Department of State

May 26, 1970

The Honorable

Galen L. Stone

Charge d’Affaires a.i.

American Embassy

New Delhi, India

Dear Galen:

The military supply issue has become very active and some decision regarding sales to Pakistan is likely to be made fairly soon. Although hard to believe, the CENTO meeting in Washington was the cause of the renewed interest. Ambassador Hilaly, the Pakistani representative at the meeting, joined the CENTO Ministers at a meeting with the President. Apparently each Minister and finally Hilaly made a brief statement to the President. Hilaly made a pitch that Pakistan could not contribute to the stability of the area and pull its weight in CENTO unless Pakistan were strong militarily. Therefore, Pakistan needed military assistance from its allies.

The President passed Joe Sisco a note at the meeting saying that he thought the U.S. should provide some AID to Pakistan for the reasons cited by Hilaly.

As a result, a great new exercise is in midstream. A memorandum for the President indicating what we might sell to Pakistan and also indicating all of the pitfalls which we might encounter because of such sales is under preparation. This will be the first item of business we will take up with the Ambassador when he arrives here at about 11:30 tomorrow morning. Grant and I will lunch with him trying to fill in all of the background, and thereafter he has appointments with Chris, Joe, and Secretary Laird. It is unfortunate that we have to put this much burden on him at the outset, but the time pressures are mounting.

I will try to keep you informed on what goes on on this issue and others during the Ambassador’s visit. I have little else to convey now, but I wanted you to hear from me that the issue which has taken so much of our time for so long is again burning.

With best regards,

Sincerely yours,

David T. Schneider

Country Director for India