Yahya at the White House: a message for Zhou Enlai

What happened

Yahya Khan visited the United States in October 1970 for the 25th anniversary of the United Nations. On 25 October he met President Nixon at the White House; the record of the meeting shows it ran from 10.49 to 11.45 in the morning². They discussed bilateral relations and the possibility of Pakistan facilitating secret contacts between the United States and China^1,2. Nixon used the meeting to establish what became known as the Yahya channel. When the message reached Beijing, Premier Zhou Enlai reportedly remarked that while the United States had sent messages through various intermediaries before, this was the first time a proposal had come from one head of state, through another, to a third³.

The meeting followed a gesture to Pakistan. On 15 October Nixon wrote to Yahya setting out a one-time exception to the arms embargo: Pakistan could buy, for cash, replacement fighter aircraft, seven B-57 bombers, 300 armoured personnel carriers and four maritime patrol aircraft. Congress had been informed of the decision on 29 September^4,5.

Why it mattered

By the end of 1970, according to the Office of the Historian, Pakistan had become the key conduit for communication with the People's Republic of China and for arranging Kissinger's secret trip⁶. The one-time arms offer drew criticism in India and in Congress, and became controversial after the army's crackdown in East Pakistan began in March 1971^5,7. Discussions between American and Pakistani military representatives on the details of the package began within a week of its becoming public⁵. For Pakistan, the meeting confirmed that its value to Washington now rested less on the old alliances than on its unique access to Beijing^6,7.