"Pakistan's Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan was the first elected head of Government of a Muslim State who I invited to pay an official visit to the United States of America in May 1950 and he and his wife, Begum Ra'ana Liaquat Ali Khan, made an excellent impression on us". These words were uttered by ex-President Harry S Truman when I interviewed him on October 5, 1957, in Kansas city while touring the USA under its government's Leader Exchange Programme. Speaking of Pakistan with warmth and friendship, Truman recalled that the US Government was one of the first countries to recognise the new State of Pakistan and he and his Secretary of State, George Marshall, had rushed the US Consul-General in Morocco to Karachi to represent the US government in the Pakistan Independence Day ceremony on August 14, 1947 with a message of warm greetings and good wishes from the White House.

Truman also recalled how he had placed a US Air Force aircraft at the disposal of the UN Secretary-General, Trygve Lie, to fly the members of the UN Commission for India and Pakistan (UNCIP) to the sub-continent in pursuance of the efforts of the UN Security Council to settle the Kashmir dispute peacefully. Liaquat Ali Khan had forcefully projected the Pakistani viewpoint vis-a-vis the explosive Kashmir issue in his keynote addresses to the US Senate and learned bodies in New York, Chicago, Kansas, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Houston, New Orleans, Boston and Washington DC.

On his return to Pakistan, Liaquat Ali Khan said in a broadcast from Radio Pakistan in June 1950: "This visit not only enabled me to see the American people and their wonderful country but also gave me an occasion to inform the inhabitants of that country about the birth of Pakistan, its short but eventful history and the Islamic way of life adopted as an ideal by the people of my country."

The high regard President Truman had for Liaquat Ali Khan was reflected in his touching massage of condolences to the Government and people of Pakistan on the Prime Minister's tragic assassination in Rawalpindi on October 16, 1951: "The American Government and people will share with me the sorrow which has come to the Pakistani nation with such sudden impact. I know the memory of Liaquat Ali Khan's wise leadership and statesmanship will long remain a guide and inspiration to the Government and the people of Pakistan." The fact that President Truman personally went to the Airport nearest to Washington DC to greet and welcome Liaquat Ali Khan and Begum Rana Liaquat Ali Khan showed the esteem and respect in which he held Pakistan and its head of Government has been the recipient of this singular honour from the US President.

When Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan visited the USA, Pakistan was non-aligned between the US-led Western Bloc and the Soviet-led Eastern Bloc and it had recognised the Communist-led People's Republic of China, ignoring Washington's opposition to Peking. PM Liaquat Ali Khan's Pakistan was not the recipient of any foreign aid although the Cold War's two giant gladiators were looking for more allies, offering them money and arms.

Aside from the very useful one-to-one talks which Liaquat Ali Khan had with President Truman on May 4, 1950 in the White House, the start event of his US tour was his brilliant address to the US Senate in Washington DC. Donning a perfectly tailored dark blue suit and a black Jinnah fur cap, Liaquat Ali Khan delivered one of the finest orations of his life before the US Senators, giving the raison d'etre for Pakistan, the meaning of the Islamic way of life and the devotion of Pakistani Muslims to it, Pakistan's policy of maximum protection to the non-Muslim minorities and the Muslims' heroic struggle for Pakistan under the matchless leadership of Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah. In resonant words, he articulated Pakistan's resolve to promote peace and goodwill in the world and its wish for friendly relations with India by settling the Kashmir issue through the UN peacefully.

In 1971, when I was on deputation to the Embassy of Pakistan in Washington DC, I heard from many a US Senator words of high praise for Liaquat Ali Khan's address to the US Senate in May 1950. Senator Strom Thrummed, Chairman of the Armed Services Committee and one of the longest serving US Senators, considered him one of the ablest leaders from Asia and recalled his remarkable command over the English language. In the National Press Club in Washington DC I met some eminent journalists who had attended Liaquat Ali Khan's address and press conference there in May 1950 and they said they had felt immensely impressed by his personality and his lucid exposition of the Pakistani viewpoint in impeccable English. His address to the Columbia University where General Dwight Eisenhower, its President and future President of the USA, gave the Pakistani leader a rousing welcome and a Doctorate, was brilliantly worded, brimming with wisdom, a concern for world peace and goodwill unto all nations, the rationale for creating the Muslim majority State of Pakistan and a strong wish for enduring US-Pakistan friendships.

