Evening Bulletin (Philadelphia)

WASHINGTON.—When Indian Foreign Minister Swaran Singh left Washington last June, he was in a happy mood. He thought he had President's Nixon's assurance that nor more American military supplies would be sent to Pakistan.
When he arrived in New Delhi, his mood changed. The New York Times had just reported that an arms ship was leaving New York for Pakistan and that another already had left.
Was it treachery at the highest level of American government? A deliberate attempt to anger and embarrass the Indians?
The explanation, according to reliable sources, is less sinister. It was simply a bureaucratic muddle.
State Department officials, according to the informants, had been advised by the Office of Munitions Control that all military shipments for Pakistan had been delivered.
But "delivered", in the jargon of the munitions office, meant turned over to Pakistan officials in the United States. State Department officials assumed it meant delivered in Pakistan, and proceeded to assure the American public that other such shipments to Pakistan were halted spending review.

STILL TIME

After the story broke, there was still time to halt the shipments, but some informants say President Nixon decided not to do it.
Thus the Administration moved into one of its most controversial foreign policy ventures.
The Pakistani civil war has claimed possibly 200,000 lives since March. Up to 8.5 million refugees reportedly have fled into India, and the figure could go as high as 12 million in the next few months. Thousands have died from disease.
Entire towns in East Pakistan have been wiped our, according to World Bank officials, and atrocity stories proliferate.
Yet, the United States, while providing humanitarian assistance to refugees, has kept up a limited flow of military supplies to the government of President Yahya Kahn and is considering a resumption of economic aid.

LEVERAGE

Officials defend this policy as necessary for "leverage" to promote a political settlement, They acknowledge no "notable progress" toward such a settlement, but ask: "Would we be better off today if we had imposed sanctions?"
Critics answer, "Yes."
Sen Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass), a vocal critic who plans to hold hearings on the refugee problem next week, said:
"Just what kind of government is it what we seek to influence—and for what purpose? America is being asked by its leadership to support the repression of self-determination."
The policy has brought American relations with India to an all-time low, according to Kenneth Keating, U.S. ambassador in New Delhi.
Keating protested the military shipments to Pakistan in a cable to the State Department and reliable sources said he considered resigning. Diplomats on his staff are said to be demoralized.

CONGRESS BALKS

In East Pakistan, where U.S. diplomats have branded the Pakistani army actions as "genocide" in official cables, the policy has provoked open revolt. The entire U.S. consulate staff in Dacca, the East Pakistani capital, has signed a statement protesting U.S. policy.
Congress is in revolt, too. The House has voted to suspend aid to Pakistan until the President reports Pakistan is restoring stability in East Pakistan. The Senate is almost certain to concur.
For the future, U.S. officials foresee only more warfare and the possibly of more wide-spread famine toward the end of this year.
An Indian-Pakistani war is not being ruled out. But a more likely possibility, in the view of some officials, is a prolonged guerilla war in East Pakistan, with the guerillas probably the ultimate victors.
Since any guerilla regime that came to power would be strongly anti-American, the U.S. policy represents a gamble that Yahya Khan will be able to achieve a political settlement with East Pakistan. Few officials seem to believe there is much prospect of that.

TWO RACES

The conflict involves two races, the Punjabis of West Pakistan and the Bengalis of the East, separated by 1,000 miles of Indian territory and centuries of mutual distrust.
Although East Pakistani rice and jute provide most of the foreign exchange earnings for Pakistan, and the East is a prime market for West Pakistani products, the Punjabis have traditionally dominated the country, looked down on the Bengalis and generally treated East Pakistan as a colony.
It came to a head after East Pakistan's Awami League, which favors autonomy for the east, won a 21-seat majority in the 300-member National Assembly last December.
Punjabis balked, charging that the Awami League wanted secession, not autonomy. Yahya postponed convening the National Assembly. Riots broke out in East Pakistan and the president opened talks with Sheik Mujibur Rahman, the Awami leader.
ARMY MOVES
Suddenly, on March 25, the Pakistan army, with 70,000 troops, launched the bloodbath that goes on intermittently today. Sheik Mujib was imprisoned and the Awami League outlawed.
Although American officials insist that the policy is to maintain leverage on West Pakistan, critics have suggested there are other reasons.
Chester Bowles, former ambassador to India, has charged that U.S. aid is a payoff for Pakistani cooperation in helping President Nixon's national security adviser, Dr. Henry A. Kissinger, make a secret trip to Peking in July to arrange the President's forthcoming visit there.
Other critics suggest that Mr. Nixon was just anxious to avoid doing anything to upset the Pakistanis while he was seeking their cooperation for the trip.
Critics also argue that the Administration either underestimated the impact on India or had its priorities mixed up, failing to recognize that in geopolitical terms India is of greater importance than Pakistan to the United States.
They also see an element of inertia—continuation of aid to Pakistan because U.S. officials could not see what else to do.

