Orignal Documents: Memo from CIA on Liaquat’s Assasination
Understanding Pakistan Project Team May 25th, 2007
The American Government, including the State Department and CIA, released a number of original documents relating to Pakistan’s early history because either somebody filed a Freedom of Information Request or they were just deemed not enough sensitive enough–with several decades having passed–that it was considered OK to declassify them and make them available to the general public. We will attempt to bring some of these documents to you–not necessarily because they reflect truth in their entirety–but because they provide a unique perspective of a foreign country and its intelligence operation on events happening in Pakistan.
One that especially caught my attention with the Memo CIA wrote on Liaquat’s Assasination in 1951. It is interesting, how the CIA assessed–perhaps rightly so–that none of the likely contenders of the Prime Ministerial spot that survived Liaquat was capable enough to succeed him. The memo seems to shed the doubt (only a doubt, nothing implied here) on Khaksars as being behind Liaquat’s assassination (I don’t think anything has been brought to light on that matter ever). It also carried CVs of three likely successors at the end.
By the way, before the memo, this is what General Ayub Khan had to say on the politicians’ reaction on Liaquat’s death in his book, Friends not Masters:
“…I met several members of the new Cabinet in Karachi–Prime Minister Khawaja Nazimuddin … and others. None of them mentioned Liaquat Ali’s name, nor did I hear a word of sympathy or regret from any of of them. Governor-General Ghulam Mohammad seemed equally unaware of the fact that the country has lost an eminent and capable Prime Minister…I wondered at how callous, cold-blooded, and selfish people could be…It seemed that every one of them had got himself promoted…It was disgusting and revolting…I got the distinct impression that they were all feeling relieved that the only person who might have kept them under control had disappeated from scene…” (quoted in: Cloughley , 1991, p.29)
Some of this might be exaggerated because Ayub was no fan of the politicians and the book was written in his later years when he had an axe to grind from bringing disrepute to them but some it might be accurate too.
Anyways, now the CIA memo:
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