182. Memorandum From Robert Komer of the National Security Council Staff to President Johnson 1
Pak/Indian SitRep. While the Pak Army thrust toward the only key road into Kashmir was halted temporarily, they seem to be resuming their drive. Meanwhile both nations are in effect mobilizing. Another issue is whether the Indians will retaliate or try the UN cease-fire route.
Bowles is doing a bang-up job of pleading restraint with the Indians. He’s telling them that war would set back both countries for a generation. The Indian reply to the SYG’s cease-fire appeal is fuzzy and argumentative, but it does seem largely responsive to the SYG so long as the withdrawal includes the Pak infiltrators who started the affair.
Meanwhile the Indians are raising a public storm over Pakistan’s “US-supplied” tanks and planes. This is inevitable, and will build up quite a head of steam. We’ll get insistent queries in the SC on it.
As for the Paks, they seem hell bent on forcing a Kashmir negotiation—whatever the cost. They see themselves as compelled to this desperate gamble by their inability to get any negotiated settlement over the last 17 years. Thus the odds are that the Paks won’t accept the cease-fire appeal unless it includes a new Kashmir negotiation. It is essentially an exercise in brinkmanship. All this seems clear from Bhutto’s hortatory speech saying this is hour of reckoning, and in effect rejecting the 1949 CFL which the UN and the rest of us are frantically attempting to restore.
State may propose you send a friendly reply to Ayub’s letter,2 for delivery by McConaughy when he sees Ayub Monday.3 It would urge [Page 355] compliance with the SYG’s appeal. This makes sense, but the real issue is whether McConaughy should also take a vigorous stand on use of our MAP equipment and US/Pak relations, or should simply listen.
The State experts now fear that a vigorous stand might drive the Paks to even more desperate action. I wouldn’t underestimate these risks; there’s a good case for playing it cautiously at a time when passions are running so high. But my own sense is that one reason the Paks are causing such trouble is that they don’t yet realize what thin ice they’re on with us. Thus sobering words from McConaughy and then the British (who see Ayub Tuesday) would serve more as a restraint than as a goad. So my instinct would be for McConaughy to hit Ayub at least on US/Pak relations, as an indirect means of sobering him on Kashmir. But playing it cautiously at a moment of high tension may be the safer course.
- Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Country File, Pakistan, Vol. IV, 8/65–9/65. Secret.↩
- Ayub sent a letter to Johnson on September 2 providing a detailed justification for Pakistan’s involvement in the Kashmir dispute. The text of the letter, as conveyed by Ambassador Ahmed to Secretary Rusk on September 2, is in National Archives and Records Administration, RG 59, Presidential Correspondence: Lot 66 D 476, Lebanon through Pakistan.↩
- September 6.↩