Dinner at Mount Vernon

Background

John F. Kennedy came to office in 1961 wanting a closer relationship with India, the larger democracy, which he hoped to support as a counterweight to China. Ayub Khan, who had built his foreign policy on the American alliance, viewed this with concern. Shortly before his visit he had suspended Pakistani cooperation with a covert American operation supplying Tibetan rebels from an airbase in East Pakistan, a quiet signal of unease at Kennedy's offer of large-scale aid to India¹.

What happened

Kennedy welcomed Ayub at Andrews Air Force Base at the start of a state visit that ran from 11 to 18 July 1961^2,3. On the evening of 11 July the Kennedys hosted a state dinner on the lawn of Mount Vernon, George Washington's home on the Potomac. The idea was Jacqueline Kennedy's. Guests, about 140 of them, travelled down the river by boat; it was the first state dinner held outside Washington and remains the only one ever held at Mount Vernon^4,1.

During the evening, according to the former CIA officer and Brookings scholar Bruce Riedel, Kennedy took Ayub for a private walk and, at the request of CIA Director Allen Dulles, asked him to reopen the airbase for the Tibetan resupply flights; Ayub agreed¹. During the visit Ayub also addressed a joint session of Congress³. American records of his talks with Kennedy and his officials are published in the State Department's documentary series⁵.

Why it mattered

The visit was the most glamorous moment of the alliance and gave Ayub a public platform in the United States. But it also exposed the fault line that would soon open: Kennedy's interest in India. Within eighteen months, American arms for India after the Sino-Indian war would cause a crisis of confidence in Pakistan¹.