S. Gifford, Ambassador in Great Britain, to DOS, January 2, 1951, FRUS, 1951, 6, pt. 2:1700-1; Howard Meyers of the Office of UN Political and Security Affairs, to Office Director Harding F. Bancroft, January 3, 1951, ibid., pp. 1701-3; Acheson to the Embassy in Great Britain, January 5, 1951, ibid., pp. 1703-4; Kennedy to McGhee, December 21, 1950, US Relations with Pakistan folder, SOA Lot 54 D 341, DSR; Warwick Perkins, Counselor of the Embassy in Pakistan, to DOS, January 27, 1951, 790D.00/1-2750, DSR. Back.
Note 18: McGhee to Ohly, July 13, 1950, MAP Miscellaneous 1950 folder, NEA Lot 484, DSR; record of informal U.S.-U.K. discussions, September 18, 1950, FRUS, 1950, 5:196-97. Back.
Note 19: Memo by Raymond L. Thurston of SOA, enclosed in Thurston to Harry Howard, UN Adviser, NEA, December 29, 1950, India-US Relations folder, SOA Lot 54 D 341, DSR. Back.
Note 20: FRUS, 1950, 5:176-78, 188-96, 217-39; Peter L. Hahn, The United States, Great Britain, and Egypt, 1945-1956: Strategy and Diplomacy in the Early Cold War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991), pp. 93-112; Leffler, A Preponderance of Power, pp. 419-22; Walter S. Poole, The History of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: The Joint Chiefs of Staff and National Policy, vol. 4, 1950-1952 (Wilmington, Del.: Michael Glazier, 1980), pp. 331-36; Ayesha Jalal, "Towards the Baghdad Pact: South Asia and Middle East Defence in the Cold War, 1947-1955," International History Review 11 (August 1989):417-18. Back.
Note 21: McGhee to Jessup, October 19, 1950, FRUS, 1950, 5:217-18. Back.
Note 22: Major General R. E. Duff, Acting Assistant Chief of Staff, G-3, to the Army Chief of Staff, November 7, 1950, G-3, 381 ME TS (Section I-C), Book II, Records of the Army Staff, RG 319, NA; Poole, The Joint Chiefs of Staff and National Policy, 4:333-34. Back.
Note 23: Record of informal U.S.-U.K. discussions, September 18, 1950, FRUS, 1950, 5:196-205. Back.
Note 24: Acheson to Marshall, January 27, 1951, G-3 381 ME TS, Records of the Army Staff; Carney to Forrest Sherman, February 22, 1951, ibid.; McGhee to Acheson, February 22, 1951, ibid. Back.
Note 25: Eller, "United States Strategic Interests in South Asia," in South Asia Regional Conference of U.S. Diplomatic and Consular Officers, February 26-March 2, 1951, South Asia Conference folder, George C. McGhee Papers, HSTL; Burton Y. Berry, Acting Assistant Secretary of State, NEA, to Acheson, with enclosure, FRUS, 1951, 6, pt. 2:1664-88; JCS 1992/72, May 4, 1951, G-3 092 Asia TS, Records of the Army Staff; McGhee, Envoy to the Middle World, pp. 277-83. Back.
Note 26: R. L. D. Jasper to Sir Laurence Grafftey-Smith, March 27, 1951, DO 35/3008, PRO. Back.
Note 27: Carney to Sherman, March 14, 1951, G-3 ME TS, Records of the Army Staff; Carney and Commanders in Chief, Middle East, to the British Chiefs of Staff and the JCS, March 13, 1951, FRUS, 1951, 5:94-95. Back.
Note 28: Memo of informal U.S.-U.K. discussions, April 2-3, 1951, FRUS, 1951, 5:104-9; editorial note, ibid., pp. 109-10; notes of Under Secretary of State's Staff Meeting, April 6, 1951, DSR; record of conversation between McGhee and FO officials, April 3, 1951, FO 371/92875, PRO; record of conversation between McGhee and Reginald J. Bowker of FO, April 4, 1951, DO 35/3008, PRO; JCS 1887/16, May 9, 1951 CCS 381 EMMEA (11-19-47) sec. 4, JCS Records. Back.