A keynote of Liaquat Ali Khan's public speeches in the USA was his unequivocal defence of Pakistan's resolve to adhere to the Islamic way of life, just as the Americans had adopted the Christian way of life. While countering the miasma of lies and misgivings which Pakistan's enemies had spread about Pakistan in the USA since the day it was conceived, Liaquat Ali Khan said in his June, 1950 broadcast from Radio Pakistan in Karachi:" When the fundamental principles of Islam were explained to the people of America, they experienced a pleasant surprise. We explained to them our belief that Islam represented the highest stage of human evolution.....Islam is a religion, which inculcates the spirit of equality, fraternity and democracy... God loves the diligent ...every man should be allowed to get the fruit of legitimate labour. No religion considers the acquisition of knowledge as necessary as Islam... Minorities in Pakistan have the same rights as the Muslims in the country".

Less than a month before his American tour, Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan, in order to prevent a dangerous worsening of Indo-Pakistan relations, flew to New Delhi on a high-risk mission of peace and signed the famous Liaquat-Nehru Pact with Premier Nehru of India on April 8, 1950. It was a bold stroke of statesmanship on his part and it was extensively covered in the US print and electronic media. Under this Agreement, the Governments of India and Pakistan pledged to safeguard the rights and security of the religious minorities in their respective countries. While expounding Pakistan's case on the Kashmir issue, Liaquat Ali Khan used temperate language throughout his US tour, avoiding florid rhetoric and emphasising Pakistan's resolve to abide by the UN Security Council's Kashmir plebiscite resolutions. This assurance he also gave to President Truman, the UN Secretary-General Trygve Lie and the international community. Some parts of Liaquat Ali Khan's addresses in the USA and Canada were drafted by Pakistan's Ambassador to the United Nations, A S Bokhari (pseudonym Patras) whose command over the English language was well known when he taught as a professor at the Punjab University in Lahore in the 1940s.

Removing the cobwebs of misunderstandings in the USA about the status and rights of women in Pakistan, Liaquat Ali Khan declared. "... Today the women of Pakistan enjoy the same status and rights as those enjoyed by their sisters in any other country of the world... the part which our womenfolk played and the services which they rendered in the achievement of Pakistan are by no means less than those rendered by men... there is no aspect of our life in Pakistan in which our women are not doing their share of work. They have not only the right of adult franchise but they have also been elected to the legislative assemblies and they are performing their duties very efficiently."

All through his US tour, Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan's effort was to portrait Pakistan as a politically and economically stable country. In his meetings with the USA's top industrialists and business magnates, his plea was for their help in boosting the tempo of industrialisation in Pakistan and giving it the benefit of their advanced technology and expertise.

In his meetings with American officials and the leaders of industry, banking and trade, he meticulously avoided giving the slightest hint that Pakistan was interested in getting American largess. On returning home, Premier Liaquat Ali said to Pakistanis: "The people in America were also highly impressed by the fact that for the last three years, ever since its creation, Pakistan has presented a balanced budget and has been maintaining a favourable trade balance with other countries." Besides visiting America's giant industrial establishments and banking institutions, Liaquat Ali Khan saw a number of agricultural research centres there and witnessed farming being done by the most modern mechanical methods. He said: "There is hardly any side of life in America which escaped our stady. We examined everything with a view to studying the extent to which it could be transferred to Pakistan. Not for a moment did we lose sight of the interest and progress of Pakistan..."

In the early 1950s, the Pakistani community in the USA was small. Mr And Begum Liaquat Ali Khan's US tour in May 1950 was a high-pressure tour which spanned a dozen US cities. But they met the local Pakistanis in these cities with warmth and fraternal affinity, assuring them that Pakistan had come to stay and it would always welcome them as their mother country. Begum Liaquat Ali Khan visited a large number of women's social service institutions and established contacts with them for the All Pakistan Women's Association (APWA), which she had founded soon after Pakistan's birth to serve the women of Pakistan.

Despite the success of his US tour, Premier Liaquat Ali's Government did not make any drastic change in its foreign policy of semi-non-alignment in the East-West tug-of-war. In the UN Security Council, it did oppose North Korea's aggression against pro-American South Korea but sent no Pakistani combat troops to join the UN force on the Korean Peninsula because of the explosive situation in the disputed State of Jammu and Kashmir. Along with his US tour, Premier Liaquat paid an official visit to Canada where Prime Minister Mackenzie King and his Government and people gave him and his wife an enthusiastic welcome. Together, the two Prime Ministers laid the enduring foundations of Pakistan-Canada friendship and economic co-operation.