Hard Talk About Hardware

Pakistan's press, which turned vociferously anti-American during the fighting with India in August and September, now allows that Lyndon Johnson is "one of the most dynamic Presidents the U.S. has ever had." Unsurprisingly, the journalistic encomiums heralded Pakistan President Mohammed Ayub Khan's arrival in Washington this week. India's newspapers also started lauding Lyndon last week, after it was announced that Premier Lai Bahadur Shastri will land in the U.S. on Feb. 1 for the Indian statesman's first U.S. visit.

President Johnson postponed conferences with the Pakistani and Indian lead ers last April for fear that their presence might complicate the foreign-aid debate in Congress. Thus he will now be getting down to one of the most perplexing foreign-policy problems facing the U.S.

"Kashmir Is Ours." Pakistan eagerly awaits resumption of U.S. military aid, which was halted when the Pakistanis used U.S. weapons against India. While Ayub was hopeful that the U.S. would continue to exert economic pressure on India for a Kashmir compromise, Washington last week promised to 1) help New Delhi avert a famine by accelerating shipment of 1,500,000 tons of grain and 2) stimulate its own food production by granting a $50 million loan for fertilizer.

Between Shastri's insistence that "Kashmir is ours" and Ayub's urgings that the Administration reaffirm its 1949 support for a plebiscite to determine the disputed territory's future, Johnson can hardly hope to send both men away happy. He will press hard, nonetheless, for withdrawal of both nations' troops from the explosive battle area. And, while Washington has emphasized in advance that it does not seek to dictate Pakistan's foreign policy, Johnson will make clear to Ayub that the U.S. will not continue to support his nation if it uses its rapprochement with Red China as a gun in India's back.

Deep-Down MLF? The Administration will also be searching for answers to European problems. Britain's Prime Minister Harold Wilson follows Ayub for a two-day round of conferences. Then comes West Germany's Chancellor Ludwig Erhard. With both visitors, the main topic will be military hardware.

Wilson, while convinced that Britain should remain a worldwide power, feels that it cannot afford its growing defense expenditures ($4.3 billion this year), and would like a firm commitment on the U.S. contribution to joint military projects--notably a new chain of island bases east of Suez (TIME, Nov. 19). Johnson, for his part, will invite British cooperation in providing an alternative to the proposed NATO multilateral force (MLF) of missile-firing surface ships, a plan that sank under the weight of allied disagreement. Johnson hopes instead that Britain will turn over its Po laris submarines, now abuilding, to a new NATO nuclear force to be operated jointly on a shared-cost basis as a kind of deep-down MLF.

Money & Results. The question of nuclear sharing is also uppermost in Erhard's mind. As the second biggest contributor to NATO, Bonn believes it is entitled to play a greater role in atomic strategy and weaponry. The NATO Polaris force would be one answer.

Meanwhile, Washington is organizing a special consultative body within NATO, in which contingency planning would be open to review and revision by NATO members if necessary.

Anxious as they are to assume greater responsibility for nuclear decisions, few NATO allies have as yet volunteered to assume a just share of the cost of the U.S.-supplied weapons. Thus, whether discussing nuclear policy or the Kashmir question, Lyndon Johnson can reasonably point out to his visitors that the U.S., with a war on its hands, can only afford to put its hardware where it seems likely to produce hard results.

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