not idly, but as undeclared belligerents, aiding in the misery and death of millions of East Pakistanis?
In Pakistan after consistently being told that no arms were being shipped, we find more and more appearing. What right have we to equip the West Pakistanis to fight the Bangladesh? What right have we to intervene in a civil war for any reason other than humanitarian relief and rescue? If the State Department can answer these questions, I am sure we would all be very interested. But even if the State Department could provide answers, why should we expect that the American people would listen? Why should we think we are hearing the truth? The raw facts arc, Mr. President, that either the State Department has no control over the foreign activities of this Nation, or else they choose to exercise that control with one hand while dishing out public information with the other.
We have, due to the inexcusable bungling of the State Department, backed ourselves into a comer in our relationship with India. At the same time that Mrs. Gandhi is resisting the urging of some of her countrymen to go to war, we are supplying the weapons to Pakistan that exacerbate the situation. I simply do not understand, Mr. President, whose interests we are serving by our actions in that area. We enable Pakistan to continue waging war, which in turn causes India to move closer and closer to a state of war, and all the while millions of East Pakistan's are dying or being made refugees. It is not a role that we should be proud of.
Mr. President. I ask unanimous consent that the Post editorial be printed in Record.
U.S. ARMS FOR PAKISTAN; A SHAMEFUL RECORD.
The Pakistani army undertook to crush the autonomy movement in East Pakistan on March 25. Soon after, as word of the army's appalling and indiscriminate slaughter began to seep out, the question was asked in Washington whether arms sold or given by the United States were being used and. further, whether the supply of these arms was continuing. Here is the record of the answers given in Washington.
April 2: The State Department said it could neither confirm nor deny reports from the scene that American equipment was being used.
On April 20, the fact no longer deniable, the Department informed Senator Kennedy that it had “expressed our concern over the use of American arms in East Pakistan”; it added that “arms acquired from a number of countries, including China, the U. S. S. R. and the U. K., also have been used.”
Three days later: The Department specifically acknowledged to Senator Fulbright that “some M-24 tanks and F-86 aircraft have been observed in use East Pakistan in recent weeks.” It did not acknowledge that these tanks and planes had been employed against ragged desperate men armed with little more than rifles, if that.
April 6: Mr. Fulbright had asked Secretary of State Rogers for information on the “status of any current shipments” of military equipment to Pakistan. The following week
