I would like to emphasize one point that tends to be skirted, because no one wants to be caught these days suggesting that any good even relative and weighed against the alternative-can come of a war. The point, and it is pivotal, is that the only possible basis for a stable, peaceful East Bengal to which a large portion of the ten million refugees can return and help rebuild their nation is an independent East Bengal. Such is the effect of the program of terror since March 25, the scenario cannot be would backwards. Hence (1) the premise of undivided Pakistan's sovereign integrity upon which American policy bas rested, for at last five months, has been nonstarter, and (2) India's support of the insurgency by the previously elected Bangladesh regime has not been merely human and understandable lacking alternatives, it has been the only constructive policy available.
I myself wish the Indians had escalated less, accepted a longer time frame, and kept there support less overt. But if there is any group which, having contributed most to the frustration of restraint, has least cause to fault her ensuing impatience, it is the Nixon Administration. It remains now for India to demonstrate that her objectives are those, and only those, she held out, namely, establishment of a genuinely independent East Bengal to which the refugees can return. There is a heavy obligation on Indian leaders to make sure that war fervor does not spill over in to more self-serving ventures, either to the east or to the west. Meanwhile, as this demonstration is being rendered, there is an obligation on Washington to keep quiet.
John P. Lewis Dean. Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs Princeton, was U. S. A.I. D. director in India. 1964.69.