Note 29: Minutes of State-JCS meeting, May 2, 1951, FRUS, 1951, 5:113-20. On American efforts to gain Turkey's accession to NATO, see Melvyn P. Leffler, "Strategy, Diplomacy, and the Cold War: The United States, Turkey, and NATO, 1945-1952," Journal of American History 71 (March 1985):807-25. Back.
Note 30: Olaf Caroe, Wells of Power: The Oilfields of South-Western Asia (London: Macmillan, 1951); Selig S. Harrison, "Case History of a Mistake," New Republic (August 10, 1959):11-13. Back.
Note 31: Record of conversation between McGhee and FO officials, April 3, 1951, FO 371/92875, PRO; record of conversation between McGhee and Bowker, April 4, 1951, ibid. Back.
Note 32: Extensive documentation on those deliberations is in files FO 371/92875 and DO 35/3008, PRO. Back.
Note 33: B. A. B. Burrows to J. D. Murray, May 2, 1951, FO 371/92875, PRO; memcon between Burrows and Mathews, May 2, 1951, 790D.5/5-251, DSR. Back.
Note 34: Acheson to certain American diplomatic and consular officers, June 30, 1951, 691.90D/6-3051, DSR. Back.
Note 35: McGhee to Acheson, July 19, 1951, FRUS, 1951, 6, pt. 2:1781-82. Back.
Note 36: H. Freeman Matthews, Deputy Under Secretary of State, to James Lay, Executive Secretary of the NSC, May 10, 1951, ibid., pp. 1692-95; Berry to Acheson, February 12, 1951, ibid., pp. 1720-23; memcon between Truman and Zafrulla, ibid., pp. 1726-27. Back.
Note 37: FRUS, 1951, 6, pt. 2:1700-15. Back.
Note 38: UN resolution, March 30, 1951, ibid., pp. 1758-60. Back.
Note 39: John D. Hickerson, Acting Assistant Secretary of State for UN Affairs, March 27, 1951, ibid., pp. 1754-55; memcon between Truman and Webb, ibid., p. 1758; McMahon, Colonialism and Cold War, pp. 193-205; Julian M. Pleasants and Augustus M. Burns III, Frank Porter Graham and the 1950 Senate Race in North Carolina (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990). Back.
Note 40: Henderson to DOS, March 30, 1951, FRUS, 1951, 6, pt. 2:1761; memo by Meyers, April 3, 1951, ibid., pp. 1762-64. Back.
Note 41: Ernest A. Gross, Acting Representative at the UN, to DOS, June 5, 1951, ibid., pp. 1769-70. Back.
Note 42: Perkins to DOS, September 5, 1951, 790D.00/9-551, DSR; letter from Graham to numerous senators and congressmen, October 20, 1951, Personal Correspondence folder, box 1951:2, Frank Porter Graham Papers, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, N.C.; Gupta, Kashmir, pp. 235-41. Back.
Note 43: FRUS, 1951, 6, pt. 2:1786-87, 1791-94. Back.
Note 44: Devers to Graham, September 22, 1951, Drafts of 1st and 2d Reports folder, Box 1951:2, Graham Papers. Back.
Note 45: Warren to DOS, August 12, 1951, 790D.00/8-1251, DSR; Perkins to DOS, September 5, 1951, 790D.00/9-551, DSR; Berry to Acheson, August 21, 1951, FRUS, 1951, 6, pt. 2:1817-18; Brig. Gen. R. C. Partridge, Deputy Director for Intelligence, the Joint Staff, to Secretary of Defense Lovett, August 14, 1951, CD 092 (Pakistan), Records of AdminSec, OSD. Back.
Note 46: Minutes of U.S.-U.K. Foreign Ministers' meeting, September 10, 1951, FRUS, 1951, 6, pt. 2:1837. Back.
Note 47: NIE-41, "Probable Developments in the Kashmir Dispute to the End of 1951," September 14, 1951, ibid., pp. 1850-58. Back.
