WASHINGTON, Dec. 6—Continuing to brand India as the “main aggressor” in the war with Pakistan, the United States suspended a large part of its economic aid to New Delhi today.

The State Department, reflecting the Nixon Administration's anger at Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's Government, announced that it was cutting off $87.6‐million in development loans.

Charles W. Bray 3d, the department spokesman, said, “The United States is not making short‐term contribution to the Indian economy to make it easier for the Indian Government to sustain its military efforts.”

The mood within the Administration was clearly cold, consistent with a statement issued Saturday by a high State Department official who said that India had systematically sought to worsen the crisis in East Pakistan and, therefore, “bears the major responsibility for the broader hostilities that have ensued.”

Officially, the United States remains neutral, to the extent that it has imposed a halt on all military shipments to both India and Pakistan. But privately and publicly, India is being called the aggressor.

George Bush, the United States delegate to the United Nations, said at the Security Council deliberations over the weekend that India was the main aggressor. And this morning, in an interview over the Columbia Broadcasting System, Mr. Bush said, referring to India: “There's quite clear aggression. It's obviously quite clear.”

Asked if Mr. Bush's remarks represented the views of the Administration, Mr. Bray said they did.

President Nixon's views on the matter were conveyed later today by his Press Secretary, Ronald L. Ziegler. Following a meeting between the President and Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau of Canada, at which the war was discussed at length, Mr. Ziegler said that the President had reiterated several times the United States view that the Indian action goes “against the international trend” of trying to settle differences peacefully rather than through “recourse to military action.”

Diplomats Are Surprised

The tone of the Administration's comments over the last three days came as something of a surprise to many diplomats here. They had expected the United States to adopt a “neutral” stance, similar to that of 1965, when Pakistan and India clashed over Kashmir.

When asked why the Administration had chosen to express its pique at India on Saturday, the same day it was taking the crisis to the Security Council, officials tended to ascribe the response to the personal feelings of the President.

They said that Mr. Nixon was determined to pin responsibility on India for the war. State Department officials said this followed Mrs. Gandhi's “total lack of responsiveness” to repeated American efforts in recent weeks toward achieving a diplomatic solution to the long‐simmering crisis.

The officials said the move in the United Nations was a desperate effort, made after diplomacy had failed because of India's intransigence.

These officials did not seek to deny that the efforts of Pakistan's President, Gen. Agha Mohammad Yahya Khan, to crush the separatist movement in East Pakistan had precipitated the crisis. But the argument being used to justify the anti‐Indian attitude of recent days was that India had expanded into an all‐out war, what was essentially an internal Pakistani matter.

Specifically, Mr. Bray said that India had rejected a concerted American effort to reduce tensions along the borders with Pakistan. Officials said that when Mrs. Gandhi was here early last month, Mr. Nixon told her that the Pakistanis were willing to withdraw their troops from the border areas, but she refused to make any commitment on behalf of India.

2 Vetoes in Council

Two weeks ago, the Indians rejected a personal appeal by President Nixon to avoid hostilities, ‘as they did a strong restatement of this by Secretary of State William P. Rogers to the Indian Embassy last week. Pakistan, officials said, was more “forthcoming.”

Mr. Nixon, who has been in active contact with Mr. Rogers and Henry A. Kissinger, his adviser on national security, had made his views known to officials over the weekend. He insisted that the United States oppose any Security Council resolution that did not include a cease‐fire and a troop withdrawal.

Because of the Soviet Union's vetoes of two cease‐fire resolutions, the Administration has just about given up on the Security Council as a forum in which to achieve any reduction of hostilities.

The State Department, quoting official Indian statements about the intervention, said there could be no question that India was responsible for the actual fighting in East Pakistan. Although there was acknowledgment of Pakistan's role in the crisis, officials tended to give less prominence to that aspect.

This attitude toward Pakistan was underscored this morning when Mr. Nixon received the new Pakistani Ambassador, Nawabzada Agha Mohammad Raza, who presented his credentials at the White House.

In remarks made public later, Mr. Nixon said:

“We have followed with sympathetic interest the efforts of the Government and people of Pakistan to achieve an amicable political settlement in East Pakistan. We have also welcomed the efforts of President Yahya to move to reduce tensions in the subcontinent.”

The Ambassador praised Mr. Nixon's “unflinching support and understanding or our problems.”

Mr. Bray said that, the United States was suspending $87.6‐ million in development loans that had not been firmly committed by letters of credit to banks and suppliers.

Left untouched by the suspension was $135‐million in loans, either for long‐term projects or for purchase of goods already committed to India.

Senator Frank Church, Democrat of Idaho, who has just returned from a trip to India, called for American neutrality in the war and criticized the Administration's “pro‐Pakistan bias.”

Senator Church said that he expected India and the East Pakistani rebels to win the war and that he did not think the fighting could last more than three months because of the limited resources of the two nations.

“If India has intervened in the civil war of her neighbor, let's remember we did the same in Vietnam with far less provocation,” the Senator said