[1]Ayub Khan really knew how to sell his country to extend his rule !! But he was not the only one,Air Marshal Asghar Khan remained the Favourite blue eyed from 1957 to 1965 and a American die-heart to the boot-Read his book ,”We’ve Learnt Nothing From History’ Oxford press-2005.He blames every body under the sun,-But Not a word will you find on Badaber in his book,my question is? was-it not related to the Airforce Matters and the Peshawar Airbase was the transit point- no? Where was the Nationalist within him then ?? He should have resigned,and exposed the designs of Ayub Khan-however,like all the rest of the minions’ he served his master[Ayub khan] and his mentor’s[Americans] to the best of his ability- Eight years of service as C IN C Airforce, had its share of extensions- No ? and he beats Ayub in his[Ayub would have completed his 8 years on 17 Jan 1959]-I am sure Pakistan Airforce had many officers to fill his shoes-had he put in his papers and said,yes I have done my Tenure let XYZ take on ? but then would the new Airchief been a willing tool to coordinate with the Americans in the U2 project,since its inception and its related teething problems ?? [2]-”Ayub Khan after he took over on 28th Oct 1958-signed a 10 years lease agreement with the Americans for a base station at Badaber-Peshawar-so that U2 could fly from Lahore & Peshawar to spy on the Soviet Union. [3] Sultan M.Khan observes that,’given the total dependence of Ayub khan’s Government on the USA by then”,the conclusion of such an agreement was not a surprise,but what was surprising was the ”Extra-Territorial Rights which Pakistan was Conceding to USA,at Badaber.Pakistanis were totally excluded from the operations there and could not enter the base without U.S approval” [4]The main reason why Americans were dying to have a Spy station in Peshawar was that-the largest Soviet space launching facility was at Baikonur on the Syr Darya [river] south of Kazakistan the distance between Islamabad and Astana the capital of Kazakhistan remains 1217 miles and Astana is to the north whereas Baikonur touches the southern border with Uzbekistan,and the range of a U2 was 6405 miles with a top speed of 500 MPH,flying at 70,000 plus feet. [5]Like the other two later dictators,who survived due to the Americans,interests in our region, the luck of Ayub Khan too changed as the need by the Americans arose to put him on the saddle, on 4th of Oct 1957,the Soviet union had launched its first satellite,’Sputnik’,and followed it with yet another on 3rd November-1957.A new frontier was born and the soviets were regarded world over as the first to have entered it-The reaction in USA was sheer panic,after the first American satellite,exploded on the launch pad-U.S prestige hit the rock bottom.It was the ‘Sputnik Crisis’ which led to the creation of NASA by USA and and it was the start point of the ‘Space Race’ A term coined by the US president, Eisenhower .This phobia reached the climax starting 1958-When ‘Khrushchev,declared that U.S.S.R was about launch,’Intercontinental ballistic missiles’[ICBM]and produce them like ‘Sausages’,,the result of this Soviet bravado was that amongst the american’s -a strong perception grew ,that, if U.S.S.R won the race in ICBM they would gain a decisive military edge over USA-which led to a urgent need to step up the surveillance of Soviet missile sites-Suddenly Pakistan’s importance as the next door neighbour with ideal location for Airbases- indusperson.wordpress/2014/06/01/the-coup-of-1958-part-5/
Posted on: Sun, 01 Jun 2014 13:59:52 +0000
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