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At closed meetings with groups of electors, Ayub answered practical questions sensibly enough, but kept lashing out at the opposition with growing anger. Countering Miss Jinnah's repeated charge that he had been unable to restrain the U.S. from helping Pakistan's No. 1 adversary, India, he set out to portray her as pro-Indian and pro-American. Ayub's campaign, in fact, was turning increasingly anti-American.
Though U.S. aid (about $5 billion since 1951) is vital to the nation's wretched economy, a leading member of Ayub's party cried: "America never was our friend and never could be, because as a nation aligned with the anticolonial movements, we are at cross-purposes with America." As for Ayub, he plainly regretted ever calling elections in the first place. For after six years of insisting that Pakistanis were not ready for democracy, the campaign had shown that Mohammed Ayub Khan probably isn't either.