To the Editor:

If India is indeed groaning, under the weight of 9,500,000 Pakistani refugees; if India does indeed wish those refugees repatriated; if indeed Pakis tan refuses to allow their repatriation; if indeed India is not violating the U.N. Charter by supplying arms and sanctuary to the Pakistani revolutionaries and by training those revolutionaries in India and by infiltrating its own troops into Pakistan and by at tacking Pakistani installations from India; and if indeed India is trying to avoid a war being forced on it by Pakistan; then:

¶Why has India refused a U.N. offer, accepted by Pakistan, of a neutral body on both sides of the border to supervise refugee repatriation?

¶Why has India refused an offer by U.N. Secretary General Thant to mediate the crisis—an offer accepted by Pakistan?

¶Why has India rejected President Yahya Khan's proposal that forces be withdrawn from both sides of the India‐Pakistan border?

The Times of Oct. 20 quoted the Indian Defense Minister, Jagivan Ram as saying: “India will not submit to world pressure in this regard.” It also states that Prime Minister Indira Gandhi “ruled out any peace talks be tween India and Pakistan.”

There is indeed a dreadful danger of war on the Asian Subcontinent— a war between the second and fifth largest countries in the world—a war which could become a world conflagration because of the recently executed mutual defense treaty between India and Russia and because of our long‐standing bilateral agreement with Pakistan which commits us to come to her aid, even with our own arms and men, if she should be attacked by any other country.

It such a conflagration is to be avoided, the facts must be clearly understood, India's intransigence must be recognized and world opinion must force her to abide by the U.N. Charter, to agree to President Yahya's proposal of troop withdrawal and to accept U.N. intervention both with respect to refugee repatriation and mediation.

Benjamin H. Oehlert Jr.
U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan, 1967-69
Palm Beach, FL., Oct 26, 1971