Magnificent Delusions (15 page)

Six prime ministers had held office within the country's first decade, with one more to come within weeks of Langley's missive to Washington about the “Pakistan problem.” Although Mirza and Ayub had been the continuity figures in frequent cabinet reshuffles, eventually even they fell out with one another. Within two years of
its adoption Mirza abrogated the Constitution and then imposed martial law in 1958.

Ambassador Langley seemed to read the signs for Pakistan's perilous path ahead within months of his arrival. He proposed that the United States should give greater weight “to developing Pakistan as a strong viable ally” instead of concentrating on building up its military in the hope of using it against the communist bloc. “In Pakistan,” he remarked, “We have an unruly horse by the tail and are confronted by the dilemma of trying to tame it before we can let go safely.” Langley realized that the “horse we assumed to be so friendly has actually grown wilder of late” and that America's enticements had not been enough to persuade Pakistani leaders to alter their course.

In a candid letter to the State Department, the US ambassador posited the question: “I wonder if we have not collectively developed certain generalizations about Pakistan and then proceeded to accept them as gospel truth without sufficient periodic scrutiny?” He cited the oft-repeated statements about Pakistan, “that Pakistan constitutes a cornerstone of U.S. policy in this part of the world, that Pakistan is the anchor of the Baghdad Pact, and of SEATO, that the Paks are strong, direct, friendly and virile, and that Pakistan constitutes a bulwark of strength in the area.” He expressed concern that the positive aspects of the US-Pakistan relationship would be wiped out because of “deterioration in many aspects of Pakistani life.”

Many of the issues Langley raised in 1957 have resurfaced with alarming regularity over subsequent years. He spoke of the “increasing level of unproductive expenses (military and government operating costs) and a decline in the productive part of the budget” that erased the gains resulting from foreign assistance. “Unfortunately,” Langley wrote in a particularly prescient paragraph, “I fear that our past generosity in helping out our friends has too often permitted them to avoid grasping the nettle and facing their problems with the required spirit of urgency and determination.” He described as “wishful thinking” the view that Pakistanis were pro–United States and pro-Western.

Langley's conclusion was that Pakistan's military establishment needed to be “appreciably trimmed.” Military expenses were such a drain on the economy that US aid served only “to maintain precarious living standards.” The man in the street could not be expected to appreciate benefits of aid because he could not always feel them, he argued. In any case, the US military program in Pakistan was “based on a hoax,” according to the ambassador. “The hoax” was that it was related to the Soviet threat.

In Langley's assessment Pakistan's forces were “unnecessarily large for dealing with any Afghan threat over Pashtunistan.” Furthermore, Pakistan's concentration of forces along the Indian border made it impossible for Pakistan to provide any troops for American use in the Middle East. “Pakistan would be of little use to us should perchance worse come to worst and India go communist,” he elaborated, adding that “even though India is undoubtedly less vulnerable to events in Pakistan, the larger country would hardly profit from a complete breakdown of the embryonic structure of political democracy in Pakistan.”

“One of the most disturbing attitudes I have encountered in the highest political places here,” Langley concluded, “is that the United States
must
keep up and increase its aid to Pakistan, and conversely, that Pakistan is doing the United States a favor in accepting aid, in addition to the Pakistani pro-Western posture in the Baghdad Pact and SEATO and the United Nations, when actually these postures are in part dictated by Pakistani hatred for India.” Langley did not expect gratitude could be bought in Pakistan any more than anywhere else, “but I do believe that the U.S. is entitled to a reasonable degree of respect,” he asserted.
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In hindsight, it appears that the former owner-editor of a small town New Hampshire newspaper had understood the emerging trends in US-Pakistan relations rather well. But neither his insights nor the questions the president, among others, raised immediately altered the course of American policy. Radford's favorable personal disposition toward Ayub ensured the Pentagon's support for continuing military assistance. Instead of asking for naval and air bases, the United States now settled on seeking an NSA listening post to be
located in Pakistan's northwest. In January 1958 Ambassador Langley was asked to discuss with Pakistani leaders the details of the proposal. The negotiations resulted in a ten-year lease, beginning in summer of 1959, for the United States Air Force to set up a “communications facility” at Badaber, ten miles from Peshawar, near the Afghan border.
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The air force communications station provided cover for an NSA-run major intercept operation. The Central Asian Republics of the Soviet Union were not far from Peshawar, which was also the headquarters of Pakistan's air force at the time. The United States expected to monitor signals from Soviet missile test sites in addition to intercepting other communications from Soviet Central Asia. The Badaber facility was manned by Americans, who also had access to the air force base at Peshawar for U-2 spy plane flights, but its existence was kept secret from the Pakistani public.

The Badaber facility drew attention within months of becoming operational. The Soviets shot down one of the U-2s operating from Peshawar inside their territory and captured its pilot, Francis Gary Powers, who had bailed out after his plane was hit. The incident on May 1, 1960, resulted in the collapse of the four-power Paris Peace Conference a fortnight later. Khrushchev announced that he knew the espionage mission had originated in Pakistan. After the CIA station chief in London, where Ayub was at the time, informed him of the incident, Ayub shrugged it off, saying he had expected something like this while agreeing to the grant of basing rights.
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Ayub did not see the base as a provocation for the Soviets and did not calculate the potential risk of Soviets drawing closer to India or Afghanistan as a result. The fact that the base's existence had angered the Soviet Union could only enhance Pakistan's leverage with the United States. Pakistan could now ask for even more aid on the grounds of potential Soviet retaliation. If the Americans responded unfavorably to Pakistani requests, the termination clause of the lease agreement could be invoked for effect.

