Office of the Historian

780.5/1–2753

No. 116
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern, South Asian, and African Affairs (Byroade)

secret
[Washington,] January 27, 1953.

Subject:

  • Pakistan and MEDO.

Participants:

  • Mr. Henry A. Byroade, Assistant Secretary
  • His Excellency Sir Zafrulla Khan, Pakistan Foreign Minister
  • Mr. Donald D. Kennedy, SOA

Sir Zafrulla said that as both he and I knew no approach had been made to Pakistan as to its association in MEDO. He had worried considerably about internal reaction in Pakistan on this when and if the approach were made and believed that considerable education would be necessary to bring the country around to acceptance of the idea. The recent unfavorable publicity in India, however, had been producing the reaction in his country of “What business is it of India’s?”. It seemed that the educational process was already underway.

Sir Zafrulla then said that he would be returning to Karachi following the Geneva talks on Kashmir1 and that the Prime Minister would want to know something on this subject. We knew Pakistan’s shortcomings and capabilities. What would be Pakistan’s obligations?

I said that no progress had been made in the MEDO proposal during the last few months. Egypt posed a difficult problem and there was really nothing we could talk about now. We expected, in any case, that the UK would take the lead at the appropriate time. Sir Zafrulla said he understood but wanted me to know that when the subject came up the US should be “in it” or else any proposal would be received rather coolly.

I added that the many problems involved in getting MEDO underway made for such complexity that it might well happen that we could not come out with the complete organization at one time. This led me to ask him entirely on a personal basis and without any preconception on my part which would be better from Pakistan’s viewpoint: Should the attempt be made to bring Pakistan along with all other countries? Or should we wait until the organization had been established and its outlines and purposes become clearer to the rest of the world, including India? Sir Zafrulla said [Page 345] he could only express a personal view but he thought his government would prefer the matter to rest until we were completely ready to discuss it bilaterally and if this meant waiting until some later stage, he thought this would be agreeable to Pakistan.

  1. For documentation on this topic, see vol. XI, Part 2, pp. 1162 ff.↩