361. Memorandum From the Under Secretary of State for Mutual Security Coordination’s Special Assistant (Bell) to the Acting Secretary of State1
SUBJECT
- Recommendations of Interagency Working Group on Future U.S. Military Assistance to Pakistan2
Mr. Rountree’s memorandum of July 2, to which this memorandum is attached, setting forth the recommendations of the interagency working group on future U.S. military assistance to Pakistan is a thoughtful and a useful memorandum which warrants your close attention and consideration.
While I personally believe the recommendations which you are asked to approve to be rational and necessary ones, there are two considerations which I think you should take into account in this connection.
The first of these is fiscal. Our review and analysis of this report and of the Country Team’s reports regarding the future military assistance programs strongly suggest that the policy recommendations contained in the working group report are likely to require larger outlays of aid funds in the future than simply the maintenance of the going level. The military program, according to the Country Team, envisages a steady increase in Pak defense expenditures which may amount to as much as $10 million a year over the next several years. Given the stringency of appropriations, and the fact that our defense support program for Pakistan has been kept to a minimum level consistent with the prevention of retrogression, any increase in defense expenditures will be matched by demands for additional defense support assistance.
The attitude of Congress toward defense support appropriations in general, and toward Pakistan in particular, at this time, makes it unrealistic to envisage being able to meet increased defense support requirements for Pakistan which may flow from the policy of the recommendations, without also envisaging a resort to contingency [Page 745] funds. Thus, in approving the recommendations of Mr. Rountree you should understand that there is a strong implication of being willing to respond to the inevitable results of that policy.
I am not saying the foregoing suggests that the policy recommendations are wrong or that they do not deserve approval. I think, in fact, that this policy is a less expensive one than the continuation of the past policy, or the continuation of the policy vacuum.
The second consideration which warrants attention is the question of the extent to which military assistance to Pakistan is based on a military justification. It seems clear to me that there is a political justification and basis for military aid to Pakistan and that fact may make the pursuit of the question somewhat academic. The exchanges with Defense which took place during the course of the working group study indicate a willingness on the part of Defense to assert a military basis; perhaps it is irrelevant and irreverent to express a strong doubt as to the validity of this argument. Some of my staff feel it would be worthwhile to require a more explicit consideration of this point by the working group. I am persuaded this would not be a profitable expenditure of staff time. Nevertheless, if and when the political basis for maintaining present force levels ceases to exist, we will have to face the question. The degree to which the Defense people have now adopted the Pak military program as “military”, bearing in mind its clear political origin, does suggest that the longer the issue is postponed, the more difficult it may be to get an objective judgment. You may therefore feel it worthwhile to have the issue pursued now.
In balance, my recommendation is that you approve the paper.
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, 790D.5–MSP/7–2159. Secret.↩
- The Report of the Interagency Working Group on Pakistan, which is attached to this memorandum, is not printed; for its recommendations, see the attachment to Document 359.↩