Ali Bhutto Begins to Pick Up the Pieces

ANGER over its humiliating defeat by India boiled into street demonstrations throughout Pakistan, rumors of an impending coup d'etat by younger army officers against the government of President Mohammed Agha Yahya Khan swept the country. As expected, Yahya last week became the highest-ranking casualty of the war: to forestall further unrest, he hastily surrendered his powers to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, 43, the ambitious leader of West Pakistan's powerful People's Party. Bhutto, the first civilian to lead his country in 13 years, launched his presidency with a move calculated to appease the wounded feelings of his nation: he sacked the entire top echelon of the army, denounced them as "feudal lords," and pledged that he would lead Pakistan to democracy--although not. perhaps, right away.

The change of power came none too soon, for Yahya had found himself the principal target of a terrible national fury. In Peshawar, an angry mob burned him in effigy and set aflame a house they thought he owned. Outside President's House in Rawalpindi, a band of sobbing wives and sisters of captured Pakistani soldiers threw down their gold and silver bangles in a bitter symbolic gesture: Yahya had taken their men, so now he could have their jewelry, too.

Game of Drunkards. The former air force commander in chief, General Mohammed Asghar Khan, demanded a public trial for Yahya, adding, "If someone had asked how to destroy Pakistan, there could not have been a more perfect way." A veteran army officer, with tears in his eyes, told TIME Correspondent Louis Kraar: "How can men have confidence in Yahya Khan when he is such a drinker and womanizer? We are being punished by God for departing from the ways of Islam." Pakistanis who had proudly listened to the steady din of a patriotic song on the radio (War Is Not a Game That Woman Can Play) choked with anger when India's radio blared forth a bitter but pointed parody, War Is Not a Game That Drunkards Can Play.

Yahya got the message. When Bhutto returned from a trip to the United Nations, he was immediately invited to President's House. Bhutto later recounted that at the two-hour meeting, he told Yahya: "You have been committing one blunder after another. But even now, if you don't listen to me, I will go into the background and keep quiet." Yahya replied: "I want to swear you in."

Heart to Heart. Moments after he took the oath of office, Bhutto accepted the retirement offers of seven generals, including Yahya himself. (Seven more were fired later in the week, as well as six top navy officers.) He appointed a new acting army commander, Lieut. General Gul Hasan, and assured younger officers that despite the defeat, they had nothing to be ashamed of: "You are the victims of a system."

That evening Bhutto delivered a 57-minute address on the national radio network that he described as "a heart-to-heart talk" to his people. "I am speaking to you today as the authentic voice of the people of Pakistan," he declared, conveniently omitting the fact that the Awami League, the party headed by the East Pakistani political leader, Sheik Mujibur Rahman, had won more seats than Bhutto's party in the national elections last March.

Trump Card. On the one hand, Bhutto insisted that East Pakistan remains "an inseparable and indissoluble part of Pakistan" and demanded an end to the Indian occupation in the East. But then, in a notably conciliatory appeal to the East Bengalis, he asked them "not to forget us, but to forgive us if they are angry with us. Yes, mistakes have been made, but that does not mean that a country should be dismembered." Indeed, he added that he would settle for "a very loose arrangement within the framework of one Pakistan."

In any future negotiations with the new government of Bangladesh (see following story), Bhutto has a strong trump card: "Mujib" Rahman has been imprisoned in West Pakistan since last March. Bhutto may well use Mujib's release as the price for getting back the 60,000 Pakistani soldiers who are held captive by the Indian army in Bangladesh. Last week Bhutto ordered Mujib moved from a prison to house arrest in a more comfortable bungalow, and said that he was ready to begin talks with Mujib shortly.

Tea Parties. In his address to the people, Bhutto also denounced government nepotism and laziness. "As I work night and day, I will expect the bureaucracy to work night and day. These tea parties must come to an end." He promised better conditions for workers, land reform for peasants and an end to the practice of flogging prisoners. Two days later, he impounded the passports of all members of Pakistan's "22 families," the wealthy aristocrats who--until the secession of East Pakistan--controlled two-thirds of the country's industrial assets and 80% of its banking and insurance businesses, and declared that he would break their stranglehold on the nation's economy. Bhutto also announced that he would hold the portfolios of defense, foreign affairs, interior and interprovincial affairs himself.

The inaugural speech was the supreme moment in the career of a cunning and able politician who seems to inspire either unqualified adulation or fierce contempt. The scion of a wealthy landowning family and a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley and Oxford University, Bhutto in recent years has become a convinced socialist who has vowed to turn his country into a "people's democracy." As Pakistan's Foreign Minister from 1963 to 1966 under Yahya's predecessor, Mohammed Ayub Khan, Bhutto was the chief architect of his country's friendly policy toward China. He resigned after a series of differences with Ayub, and in 1968-69 spent three months in jail on political charges.

Rule by Rhetoric. Some diplomats in Pakistan consider Bhutto a potential Nasser--a populist demagogue who will rule by rhetoric and charisma. "We have to pick up the pieces, the very small pieces," Bhutto said last week, clearly welcoming the opportunity to do so. If he cannot, he too might well end up a scapegoat for the failures of Yahya and the army in politics and on the battlefield. As a first step, Bhutto must convince his countrymen that any real chance of salvaging Mohammed Ali Jinnah's dream of a united Pakistan is about as realistic as the CRUSH INDIA stickers that can still be seen on car windows in Rawalpindi and Lahore.

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