The other countries that served as the launching point of the U-2 aircraft were all important US allies. Pakistan had now joined a relatively exclusive club comprising Turkey, Norway, Japan, and West
Germany. Pakistan's military leaders saw this as a good opening for enhanced military and intelligence ties; Ayub and others around him saw it as a major attainment. Around the same time that the lease for the Badaber communications facility was signed, Pakistan also put in a request to replace its one hundred F-86 aircraft with the more sophisticated F-104 supersonic Starfighter planes for its air force at no cost to Pakistan.
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The Badaber listening post would, for the time being, silence those within the Eisenhower administration who were asking, “What is the US getting from aiding Pakistan?” It would have the additional advantage of forging closer ties between Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency and the American intelligence community. Pakistan had finally become useful for the United States and, thus, could ask for more weapons to deal with the threat its leaders saw from India.

Making the case for Pakistan's strategic benefits as a US ally had proved difficult. For every American persuaded of Pakistan's value as a partner, there were several who questioned the alliance's benefits. Once Americans started receiving intelligence through a location in Pakistan, the CIA could be trusted to argue that the country was significant for US national security.

Bureaucrats often think only in terms of their immediate needs and requirements, and tactical issues always trump strategic vision. The Badaber listening post and U-2 staging site enabled Pakistan to offer the Americans something in the realm of tactical advantage. Big-picture arguments such as those that Lippmann, Morgenthau, or Langley made were now going to be lost for some time.

I
N DECEMBER
1959 Eisenhower traveled to Pakistan, Afghanistan, and India for the first-ever visit to the subcontinent by a serving American president.
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All three countries received him enthusiastically. Eisenhower wrote in his memoirs that India was the magnet that drew him to the region. After all, following an initial flirtation, India's ties with China had somewhat deteriorated, and nonalignment
notwithstanding, India had worked with the Americans to support the Tibetan revolt led by the Dalai Lama's supporters. Eisenhower sought to build bridges between India and Pakistan in the hope that both would become America's partners in containing communism.

Upon Eisenhower's arrival in Karachi, Ayub and his administration spared no effort in trying to convince him that Pakistan was America's dependable ally. The hospitality was impeccable. The city was decorated with bunting and illuminated at night to mark the US president's visit. A musical fountain was built near the president's house where he was to stay. As 750,000 flag-waving Pakistanis lined the streets, Ayub and the US president drove fifteen miles from the airport into downtown Karachi. For the final mile, they rode in an open, horse-drawn carriage to Ayub's official residence, with a cheering crowd surrounding them the entire way.
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The American president could not help but be charmed.

During his discussions with Ayub Eisenhower tried to persuade the Pakistanis to rationalize their military buildup. After Eisenhower's reelection he had told the NSC that a skillful negotiator was needed to do just that. But in long discussions with Ayub he discovered how difficult that negotiation could be. In Delhi Nehru had explained away the India-Pakistan hostility as a result of Pakistan's lack of stable roots; Ayub spoke of it in terms of inherent Indian animosity toward Pakistan. For Ayub, the only acceptable way forward was American intervention on Pakistan's side in redressing the injustice over Kashmir at the time of partition.

Eisenhower inquired about possible solutions of the Kashmir dispute. If India and Pakistan could come to an agreement on the waters dispute, protecting Pakistan's vital interest in the matter of irrigation, why not withdraw troops on both sides in Kashmir, “putting aside the question of who had political control of Kashmir” for the moment? Ayub replied by trying to play on America's concern over China. China claimed parts of Kashmir, Ayub explained, and if forces were withdrawn altogether, it was “almost certain that the Chinese would simply move in and take over. Other points of Kashmir would fall to the communists.”
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Kashmir could neither be demilitarized nor made independent, according to Ayub.

The visiting president then asked if there could be “permanent division of Kashmir generally along the present armistice lines.” Ayub responded that this would not be possible. Among other reasons, he said, it would mean that India would be within fifteen miles of Pakistan's vital communications system. Eisenhower also tried to ascertain the validity of Pakistan's claim that Kashmir had to be part of its territory in order to ensure the supply of rivers flowing into Pakistan from Kashmir.

Eisenhower wondered whether it was necessary for Pakistan physically to possess the land from which the waters of the rivers originated. After all, he pointed out, several countries, including the United States and Canada, had arrangements for the assured flow of waters. But Ayub refused to accept that what applied to other nations could apply to India and Pakistan. The problem here, Ayub explained, was “the lack of confidence” because “India had taken away rivers that should belong to Pakistan and upon which Pakistan's life depended.” Eisenhower did not press his point. He could have pointed out that only one out of the six major rivers flowing into Pakistan as part of the Indus system actually originated in Kashmir.

Ayub then proceeded to make his case with emotional bromides: “Pakistan should not be exposed to unnecessary dangers; if it should go down, American influence in all of Asia would diminish or disappear,” and “Pakistan was a strong bulwark against communism; that was in fact the reason why it was the victim of the most vicious communist and neutralist propaganda.”
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Eisenhower could say little but to acknowledge that the United States had sturdy allies in Pakistan and Turkey.