PAKISTAN COUNTRY READER TABLE OF CONTENTS David D. Newsom 1947-1950 Information Officer, USIS, Karachi Merritt N. Cootes 1947-1949 Acting Principal Officer, Lahore 1949-1951 Public Affairs Officer, Karachi James W.S. Spain 1951-1953 Cultural Affairs Officer, USIS, Karachi 1969 Chargé d’Affaires, Islamabad William J. Crockett 1952-1954 Administrative Officer, Karachi Roy O. Carlson 1953-1954 Vice Consul, Dacca Edward E. Masters 1953-1954 Political Officer, Karachi John O. Bell 1955-1957 Chief of U.S. Operations Mission, ICA, Karachi Jane Abell Coon 1957-1959 Political Officer, Karachi Michael P.E. Hoyt 1957-1959 Administrative / Consular Officer, Karachi Ridgway B. Knight 1957-1959 Minister Counselor, Karachi Charles E. Marthinsen 1957-1959 Economic/Commercial Officer, Dacca Stanley D. Schiff 1957-1959 Economic Officer, Karachi Dennis Kux 1957-1960 Economic Officer, Karachi 1969-1971 Political Officer, Islamabad Royal D. Bisbee 1958-1961 Branch Public Affairs Officer, Lahore Christopher Van Hollen 1958-1961 Political Officer, Karachi, Rawalpindi, and Islamabad William M. Rountree 1959-1962 Ambassador, Pakistan William E. Hutchinson 1959-1963 Deputy Public Affairs Officer, USIS, Karachi L. Bruce Laingen 1960-1964 Political Officer, Karachi 1965-1967 Office Director, Pakistan and Afghanistan Affairs, Washington, DC 1971-1973 Country Director for Pakistan and Afghanistan, Washington, DC Ben Franklin Dixon 1962-1964 Political-Military Assistant, Karachi Archer K. Blood 1962-1964 Political Officer and Deputy Principal Officer, Dacca 1970-1971 Consul General, Dacca R. Grant Smith 1963-1964 Rotation Officer, Karachi 1970-1972 India Desk Officer, Washington, DC Maurice Williams 1963-1967 Director, USAID, Karachi Raymond C. Ewing 1964-1966 Executive Assistant, USIS, Lahore Raymond Malley 1964-1969 Assistant Director, USAID, Karachi Jordan Thomas Rogers 1965-1968 Economic Counselor, Karachi 1968-1969 Deputy Chief of Mission, Rawalpindi C. William Kontos 1967-1968 Mission Director, USAID, Lahore Andrew I. Killgore 1967-1970 Political Officer, Dacca R. Barry Fulton 1968-1970 Rotation Officer, Islamabad 1970-1971 Director, American cultural Center, USIS, Karachi Vincent W. Brown 1968-1972 Deputy Director, USAID, Lahore Peter D. Constable 1968-1970 Political Officer and Deputy Principal Officer, Lahore 1971-1972 India-Pakistan Desk Officer, Washington, DC 1973-1976 Office Director for Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, Washington, DC 1976-1979 Deputy Chief of Mission, Islamabad Joseph S. Farland 1969-1972 Ambassador, Pakistan August Velletri 1969-1973 Consul General, Peshawar Sidney Sober 1969-1973 Deputy Chief of Mission, Islamabad Joseph J. Sisco 1969-1974 Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs, Washington, DC Leonardo M. Williams 1970-1971 Director, American Center, USIS, Karachi Edward C. Ingraham 1971-1974 Counselor for Political Affairs, Islamabad Harold H. Saunders 1971 South Asia Specialist, National Security Council, Washington, DC 1974-1976 Near East Affairs, Washington, DC 1978-1981 Near East Affairs, Washington, DC George G. B. Griffin 1972-1973 Political Officer, Islamabad 1973-1975 Deputy Principal Officer, Lahore Douglas R. Keene 1973-1975 Consul, Karachi Henry Byroade 1973-1977 Ambassador, Pakistan Teresita C. Schaffer 1974-1977 Deputy Chief, Economic Section, Islamabad Steven W. Sinding 1975-1978 Population Officer, USAID, Karachi Richard M. Cashin 1977-1978 Director, USAID, Islamabad Arthur W. Hummel, Jr. 1977-1981 Ambassador, Pakistan James P. Thurber, Jr. 1978-1981 Public Affairs Officer, USIS, Islamabad Stephen Eisenbraun 1978-1981 Consular Officer, Lahore Teresita C. Schaffer 1979-1980 Deputy Director, Pakistan, Afghanistan & Bangladesh, Washington, DC Richard St. F. Post 1979-1982 Consul General, Karachi Barrington King 1979-1984 Deputy Chief of Mission, Islamabad Louise Taylor 1980 Afghan, Pakistan Desk Officer, USIA, Washington, DC Teresa Chin Jones 1980-1982 Science Officer, Oceans, International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, Washington, DC Ronald I. Spiers 1981-1983 Ambassador, Pakistan Donor M. Lion 1981-1985 Director, USAID, Islamabad Marilyn P. Johnson 1982-1985 Public Affairs Officer, USIS, Islamabad Albert A. Thibault 1983-1986 Deputy Principal Officer, Lahore 1986-1988 Principal Officer, Lahore John T. McCarthy 1985-1988 Deputy Chief of Mission, Islamabad Morton I. Abramowitz 1986 Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Washington, DC Douglas Watson 1986-1987 Administrative Counselor, Islamabad Arma Jane Karaer 1986-1988 Deputy Principal Officer, Karachi Edmund McWilliams 1988-1989 Special Envoy, Islamabad Louise Taylor 1988-1990 South Asia Desk Officer, USIA, Washington, DC Robert B. Oakley 1988-1991 Ambassador, Pakistan A. Ellen Shippy 1988-1991 Deputy Principal Officer, Karachi Phyllis E. Oakley 1989-1991 USAID Staff, Islamabad William Lenderking 1989-1992 Public Affairs officer, USIS, Islamabad C. David Esch 1989-1993 Human Resource Development Officer, USAID, Pakistan Nicholas Platt 1991-1992 Ambassador, Pakistan C. David