Note 48: Leisching to Attlee, September 20, 1951, FO 371/92875, PRO; Franks to FO, October 8, 1951, ibid. For the evolution of American and British thinking about the Allied Middle East Command, see Peter L. Hahn, "Containment and Egyptian Nationalism: The Unsuccessful Attempt to Establish the Middle East Command, 1950-53," Diplomatic History 11 (Winter 1987):23-40. Back.
Note 49: FO to the Embassy in the United States, October 13, 1951, FO 371/92875, PRO. Back.
Note 50: Brief for Morrison, October 16, 1951, DO 35/3052, PRO; minute by Phillips, October 1951, FO 371/92876, PRO; Burrows to FO, December 19, 1951, ibid. Back.
Note 51: Warren to DOS, October 29, 1951, 611.90D/10-2951, DSR; FRUS, 1951, 6, pt. 2: 1877-82; Laithwaite to CRO, October 29, 1951, DO 35/3188, PRO; Venkataramani, American Role in Pakistan, pp. 169-70. Back.
Note 52: CIA Special Estimate, "The Current Outlook in Pakistan," October 22, 1951, Intelligence File, PSF, HSTP, HSTL. Back.
Note 53: Acheson to Truman, October 22, 1951, FRUS, 1951, 6, pt. 2:2224-25. Back.
Note 54: Acheson to Truman, October 22, 1951, 790D.13/10-2251, DSR. Back.
Note 55: FRUS, 1951, 6, pt. 2:1899-1904, 2220-28; Frank C. Nash, Assistant Secretary of Defense, ISA, to Lovett, October 23, 1951, CD 092 (Pakistan), Records of AdminSec, OSD; Kennedy to Warren, November 7, 1951, 790D.5-MAP/11-751, DSR. Back.
Note 56: NYT, September 14, 1951, p. 24; McGhee to Jessup, August 18, 1951, Japanese Peace Treaty folder, SOA Lot 54 D 341, DSR; INR, "The Foreign Relations of Pakistan," January 24, 1952, report no. 5493, DSR. Back.
Note 57: NYT, January 22, 1952, p. 3, and August 17, 1952, p. 3; Ohly to Olmsted, November 27, 1951, 790D.5-MAP/11-2751, DSR; editorial note, FRUS, 1952-1954, 11, pt. 2:1818. Back.
Note 58: Acheson, Present at the Creation, pp. 766-67. Back.
Note 59: Eden to Churchill, November 1951, FO 371/92876, PRO; Lord Ismay to Churchill, November 21, 1951, DO 35/3008, PRO; Burrows to Murray, January 28, 1952, FO 371/101198, PRO; Leffler, A Preponderance of Power, pp. 476-82. On British policy, see also David Devereux, "Britain, the Commonwealth and the Defence of the Middle East, 1948-56," Journal of Contemporary History 24 (April 1989):327-45; Anthony Adamthwaite, "Overstretched and Overstrung: Eden, the Foreign Office and the Making of Policy, 1951-5," International Affairs 64 (Spring 1988):241-59. Back.
Note 60: Franks to FO, November 8, 1951, FO 371/92876, PRO; FO to the Embassy in the United States, November 7, 1951, ibid.; CRO brief, December 1951, ibid.; minute by Phillips, February 14, 1952, FO 371/101198, PRO. Back.
Note 61: Report of the State-Defense Working Group to the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense, April 15, 1952, CD 092 (Middle East), Records of AdminSec, OSD. Back.
Note 62: PPS memo, May 21, 1952, FRUS, 1952-1954, 9, pt. 1:232-34. Back.
Note 63: NSC 129/1, April 24, 1952, ibid., pp. 222-26. For the broader regional context, see especially Leffler, A Preponderance of Power, pp. 478-85; Hahn, The United States, Great Britain, and Egypt, pp. 131-47. Back.
Note 64: Memo by Andrew B. Foster, Deputy Director of the Office of British Commonwealth and Northern European Affairs, April 16, 1952, FRUS, 1952-1954, 9, pt. 1:213-18. Back.
