From the biography: How UN General Secretary U Thant tried to stop a war over Kashmir in 1965

In early August 1965, high in the Himalayan foothills, United Nations military observers spotted convoys of buses from Pakistan crossing the ceasefire line in Kashmir, known as the Line of Control. The observers had been anxious for months; there had been a sharp increase in armed violence and now their worst fears were coming true. Over the following week, thousands of Pakistani soldiers, disguised in the long loose gowns of local civilians, attacked Indian positions in four different parts of Kashmir. “We could be busy for a while,” the UN commander, the Australian general Robert Nimmo, reported to New York.

Like many of the conflicts that ended up in the lap of the UN, the Kashmir situation was a legacy of colonial rule. In 1947, the British partitioned its Indian Empire into two independent states, India and Pakistan, based on the religious majority, Hindu or Muslim, in various regions. Both claimed Kashmir, a principality about the size of the United Kingdom or California, which was strategically located along the borders of both China and the Soviet Union. Kashmir had a Muslim majority, but in late 1947 the ruling prince had opted to join India. War quickly ensued (with British generals commanding both armies), and when it ended, the newly formed UN was tasked with “observing” the ceasefire. Over the years and on countless occasions, the observers had helped to end skirmishes and dampen tensions.

Attempts at talks to resolve the dispute went nowhere. Both governments believed that Kashmir belonged to them by right, and few on either side wanted to budge. India accelerated plans to integrate Kashmir into its territory. The government in Pakistan, led by President Mohammed Ayub Khan, saw military action as their only possible response. After being routed by the Chinese in a short, sharp war in 1962, India had drawn closer to Moscow, and was determined to boost its strength with new Soviet hardware. The Pakistanis, in turn, were buying the latest military equipment from a Johnson administration eager to sell arms and forge closer ties.

President Khan had recently opened a new front hundreds of miles to the southwest of Kashmir, in the desolate salt marshes known as the Rann of Kutch. Harold Wilson mediated a temporary agreement. Khan took this as a sign of weakness on the part of Indian Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri and began infiltrating his men across the Line of Control in Kashmir. By late August 1965, uniformed Pakistani troops were added to the mix and a full-scale invasion of Indian Kashmir was underway. India scrambled at first to defend its positions and then counterattacked.

Thant summoned Nimmo to New York. The Australian general had been sending a stream of battlefield assessments, but the Secretary-General wanted a better sense of the thinking on both sides as well as Nimmo’s views on the options for diplomacy. Muslim countries sympathised with Pakistan’s claim to Muslim-majority Kashmir, but few if any governments wanted a war, and certainly not a prolonged one that might trigger big-power confrontation. There was also the spectre of a new wave of bloody communal violence among Hindus, Sikhs, and Muslims across the subcontinent; partition in 1947 had led to between one and two million deaths. Thant first floated the idea of sending Bunche as a mediator, but after discussion with Nimmo and Bunche, he decided to go himself.

On September 1, the Secretary-General issued a public appeal to both President Khan and Prime Minister Shastri to end the fighting “in the interest of the world,” and withdraw troops to their respective sides of the Line of Control. He understood, he said, “the complexities of the issues involved,” but trusted they could be solved without violence. The next day, he released a report to the Security Council based on Nimmo’s assessments, confirming India’s account that Pakistani infiltration had started the present round of conflict. For some time, he had been pestering the Council to meet, and he now pressed harder, as he wanted a clear mandate before heading to the subcontinent.

Harold Wilson, who had been fishing for another mediation role, threw his government’s support behind Thant and mobilised backing from other Commonwealth countries. As important, the non-aligned states, led by Egypt’s Nasser, Ghana’s Nkrumah, and Yugoslavia’s Tito, offered any help that Thant might request. The Americans, irritated by Thant’s continued musings and manoeuvres on Vietnam, agreed that he was the man for what they suspected might be a thankless job.

On September 2, President Johnson assembled his most senior advisors and military chiefs. Both India and Pakistan were recipients of substantial American assistance, including food aid. Pakistan was a Cold War ally, but for the Americans to intervene on the side of Pakistan would destroy relations with India and accelerate India’s embrace of Moscow. On the other hand, not helping Pakistan would bring China and Pakistan closer together. And other allies, such as Turkey and Iran, might start to question Washington’s commitment to their defence.

Dean Rusk painted an apocalyptic scenario in which the war touched off intercommunal riots, leaving millions dead and destabilising the entire “Western position” in Asia. The Secretary-General, Rusk told the president, had issued an appeal and the US had made known its strong support.

Johnson wasn’t much moved. “We should get behind a log and sleep a bit,” the president told his assembled aides. He had discovered, he said, over recent months, “how little influence he had with both the Paks and the Indians.” He didn’t want to intervene and would like to “sit it out.”

Rusk tried again for a more dynamic American role, bringing up Washington’s unique position of having armed both sides. “Let U Thant do it,” Johnson instructed. “Let’s hide behind that log.”

On September 4, the Security Council finally convened and agreed in rapid succession on two resolutions calling for a ceasefire between India and Pakistan. Both the US and the USSR lined up behind Thant. With relations between Moscow and Peking at an all-time low, the Soviets wanted to see the war halted before China intervened on the side of Pakistan. This, they feared, would not only prove a political win for China but might compel the Americans to up their support for India, leaving the Soviets without the strong relationship with Delhi that they had been cultivating for years. At Thant’s urging, the Council called on him to “extend every possible effort” to stop the fighting.5 It was the mandate he desired.

Rusk advised Johnson that the Secretary-General’s mission gave “a chance for the two countries to pull back from the abyss.”6 The president offered Thant the use of Air Force One, but Thant demurred. He couldn’t appear to be an American agent. In his reply, he said only that he would feel “awkward” in such a big plane with just a few people.

On the eve of his departure, The New York Times ran a portrait of Thant titled “Fighter for Peace,” declaring that hopes for a halt to the war now were carried on the shoulders of a “short, neat, round-faced man” who had over the past four years “demonstrated his ability to deal coolly and quietly with crises.” Westerners might be critical of him on issues like “Red China’s seat at the UN,” but that was precisely his value, the paper of record assessed, as he could not be accused by Asians of holding “colonialist views.”

That week, with battle raging in Kashmir, Prime Minister Shastri ordered a massive armored thrust, not in Kashmir but in the densely populated plains further south, right into the heart of Pakistan.

On September 7, Thant boarded a BOAC flight to London. With him were Bunche’s deputy, Brian Urquhart, his press assistant Ramses Nassif, and a security aide. It wasn’t entirely clear how Thant and his team would reach the Pakistani government in Rawalpindi, much less cross the front lines and get to Delhi. The Pakistani and Indian air forces were engaged in fierce combat, flying dozens of sorties daily. There were reports too of Pakistani commandos being parachuted behind Indian positions and attacking airfields. Urquhart frantically coordinated logistics with United Nations staff and governments around the world. Speed was important – but they had to arrive in one piece.

Excerpted with permission from Peacemaker: U Thant, the United Nations and the Untold Story of the 1960s, Thant Myint-U, Juggernaut.