The resignation of fourteen diplomats of Bengali origin from the Pakistani embassy in Washington and the United Nations mission here offers further evidence of the depth and bitterness of the division between the two Pakistans, East and West. The responsible positions the defectors have held in the Pakistani Government—they include the economic counselor of the embassy and the number two man in the U.N. mission—refute the charge of Pakistani President Yahya Khan that the Bengali uprising is merely the work of “mischief mongers, saboteurs and, infiltrators.” It also casts doubt on his claim that the resistance has been “crushed.”

Despite such evidence that Bengali resistance is deep rooted and spreading, President Nixon insists that the United States should continue economic assistance West Pakistan in order to preserve President Yahya's “ability to create some stability” in the East.

But Islamabad's current policies cannot bring stability to East Bengal. In trying to impose law and order by force of arms—mostly American arms—instead of through political accommodation, the military regime is merely fueling the fires of Bengali rebellion. Brutal repressive measures have driven millions of East Pakistanis into exile in India where their presence is generating economic, social and political problems of unprecedented magnitude.

It may be that a cut‐off in American assistance, on which Pakistan is heavily dependent, would not persuade President Yahya to change his tactics. But the Administration's continuing support for the Pakistani Government has not served to moderate Islamabad's policies either Rather it has put the United States in the position subsidizing, and thus seeming to condone, crimes against humanity unequaled since Hitler's time.

America's self‐respect as well as its interest in genuine stability on the subcontinent call for the immediate suspension of aid to Pakistan—except for emergency relief to the starving—as required in the foreign aid bill passed by the House this week. There is no need to wait for the Senate's return from recess next month before ending this unconscionable support for repression.