Note 65: Memcon between McGhee and Turkish Prime Minister Adnan Menderes and Turkish Foreign Minister Fuad Koprulu, February 8, 1952, Memoranda of Conversations folder, McGhee Papers, HSTL; memcon between McGhee and Zafrulla Khan, February 19, 1952, ibid.; memcon between McGhee, Arthur L. Richards, chief of the Office of Greek-Turkish-Iranian Affairs, and Koprulu, April 21, 1952, ibid. Back.
Note 66: FRUS, 1952-1954, 11, pt. 1:213-21, 237-47. Back.
Note 67: Nazimuddin to Acheson, June 23, 1952, 790D.5-MSP/6-2352, DSR. Back.
Note 68: Memcon between Lovett and Mir Laik Ali, July 23, 1952, CD 092 (Pakistan), Records of AdminSec, OSD; Nash to Lovett, October 23, 1951, ibid.; Acheson to the Embassy in Pakistan, August 2, 1952, 790D.5-MSP/8-252, DSR; memcon between Mir Laik Ali and Rear Adm. H. P. Smith, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense, ISA, August 1, 1952, OMA 333 Pakistan, Office of Military Assistance Project Decimal Files, Records of OASD/ISA, RG 330, NA. Back.
Note 69: Perkins to DOS, September 27, 1952, 790D.00/9-2752, DSR; Charles D. Withers, Second Secretary of the Embassy in Pakistan, to DOS, February 27, 1952, 790D.00/2-2752, DSR; Perkins to DOS, May 10, 1952, 790D.00/5-1052, DSR; Perkins to DOS May 22, 1952, 611.90D/5-2252, DSR; Perkins to DOS, July 17, 1952, 790D.00/7-1752, DSR; Jalal, State of Martial Rule, pp. 140-44. Back.
Note 70: FRUS, 1952-1954, 11, pt. 2:1818-21; Kennedy to Byroade, July 11, 1952, Pakistan Wheat Loan Fall 1952 folder, SOA Lot 57 D 462, DSR; summary of meeting with the secretary of state, August 15, 1952, Records of the Executive Secretariat, DSR; Ohly to Truman, August 27, 1952, Mutual Defense & Security folder, CF, HSTP, HSTL; Harriman to Senator Tom Connally, August 1952, Pakistan 1953 folder, box 342, Harriman Papers. Back.
Note 71: Perkins to DOS, September 27, 1952, 790D.00/9-2752, DSR. Back.
Note 72: FO to the Embassy in the United States, August 5, 1952, DO 35/6650, PRO. Back.
Note 73: Minute by Burrows, July 30, 1952, FO 371/101198, PRO; FO memo, "Pakistan and the Middle East Defence Organisation," August 1952, DO 35/6650, ibid.; FO to the Embassy in the United States, November 4, 1952, ibid.; Franks to the FO, November 5, 1952, ibid. Back.
Note 74: U.K. memo, "Middle East Defence Organisation," November 5, 1952, Appendix A to JCS 1887/62, G-3 38 MME, Records of the Army Staff. Back.
Note 75: JCS 2099/253, November 5, 1952, CCS 092 (8-22-46) sec. 83, JCS Records; FO to the Embassy in the United States, November 28, 1952, DO 35/6650, PRO; Franks to FO, December 4, 1952, ibid.; Acheson to certain diplomatic missions, November 13, 1952, FRUS, 1952-1954, 9, pt. 1:315-17; minutes of State-JCS meeting, November 28, 1952, ibid., pp. 323-24. Back.
Note 76: "Memoranda of Conversations in New Delhi and Elsewhere between Ambassador Bowles and Indian Officials, October 20, 1951-March 20, 1953," folder 392, box 104, Bowles Papers; Bowles to Kennedy, January 29, 1953, folder 268, box 95, ibid.; Bowles to DOS, November 20, 1952, FRUS, 1952-1954, 9, pt. 1:317-19; Gopal, Nehru, 2:183-84. Back.
Note 78: Burrows to FO, December 2, 1952, DO 35/6650, PRO. Back.
Note 79: NSC, "Current Policies of the United States of America Relating to National Security," November 1, 1952, vol. I, Geographical Area Policies, Subject File, NSC, PSF, HSTP, HSTL; NSC 141, January 19, 1953, FRUS, 1952-1954, 2, pt. 1:209-22. Back.
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