The political life of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Pakistan's Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, began in his student days at the University of California at Berkeley in 1950 when he became a campaign worker for the Congressional candidacy of Helen Gahagan Douglas. The winner of that race was Richard M. Nixon.

Yesterday, 21 years and many political wars later, President Nixon conferred at the White House with Mr. Bhutto, Pakistan's leading civilian political leader and a 43‐ year‐old maverick who many observers believe will shortly replace President Agha Mohammad Yahya Khan. Mr. Bhutto was summoned home to Rawalpindi yesterday to help form a new government.

As leader of West Pakistan's leading nationalist and socialist movement, the Pakistan People's party, Mr. Bhutto is now in a position to capitalize on political infighting that, in the span of a dozen years, has gained him a variety of Cabinet portfolios, the enmity of India and East Pakistan, the adulation of millions of Pakistanis and a reputation as tough, ambitious and out spoken politician.

Mr. Bhutto (pronounced BOOT‐o), who is reviled by his enemies as an opportunist and defended by supporters as champion of the underdog, is an avowed admirer of China. He's an advocate of a strong central government in West Pakistan and of a negotiated permanent settlement with India and the East Bengali secessionists, who call their territory Bangladesh.

A spellbinding orator who uses irony, vitriol and electrifying appeals to patriotism and religion in his speeches, Mr. Bhutto denounced the United Nations Security Council Wednesday for inaction in the Indian‐Pakistan war.

In Pakistani politics, Mr. Bhutto was an early protégé and later a bitter enemy of the former President, Mohammad Ayub Khan. When Marshal Ayub seized power in 1958, Mr. Bhutto, then 31, was named Minister of Industry. He later served as head of Pakistan's United Nations delegation and by 1963 had became Foreign Minister.

In 1966, Mr. Bhutto resigned from the Government in a pol icy dispute with President Ayub over the conduct of the war with India the year before. Their continuing political conflict led to Mr. Bhutto's house arrest for three months in 1968 and 1969, a circumstance he turned into a martyr's crusade for an end to Marshal Ayub's rule.

Called for Elections

After General Yahya assumed the presidency in March, 1969, Mr. Bhutto was a principal force in the scheduling of elections in December, 1970, that produced victories for sup porters of autonomy in East Pakistan and Mr. Bhutto's party in the West. While President Yahya later voided the elections, he felt obliged two weeks ago to acknowledge Mr. Bhutto's growing power by naming him Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister again.

Mr. Bhutto was born Jan. 5, 1928, near Larkana in what is now West Pakistan. His family was wealthy, landed and politically influential. He attended schools in Bombay until 1947, when he went to the University of California. He was an honor student there and earned his bachelor's degree in political science in 1950.

Mr. Bhutto then attended Ox ford University, obtaining a master's degree in jurisprudence from Christ Church College and a call to the bar in 1952. After a year as a barrister, he returned to Pakistan and practiced and taught law in Karachi for several years, renewing political friendships that eventually won him an appointment to the Cabinet by Marshal Ayub.