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Once aligned with the U.S., marvelous things happened to Pakistan. Tanks, jet planes, new weapons, experts, food poured in. By last year, Pakistan had received $1.5 billion dollars in military aid and $3.5 billion in economic aid—about $50 per person. Relations reached their peak in 1961, when Ayub Khan rode a wave of popularity through the U.S. Speaking before a joint session of Congress, he said: "The only people who will stand by you in Asia are the people of Pakistan — provided you are prepared to stand by them." He boated up the Potomac to Mount Vernon with the Kennedys, flew to Lyndon Johnson's Texas ranch to write his name in fresh Friendship Walk cement. Vice President Johnson had met Ayub in Pakistan earlier that year and, in a rosy, fraternal glow, saw to it that a camel driver who reached for his outstretched hand got a free junket to the U.S.
Matter of Duty. The warmth lasted until the 1962 Sino-Indian war in the Himalayas. When the Indian army abruptly collapsed in Assam, Washington and London hastily poured in weapons and military supplies. The Pakistanis were livid. Officials charged that President Kennedy had broken his promise to consult with Ayub before making any arms shipments to India.
Ayub Khan derided the Chinese threat to India, pointing out that a major attack from Tibet would leave the Chinese dangling at the end of a 1,700-mile supply line. If China wanted to gobble up India, he said, the thrust would come through the Northeast Frontier and Burma. Anyway, Ayub demanded, what possible use to China would it be to take on the care and feeding of 480 million undernourished Indians? Washington flatly disagreed, insisting that Red China was the main enemy of both India and Pakistan. Ayub Khan had already made an effort to test this theory by offering in 1959 to join Nehru in a pact for the mutual defense of the subcontinent. Cracked Nehru, "Defense against whom?" and turned down the treaty.
Ayub Khan had even less success with Nehru's successor, Shastri. After a private meeting in Karachi, Ayub said that Shastri was willing to compromise on Kashmir but felt he was not strong enough to convince his own government. Ayub added, "I told him that, as Prime Minister of India, it was his duty to build public opinion in favor of a satisfactory solution. He might be criticized by some elements, but the bulk of the Indian people would thank him for relieving them of a great anxiety." Ayub concluded that it was impossible to reach an agreement with the ambivalent and indirect Shastri. They settled into a tenuous coexistence that was punctuated by gunfire earlier this year in the border wasteland of the Rann of Kutch. Britain's Prime Minister Harold Wilson settled that one, bringing Ayub and Shastri to cautious compromise at the Commonwealth Prime Ministers meeting in London last June.