Three iconic visits to the US

[Lahore_Real_Estate]

Monday, March 29, 2010
S Khalid Husain

Barring the Quaid-e-Azam, almost every president and prime minister of Pakistan has winged his or her way to the US after assuming office. For most, an official visit to the US has been as much a compulsion as performing umrah at government expense, with a large entourage of freeloaders.

However, of the countless visits, only two, that of Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan in 1950 and of President Ayub Khan in 1961, stand out as state visits where the host, the US president, appeared honoured to greet the Pakistani visitors. In those days the prime purpose of Pakistani leaders’ foreign visits, particularly to the US, was to further the country’s interests and not, as has become the custom in recent years, one’s own interests, or the party’s.

During Liaquat’s visit, the first by a top Pakistani leader to the US, a new US-Pakistan relationship was constructed, which was a manifest need of that time. It was, in essence, a relationship of “reliance” on the US for defence.

If the country had progressed as a democratic entity, and not regressed as a personal fiefdom of its feudal leaders and military dictators, or of civilian leaders reared by military dictators, the relationship would have evolved into one less of reliance and more of shared principles and interests. This was not to be, and Pakistan today is more dependent than ever on the US and on other foreign donors for everything – defence, money, food, day-to-day sustenance.

Liaquat Ali Khan made sure the defence-oriented relationship with the US did not betray the country’s honour. Pakistan continued to back the just Muslim causes in North Africa and Palestine so forcefully its advocacy of these became the dread of French, US and Israeli diplomats in the UN and other international forums. The admiration of the Arab world was shown by many new-borns in North Africa and the Middle East being named Zafarullah, after Pakistan’s foreign minister.

The succession of incompetent civilian and military rulers who followed Liaquat Ali Khan, many with serious character flaws, not only failed to lead Pakistan out of its dependence on the US, but made the relationship so compliant that it is today devoid of all respect for this country.

During the incumbent president’s US visit in May 2009 nothing was said on Kashmir, the water dispute with India or any other issue important to Pakistan. Seeking US support for the self, for “my” democracy, “my” government, and taking the son to official meetings transcended all other issues, and in line with which the agreement was signed under US auspices with President Karzai for talks on transit trade which will in time allow India to use the Wagah-Khyber route to Kabul. This is the same as unhooking Pakistan from its issues with India and hooking it to Indo-Afghan interests.

The second US visit of any consequence by a Pakistani head of state was that of President Ayub Khan. Forgetting for a while that Ayub Khan was the harbinger of martial law in the country and the resultant disasters, his US visit as president was a gain for the country in many ways, including his breakthrough with the Democrats, who traditionally have been more supportive of India. Getting the Democrats to also think of Pakistan’s standpoint and concerns was more than a useful outcome; it was reducing a prejudicial imbalance against Pakistan in the US Congress.

Liaquat Ali Khan was known to favour a policy of nonalignment, but was grappling with a model that would not result in Pakistan being overwhelmed in the “neutrals” camp by India. Pakistan would have accepted the role of a “senior” for India if it had conducted itself as one, but that was never to be, and Pakistan has always had to look for safeguards against the hostile intents of a bigger neighbour.

The country was not then entangled in alliances and pacts, and Liaquat Ali Khan impressively led his hosts to recognise that Pakistan could be a friend, not a contrivance, for US influence in South Asia.

The masterstroke was his visit to India in April 1950, a few weeks before his US trip, where Liaquat signed the famous Liaquat-Nehru Pact. This was widely covered in the US media and he came out looking very much a man of peace. When he arrived in the US, in May 1950, his reputation preceded him. For all purposes, Liaquat stole the show from Gandhian India as a peace-monger.

Liaquat’s visit was an experience for the Americans. President Truman was so taken in by his speeches, and their competent delivery by him, he is said to have wondered if the Pakistani prime minister’s speechwriter and elocution “coach” could be persuaded to stay back.

His was an all-Pakistani show. No foreign speechwriters, no foreign grooming and dress consultants, no foreign elocution instructors, who probably wept as their most recent charges from Pakistan spewed words that must have made parrots blush.

Ayub Khan visited the US in mid-1961, soon after John F Kennedy assumed office. Americans were mesmerised with the charm, glamour and lustre which Kennedy and his wife, Jacqueline, and the Kennedy clan brought to the US presidency. America was agog because it was like royalty, something Americans always envied their first cousins in England for.

Into this environment arrived Ayub Khan, with his striking personality and commanding presence, and his attractive daughter Nasim Aurangzeb in her captivating Pakistani outfits. Both almost stole the show from Jack and Jacqueline. The Kennedys broke tradition by holding the state dinner for Ayub Khan and his daughter outside the White House, at Mount Vernon. It was the social event of the season, and it is hard to say who carried the evening – the Kennedys or Ayub and his daughter. It almost seemed the guests were more anxious to be photographed with the president of Pakistan and his daughter than with their own president and his wife.

One of the most successful official visits by a Pakistani was by Bashir, the camel-cart driver from Karachi. US vice president Lyndon Johnson, on a visit to Pakistan in May 1961, ran into Bashir when he stopped his motorcade on the street to chat with drivers of a row of passing camel-carts, and said to him in typical Texan drawl: “Yeah, now you come to see me in Texas, y’hear?” The reporters turned the routine Texan expression into an invitation from Johnson for Bashir. There was no getting away for Johnson.

Bashir arrived in the US in October 1961 and was an immediate hit. Johnson received him and apologised for the chill. Bashir’s response, “where there are friends like you there can be no chill, only warmth,” rocked America. From then on, the media hung on to every word Bashir uttered. All of America read and heard Bashir’s comments and loved him, and his country. Time magazine wrote that Bashir’s fluent homilies seem to come from the heart and “flow like the Rubaiyat.”

It is hard to believe Bashir was coached and was repeating what he was told. His comments came spontaneously and were translated by the State Department translator, who said he had a hard time keeping up with Bashir’s fluency. Former president Harry Truman, according to Time, was so taken that he addressed Bashir as “Your Excellency.”

Bashir’s comments touched hearts in America like no speech of a visiting Pakistani honcho ever did. Bashir’s US visit was undoubtedly one of most successful by anyone from Pakistan.