INDEPENDENCE

Although officials suspect the Awami League would still settle for autonomy, East Pakistani sentiment for independence is reported to be growing as the fighting persists.
Radical Communist influence also is growing, particularly among the guerillas and among the Hindu minority refugees from East Pakistan. The Indian Communist party, a powerful force in India's West Bengal, is extremely active among the refugees.
The possibility of a radical Communist state on India's frontier has been a major concern to the government of Premier Indira Gandhi.
And there is no evidence that Yahya Kahn is prepared to make the minimal concessions needed to achieve a settlement.
Sheik Mujib has been put on trial for his life before a military court, and it is generally agreed that if he is executed all hope of a settlement is gone. Secretary of State William P. Rogers has publicly warned Pakistan against such a step.

LITTLE CHANCE

Yahya Khan apparently feels he cannot release Mujib without admitting that his policy in East Pakistan has been wrong. But unless he does Yahya is conceded little chance of reaching an accommodation with East Pakistan.
In recent weeks, Yahya has removed the tough military ruler of East Pakistan, Lt. Gen. Tikka Khan, and installed the semblance of a civilian administration. He also has offered to deal with Awami League members elected last December who are not committed to secession.
He has set elections at the end of November for the 79 National Assembly seats and the 105 seats in East Pakistan's provincial assembly which were vacated when Awami League members were disqualified.
"But there is a question of how many in the Awami League are willing to play the game, and of where Mujib fits into this," said one informant who doubts Yahya Kan's moves will lead anywhere.
Some critics say U.S. policy has not been effective because Ambassador Joseph Farland, a friend of President Nixon, has been inept in handling the situation. Others say Yahya will never bow to U.S. wishes so long as he knows aid will continue to come his way.

VERY COSTLY

The Administration already has asked Congress for more than $118 million in aid to Pakistan for this fiscal year.
While the East Pakistani problem festers, the refugee situation in India is critical.
The United States has contributed more than $70 million in refugee aid to India and has made a $20 million development loan to India to help cushion the burden on the Indian economy. It also has given $90 million to Pakistan for refugee relief and is prepared to give more to both nations.
Other United Nations members have contributed lesser amounts, bringing total pledges to India to $200 million.
But outside aid so far represents only a fraction of the need.
Some Indian officials have coldly calculated the costs and concluded that it might be cheaper to fight a war with Pakistan than to support the refugees indefinitely.

PAKISTAN CAN LOSE 2 WAYS—WAR WITH INDIA OR GUERRILLAS

If India and Pakistan go to war, India will win—probably within a month.
If there is no war, and no political settlement in East Pakistan, the most likely outcome of the Pakistan civil war is that the state will collapse after a long guerrilla conflict.
This is the estimate of U.S. defense experts, who consider the second of these possibilities as the more probable.
"If war comes between India and Pakistan, it is likely to be more in response to inadvertence, or happenstance than any deliberate decision," said one official. "India might decide at some point to attack Pakistan, but I can't conceive of Pakistan initiating a war except out of frustration."
Indian Premier Indira Gandhi has been under some pressure to go to war with Pakistan because of the problems imposed on India by the flow of an estimated 8.5 million Pakistani refugees into India.
Some U.S. experts say they believe that if the two nations go to war foreign support will be withheld from both as it was in 1965 when they clashed.
In that event, the defense officials say, Pakistan will not be able to sustain a war for more than a month. India, on the other hand, has the capacity to keep going three or four months, they say.
In East Pakistan, an army of about 70,000 troops is engaged against a guerrilla force of undetermined size which receives arms and training from the Indian army.
"The situation is very much like that in Vietnam in 1961 and 1962," said a defense official. "The government forces are sufficient to maintain security in the urban areas. But there is not much interface between the army and guerrillas because the guerrillas stay in the rural areas."
The Pakistan army suffered considerable losses to guerrilla attacks early in the war, officials said. But they said the guerrillas have concentrated recently on acts of sabotage—destroying electric power pylons, blowing bridges, cutting roads and rendering the main East Pakistan railroad virtually inoperable.
Fighting has been slowed by monsoon rains, but it is expected to pick up again in October or November.