Esch 1993 Pakistan Desk Officer, Washington, DC Michael G. Anderson 1996-1998 Political Officer, Islamabad Janey Dea Cole 1999-2000 Cultural Affairs Officer, Islamabad Kenton W. Keith 2001 Coalition Information Center, Islamabad DAVID D. NEWSOM Information Officer, USIS Karachi (1947-1950) David D. Newsom was born in California in 1918. He graduated from the University of California in 1938 and from Columbia University in 1940. He served overseas in the U.S. Navy from 1942 to 1946 and entered the Foreign Service in 1947. He served in many countries including Pakistan, Iraq, the United Kingdom, Libya, Indonesia, and the Philippines. He was interviewed by Charles Stuart Kennedy on June 17, 1991. Q: What was the situation in Pakistan in the 1948-50 period? NEWSOM: The partition of India had been accomplished hurriedly. The British, and particularly Mountbatten, was not sympathetic to the creation of Pakistan. That meant that the government of Pakistan, established in August, 1947 in Karachi, was a government without any resources, files, equipment or any of the necessities required to operate. I remember some notes that we exchanged with the new government: we typed not only our note to them, but their reply to us as well on our typewriters because they didn't have any in the Foreign Ministry. Karachi had been a city of 350,000 people before partition; about 125,000 of those were Hindus or Parsi who left for India. In return, 500 to 600 thousands Muslim refugees had flowed into the city. When we arrived, Karachi was an over-crowded city with people sleeping on sidewalks with all of their meager possessions -- little bundles that stood besides them. Some did not rise in the mornings and were carted away. The remnants of the bitter communal riots between Muslims and Sikhs of the Punjab were still very much in evidence. The day before we arrived witnessed that last communal riot in Karachi with about 125 Sikhs being killed in the center of the city. So Karachi was a city under great stress. The diplomatic corps was housed mostly in one hotel. The American Embassy had been fortunate because it benefitted by a deal that a Parsi had made with the government which protected his house, which was next to our residence, from government seizure in return for him building three houses for the diplomatic corps behind the residence. We, the Newsoms, got one of those houses because we had a child and that put us on a priority list. We shared that house with another family -- the Josephs -- for three months. The house had no screens, no air conditioning which were almost essential in Karachi and the house was very basic. Karachi was without a doubt a hardship post by American standards, but it was a post where a small group of American Foreign Service people would work well together in the face of adversity. The group was led first by Charge Charles William Lewis, then Paul Alling came as the first Ambassador. He developed cancer shortly after arrival and died within a few months. Hooker Doolittle, who had been Consul General in Lahore, was brought to Karachi to act as Chargé until the new Ambassador arrived. Hooker was one of the great characters of the Foreign Service. His grand-daughter, I believe still lives in the Washington area. He once told me that he would never be an Ambassador, but that he had a lot of fun in the Foreign Service being independent. He had lost his household effects four times during his career; the first time was in the Russian revolution when he had been Consul in Tbilisi. He had married a Russian lady and spent his honeymoon being evacuated on a destroyer from Tbilisi. Then he had been Consul in Bilbao at the time of the Spanish civil war. Then he was in Tunis when the Germans invaded and in Lahore at the time of partition. He was a man who felt intensely about individuals, sometimes with positive effects as when he gave courageous support to Bourguiba when they were both in Tunis. He recognized that this was a man of destiny in his country and incurred the unending enmity of the French by his support. That was even noticeable in Karachi when we were there. On the other hand, Hooker took a very negative view of Nehru. He wrote a piece of doggerel verse called "Pandit, the Bandit" which reflected his views of the origins of the Kashmir problem. Later on during my Karachi tour, Merritt Cootes came as public affairs officer. He and I figured out that Doolittle must have typed this poem in multiple copies on his typewriter and that he could not have typed more that seven copies. In the interest of US-India relations, we tried to retrieve the copies as they appeared. We thought we had them all. One day, Walter Lippmann came to town and to our amazement and horror we saw Doolittle and Lippmann sitting on a swinging sofa in the garden with Doolittle reading the eighth and last remaining copy of his poem. Doolittle was very much a man of the old school -- charming, but who worked in the morning and then had two or three pink gins for lunch and spent the afternoon bargaining for carpets and other similar activities.