Office of the Historian

136. Memorandum of a Conversation, New York, September 21, 1959, 4 p.m.1

Sec Del/MC/34
New York, September 21, 1959, 4 p.m.

PARTICIPANTS

  • The Secretary
  • Assistant Secretary Jones
  • R. W. Adams, NEA
  • Manzur Qadir, Foreign Minister of Pakistan
  • Prince Aly Khan, Permanent Mission of Pakistan, United Nations
  • Aziz Ahmed, Ambassador of Pakistan to the United States

SUBJECT

  • Soviet Penetration of Afghanistan

Having discussed the need for a strong Iran in CENTO (reported in a separate memorandum of conversation),2 Foreign Minister Qadir then turned to Afghanistan. He said that Soviet penetration of that country had become so great that Pakistan was seriously worried. He itemized the principal Soviet projects in Afghanistan, stressing the airfields and “military roads”, particularly the most recent highway from the Soviet frontier to Qandahar. Although Afghanistan professes to be non-aligned, Mr. Qadir thought it had gone so far in relying on the Soviet Union that it posed a potential threat to Pakistan. He said it would be most useful if American officials talked to Foreign Minister Naim during his forthcoming visit to the United States about the danger of “playing with the Russian bear”.

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The Secretary said that Prime Minister Daud, on his visit to the United States last year, had been friendly and had seemed to believe he could cope with the problem of dealing with the Soviet Union and maintaining a policy of non-alignment. Mr. Jones commented that, while Afghanistan’s reliance on the U.S.S.R. had increased, as had trade with the Soviet Union, there were other factors which gave hope that Afghanistan could remain non-aligned. For example, Afghanistan continued to look to the United States for assistance in the important field of education.

The Secretary said that the United States had faced many difficulties in developing an effective aid program in Afghanistan, and that the record of achievement in such programs in that country was not one of which the United States was particularly proud. These difficulties had been largely contractual in nature, getting the right people and equipment out to Afghanistan. The United States hoped to do better in its aid projects in Afghanistan in the future, and it was believed it was not too late for constructive programs there which would make Afghanistan less dependent on the Soviet Union. It was particularly important, the Secretary said, to give Afghanistan facilities for trade through Pakistan so that its growing volume of trade with the U.S.S.R. could be reduced.

Mr. Qadir agreed and said Pakistan was ready to cooperate in any way it could to achieve this end. He added that the real difficulty was Afghanistan’s continued propaganda concerning “Pushtunistan”, where it demanded a plebiscite to carve an independent country out of what was already Pakistani soil. The Afghans distort truth by comparing the “Pushtunistan” issue with the Kashmir problem, perhaps encouraged by the Indians to do so, although there is in fact, according to Mr. Qadir, no similarity between these two questions.

  1. Source: Department of State, Secretary’s Memoranda of Conversation: Lot 64 D 199. Limited Official Use. Drafted by Adams. The source text indicates that the conversation took place at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. Secretary Herter and Foreign Minister Qadir were in New York for the Fourteenth Session of the U.N. General Assembly, which opened on September 17.↩
  2. Scheduled for publication in volume XII.↩