The New Dictatorship

Bloodlessly, Pakistan changed from an unstable, pro-Western democracy to a more stable, pro-Western military dictatorship.

The crucial decision took place the night Prime Minister Mohammed Ali, alarmed by threats to his power, returned from Washington with $105 million in U.S. economic aid. Ali's plane touched down at Karachi's airfield, where soldiers in battledress were drawn up, ostensibly to honor him. A crowd of perhaps 5,000 people had gathered, and to them Ali made a brief speech on his success with the Americans. "How about the crisis?" a reporter intervened. "What crisis?" answered Mohammed Ali with a grin.

Ali strolled past the soldiers to his Cadillac, his wife at his side. He got into the car, but was astonished when a couple of Pakistani generals shouldered his wife aside and got in behind him. "There is no room for you," the generals told Mrs. Ali. "You go straight home in another car and wait for your husband. We are taking him to the Governor General's palace." At the palace Ali was hustled protesting into an anteroom and was brusquely told: "Wait here."

Interview in the Palace. Twenty minutes later, Mohammed Ali stood before the Governor General, 59-year-old Ghulam Mohammed, a big rugged man who derives his powers--in the absence of a Pakistan constitution--from the British crown, which appointed him. Beside the Governor General stood the strongman of the Pakistan army, Major General Iskander Mirza. "I am dissolving the Constituent Assembly tomorrow," announced Ghulam to the Prime Minister. "You will remain Prime Minister, but you will reform your Cabinet. Major General Mirza will be your Minister of the Interior. General Ayub Khan will become Defense Minister as well as commander in chief . . ." Angrily, Ali turned on General Mirza and accused him of plotting behind his back; Mirza indifferently shrugged his big shoulders. Desperately, Ali wheeled back on the seated Ghulam. "Suppose I refuse?" Ghulam was inexorable and cold: ''Refusal is out of the question. You seem to forget I am head of state."

Ali got to his home, exhausted, at 2:10 a.m. and poured out the story to his friends. "Now I know how Farouk felt when the British put tanks around his palace," he said. "I've been insulted. I've been humiliated, I'll have my revenge one day." But Ali was beaten, and he knew it. Casually next evening, handsome Ghulam relaxed at a private showing of a movie called Love in Venice. (He is also an ardent Marilyn Monroe fan.) Thus, last week, a new regime was established in Asia.

Wheat & Rice. "Pakistan is moving away from democracy," commented the London Economist, "but no democrat who knows the facts would at the moment have it otherwise." The facts are that Pakistan is a "geographical monstrosity" that not only endures but somehow radiates a buoyant young confidence.

In 1947 Pakistan was carved into two slices from British India's flanks. It has since won the respect of the world for its guts, its breezy good will and its single-minded resistance to Communism. But Pakistan, seven years old, has yet to convene a nationwide general election or to enact a constitution. It has yet to determine the place of religion in the state, though the Moslem faith is really all that binds together the two halves, which are separated by 1,000 miles of hostile India. West Pakistan is arid and Middle Eastern: its people eat wheat, speak Punjabi or Urdu, and supply most of the tough manpower for Pakistan's 250,000-man army and for its permanent civil service. East Pakistan is lush and Southeast Asian: its people eat rice, speak Bengali, and complain that they do not have the influence at Karachi to which their preponderant numbers entitle them. In local elections last March, the East Pakistanis rejected the national Moslem League leadership so thoroughly that the newly elected officials were thrust aside and military rule was imposed from Karachi.

"Control of Democracy." Taking over as governor of East Pakistan, Sandhurst-trained General Mirza uncovered some graft that implicated several local leaders of the Moslem League. Mirza took the evidence to Governor General Ghulam Mohammed. Scared East Pakistan politicos turned to Prime Minister Ali, who comes from East Pakistan himself. In the name of democracy, the politicos persuaded Ali to ram a bill through the Constituent Assembly that would limit the Governor General's powers--e.g., the right to fire corrupt officials, the right to relieve Prime Ministers. Ghulam, who had appointed Ali in the first place, invited him to the palace for tea and tried to dissuade him. The tea, wisecracked one politico, proved to be "all lemon, no sugar." Ali would not budge. Ministers should be responsible, Ali believed, not to an autocratic Governor General but to the democratic Assembly. Ali then set off for the U.S., naively confident that Ghulam would not retaliate. While Ali received homage in Washington, Ghulam struck him down.

Pakistan, proclaimed General Mirza at week's end, needs "control of democracy" for some time, with "one good strong man like our Governor General at the helm."

Pakistan's new rulers were as strongly pro-U.S. as Ali, so Washington seemed as calm as Karachi. And as for Ali, now a figurehead Prime Minister, he finally called in reporters and said he was loyal to Ghulam. What would he do next? "I must gaze into a crystal I brought back from the U.S.," said Mohammed Ali, producing a miniature eight ball.

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