BEST HOPE

"If there is no political settlement, I would envisage a long-term stalemate, with the guerrillas increasingly successful," one expert said. "They would not be successful enough to drive the army out, but their best hope is to make it so expensive that the army cannot afford to stay."
Officials doubt the West Pakistan can sustain the costs of fighting indefinitely in East Pakistan, 1,000 miles away. The West Pakistan economy so far has borne up to the strain of the civil war better than many officials expected, but as foreign assistance dwindles the strain is likely to become severe.
If the Pakistan government is forced eventually to give up the struggle, this would lead to creation of an independent East Pakistan already named Bangladesh (Bengal nation) by East Pakistani secessionists.

FIRST CONCERN

While U.S. polio- is to encourage a peaceful settlement of the civil war, privately some U.S. officials do not believe that an independent East Pakistan would be a bad solution.
But that is a long-term prospect. The most urgent concern of the United States at the moment is to head off famine in East Pakistan, which the U.S. consulate in Dacca and private relief organizations have warned may occur late this. year.
The problem is not availability of food, which has been supplied by the United States and other nations, but distribution. With all other communication arteries hobbled, the only way to get the food into the countryside is by water transport.
If famine does occur, this will force more Pakistani refugees into India, and increase the temptation for India to go to war, officials fear.

ARMS SITUATION

The last Indo-Pakistan war ended rather inconclusively, because India entered the war in a poor state of readiness. But the situation would be far different this time, U.S. experts said.
India bought large stocks of modern arms from the Soviet Union after the 1965 war, and now has Pakistan outclassed in all areas of defense, they said.
India has more than one million men under arms, Pakistan 325,000. In various weapons categories, India has 625 combat aircraft to 270 in Pakistan, 1,150 tanks against Pakistan's 400 and 26 combat ships, including one 16,000-ton aircraft carrier, against eight for Pakistan.

CHINA, RUSSIA

One uncertain factor in the India-Pakistan equation is the possibility of Chinese intervention on the side of Pakistan and Soviet intervention in behalf of India if war comes.
U.S. defense officials do not rate either possibility very high. They believe the Soviets would try to act as a restraining influence on India, as they did in signing a 20-year friendship treaty with India last month to shore up the Indian government against pressure to go to war.
The Chinese probably would move troops in India's northern borders to try to tie down several Indian divisions, but it is doubtful they would intervene, experts said.

LOW PROFILE

China gave strong verbal support to Pakistan when the civil war began, apparently in the belief the Pakistan army would quickly crush East Pakistan, but since then has kept a low profile.
Officials said China has sent "a small stream of spare parts" to the Pakistan army but given no other material aid.
From 1954 to 1965, the United States provided more than $800 million worth of arms to Pakistan and about one-tenth that amount to India.
Ironically, in view of Pakistan's current close relationship with China, the rationale for the U.S. arms supply was to build up Pakistan's defenses against possible attack by China or the Soviet Union.
Arms supplies to both sides were halted in 1965, but a year later the United States relaxed the ban to allow sale of military spare parts to India and Pakistan.

NONLETHAL SALE

This was broadened in April 1967 to permit the sale of major but nonlethal military items. The controversial shipments now going to Pakistan totaling $3.7 million since the civil war began March 25, have been provided under this agreement.
India also continues to buy U.S. spare parts under the 1967 agreement, although it has shown limited interest in purchasing from the United States.
Last fall, the United States made a one-time exception, in the case of Pakistan, to its ban on nonlethal weapons. It offered Pakistan 300 armored personnel carriers, four maritime patrol planes, six F-104s or an equivalent number of F-5s and seven B-57 bombers.
The United States gave two justifications for this policy: if the United States did not sell the weapons to Pakistan, the Pakistanis would get them from China. And the military government of President Yahya Khan had announced its decision to hold elections and permit a return to civilian rule.

CRITICS ARGUE

Critics argued that the weapons could only be used to threaten India, and that the possibility that Pakistan might buy them from China instead of the United States was of no consequence.
As it turned out, Pakistan was not interested in the planes but agreed to buy the armored personnel carriers. The APCs were to have been delivered next summer, but the sale was halted when the civil war broke out and U.S. defense officials say there is no prospect now they will be delivered.
But some congressional critics of U.S. policy doubt that the United States will refrain for long from supplying lethal weapons to Pakistan. And they profess-to see no advantage to the United States in continuing a military relationship with a repressive regime at the expense of U.S. friendship with India.