128. Telegram From the Embassy in India to the Department of State1
2622. Subject: (C) Conversation With P.M. Desai.
1. (C–Entire text)
2. Summary: When I called on PM Desai on the safeguards committee problem (septel),2 he led me into an extended conversation during the course of which he expressed dismay of U.S. approval of French reactor sale to PRC and the big fuss made in USA over Deng; concern about Bhutto’s fate,3 possible Pakistan disintegration, and the worsening state of Pakistan-Afghanistan relations; and an interest in Bangladesh’s elections.4
3. On China: PM first asked how we could threaten nuclear fuel supply to India when we approved French sale of reactors to PRC. (This let me convey to him directly for the first time how long we had worked to discourage the sale, had managed to get peaceful uses assurances built into the transaction, and the fact that there was a less inhibited competitive bidder.) He expressed doubt that one could rely on PRC assurances. He also thought it was a mistake for the Americans to make such a big thing of Deng’s U.S. visit and to give him the platform for the sorts of attacks he made there on the Soviet Union. But he also said China had “gotten somewhat better after Mao”, and he agreed that it was good that China is opening up to normal contacts with other countries at last.
4. On Pakistan: The PM asked what I thought Zia would do with Bhutto. When I said that my reading of such information as I had led me to think Bhutto would be hanged, he said he thought so too. He went on to say first that if the Pak Army supported Zia in this, there would only be trouble in Sind, but later he spoke about his concern that Pakistan might disintegrate. He said he had written Zia urging clemency (not public knowledge here) and hoped we would continue to do what we can to persuade Zia. He then expressed worry over deteriorating Afghan-Pak relations. When I said they had seemed to me somewhat less bad than previously, he said he had information that Pakistan was harboring and assisting many Afghan dissidents. [Page 352] Indo-Pak relations, he said, are plagued by the fact that Pakistanis have been trained for 30 years to hate India; Zia himself had said that to him when they met at Nairobi.5 Zia had also told him not be troubled if he sometimes publicly voiced Pakistan’s claim to Kashmir; he had to do it for internal reason. In the PM’s view, Zia remains basically straightforward and well-meaning. He expressed puzzlement, however, at Zia’s having forbidden Gafar Khan to come to India for medical treatment as he had wished to. India, the PM said, was not particularly eager to receive Gafar Khan, but he should have been able to come here if he wanted to.6
5. On Bangladesh: The PM expressed the view that the impending elections are a step in the right direction. Then he volunteered the fact that the opposition had approached the GOI for financial support. He rejected he said, any such interference in the internal affairs of another country.
- Source: National Archives, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy File, D790073–0310. Confidential. Sent for information to Islamabad, Dacca, Kabul, and Beijing.↩
- See Document 127.↩
- See Document 309.↩
- See Document 40.↩
- See footnote 7, Document 112.↩
- A Pashtun political and spiritual leader and a close friend of Mahatma Gandhi, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan was jailed by Bhutto and remained a political dissident under Zia.↩