The Cry of the Hawks

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was aquiver with rage and frustration--as usual. Addressing a press conference in Pakistan's capital of Rawalpindi, the hawk-nosed Foreign Minister announced that because of Malaysia's "immoral, hostile and unfriendly" attitude on the Kashmir question, Pakistan was severing diplomatic relations forthwith. Thus, last week, Pakistan became the first member of the British Commonwealth ever to cut its ties with another.

Powerful Pack. There was an excess of absurdity about the whole thing. Examined from any angle, a breach with Malaysia contained no certain advantage for Pakistan or disadvantage to its archenemy, India--with whom Pakistan's diplomatic relations ironically remain undisturbed.

Since President Mohammed Ayub Khan is a rational man, not given to fits of pique, observers could only attribute the odd step to the arcane maneuvering of that powerful pack of officials that has risen around Ayub seeking a new direction for Pakistan. That direction is due East--toward Peking. The group, which occupies many of the most important posts in the civil service and reaches into the Cabinet itself, is determined to keep the war going in India, and sees closer ties with neighboring Red China as a solution to Pakistan's foreign policy problems.

Most vocal among the pro-Peking hawks: Foreign Minister Bhutto and Information Chief Altag Gauhar, both hot nationalists who were happy to get the vast outpouring of U.S. aid in the 1950s but who now make no secret of their anti-American attitudes. Bhutto, an intimate friend of Indonesia's slick, pro-Peking Foreign Minister Subandrio, loses no opportunity to sneer at the U.S. effort in Viet Nam. Gauhar takes a similar tack, and has the means to propagate it: direct orders go out daily from his office to the Pakistan press, spelling out how stories--and headlines--should be played, guiding editors on the proper emphasis to be given government announcements.

Ayub gave the hawks their chance in 1962 when he permitted the first genial gestures to Red China as a tactic intended to alarm Washington and halt the big U.S. military aid program for India that began during the trouble on India's Himalayan border. When U.S. diplomats protested, Ayub always maintained that his chaps were taking things a bit far and he did not really approve of their extreme policies. Since then, the chaps seem to have been able to develop a momentum for their policies --backed by an upsurge of national pride and jingoism as a result of the Kashmir struggle--that leads many foreign experts to wonder just how much freedom of action Ayub has left.

Earnest Apology. The well-coordinated mobs that stormed the Karachi embassy and other official U.S. installations in Lahore and Dacca in protest at the halt in American arms shipments last month clearly had government approval--though apparently not Ayub's.

When he earnestly apologized to U.S. Ambassador Walter McConaughy, Gauhar saw to it that the apology was not mentioned in the Pakistani press. Shortly after, when Ayub telephoned President Johnson to smooth relations with Washington and advise the White House of the imminent ceasefire, the unhappy hawks swapped facts in the press handouts: the announcement made it sound as if L.B.J. had humbly phoned Ayub, instead of vice versa.

Parallel to all this has been a steady drumfire of anti-Americanism in the government-controlled papers. Karachi's daily Dawn suggested that Ambassador McConaughy had advance knowledge of an Indian, plan "to invade Pakistan" since "the ambassador's wife and son left Pakistan two days before the attack." In fact, McConaughy has no son, and his wife was in Karachi when the fighting began. A reporter's phone call could have quickly ascertained what really happened: the McConaughys' daughter had left town--to attend school in Europe.

Never So Poor. Bhutto's people in the Foreign Ministry seem to be sponsoring a pinprick campaign to pester Americans. U.S. embassy mail has been held up repeatedly, and during last month's warfare embassy chauffeurs fetching officials from their homes late at night were frequently arrested and manhandled--which could only happen with the concurrence of the government.

Social contacts between American and Pakistani officials have all but ceased. "The climate is bad for it," one shamefaced Pakistani told a former American friend. In fact, U.S.-Pakistan relations have never been so poor at any time in the nation's 18-year history. Unless by some miracle a solution is found to satisfy Pakistan on the Kashmir problem, relations are hardly likely to improve. Ayub has told the U.N. to produce a satisfactory solution within three to five months--or else. Whether the hawks around him will give him even that much time is open to question. "Things are going to get a great deal worse," says one glum Washington observer. "I won't even add 'before they get better,' because I don't know if they will."

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