AMERICAN INTENTIONS

BEFORE the war in 1914, Marshal Foch was asked how many British troops he wished to see in France. He answered that only one was needed, provided it could be arranged that the man was killed on the first day of the fight. The hostage theory could not have been more pithily put. So far as one knows, there are no American troops in Dacca. There might be American civilians. But if President Yahya Khan is using American nationals as hostages, it is for President Nixon to move his Seventh Fleet or his entire armada against Pakistan — not India. Taking advantage of the bombing pause, many foreign nationals have left Dacca in peace, and the UN Resident Representative has conveyed the appreciation of Secretary-General U Thant for this rare gesture on India’s part. If there are Americans still left in Dacca, they too could be evacuated without the help of the Seventh Fleet, whose movement can only be for purposes unconnected with rescue operations. An official spokesman in Delhi has stated that the State Department has denied that the US had any alliance obligation to go to the aid of Pakistan in its current conflict with India. This is true enough, but does the US mean what it says? Its 1954 pact with Pakistan is only a military assistance pact, and it does not otherwise commit the US to intervene militarily in a dispute involving Pakistan. Pakistan is a member of CENTO, but not the US. It might be that the US is not a member only in name, but then what about Britain, which is a leading member of CENTO? Britain has abstained from voting in the Security Council’s resolutions on the dispute. Foreign Secretary Sir Alec Douglas-Home has announced that Britain would fulfill its military contracts with India despite the war. There is, therefore, no consensus among the CENTO members as to the danger — assuming that either Pakistan or the US invokes CENTO.