Evening star., 1954-10-10
Pokiston Premier to Visit Here Thursday
By Earl H. yoss

all things American that, IN 1852,
he found himself with bets down
ON both Dwight Eisenhower and Ad-
lai Stevenson to win In the presi-
DENTAL election.
At the time, Mr.. Ali was Pakis-
tan's ambassador in Washington.
With any other diplomat. this hedg-
ing Of bets might have beep con-
sidered Just an example OF flneSse.
But with Mr.. Ali, his twin wagers
were not merely diplomatic act:
they were an act of faith. In his
book, America can do very little.
II any, wrong.
Since the day he paid Of one bet
and collected on the other. Mr.. Ali
has moved back home to Karachi
and up to the post Of prime minis
ter Of PakiStan, the seventh most
populous country in the world. Now.
as one Of the United States top
rooters in Asia, he returns to WASH
ington Thursday for his first visit
since he left a year ago last April.
One Of the many things that dis
tinguiSh Mohammed Ali from his
chief antagonist, Prime Minister
Jawaharlal Nehru Of neighboring
India. is his attitude toward the
United States. Where MIR. Nehru
holds, with mystical snobbery. that
America is hopelessly begged down
in materialism and has no time
for things of the spirit, Mr.. Ali
believes that spiritual strength is
precisely the thing that has raised
the United States to its material
pre- -eminence. He likes Americas
nickels and dimes-the symbols of
American materialism. He likes even
better the fact that every coin bears
the words, I'm God We Trust" And
perhaps, best of all, Mr.. Ali likes
the endless variety of American
gadgets from Sd cameras to con-
vertible Cadillacs.
U. S. as Model
In America he sees an image Of
what Pakistan must become. Not SO
long ago. he recalls, America was an
agricultural nation like Pakistan
today. Dazzlingly swift industrializa-
ton made America great. the Prime
Minister knows, and he hopes PAX
istan can duplicate the performance.
Mr.. Ali is one of those rarities
among our allies who admires us not
only for our objectives, like anti
communism, but for our methods as
well. He finds both our political
parties refreshingly enlightened.
That explains why he sincerely
thought either of the 1852 candi-
dates would have made good presi-
dent.
For all his admiration, however,
there is nothing of the abject in
his attitude toward American poll
ticians. He has had too much ex-
perience himself to feel any urge to
sit at their feet. At the compare
lively tender age of As (his birthday
is week from Tuesday, Mr.. Ali
already has 20 years Of political ex-
perience behind him.
When he was 16, young Mo-
manned Ali served as private secre-
tary for his grandfather, the first
Muslin Minister Of Bengal under
the British Raj. This desire to make
something Of himself was in itself
unique In British India, where rich
mems sons had a long tradition of
sitting back and living off the fat
of the land.
Mayor at 20
After graduating from the Uni
versity of Calcutta at the age of 20,
young Ali was elected mayor of his
home town of Bogra, in East Ben
gal (now East Pakistan). From the
city administration he moved into
the Bengal Legislature, in which he
served 10 years under British rule
and two more years after Pakistan
became Independent. He was Min
lister of Finance and Health the last
year under British rule.
It was as practicing politician,
then, as well as an ambassador, that
Mr.. Ali went out to Chicago in the
steaming summer Of 1852 to watch
the Republican and Democratic
conventions. What he saw was not
all new and strange to him. AS q
matter of fact, he found room for
improvement.
Floor generalShip, for instance,
could have been better at both con-
ventions, in his opinion. Speakers
were scheduled willy-nilly, he found,
without any regard to psychological
moments. In Pakistan, the strong
orators are carefully placed at the
opening and closing points, where
they can do the most good, or dam
age, as the case may be.
When you get right down to 1t.
Mohammed Ali is most improba-
BILE leader Of q most improbable
state. The man had been out of
the country for four and one-half
years when he was called to be
prime minister. Just as surprisingly,
the governor-general tapped a man
from East PakiStan, although the
national government is heavily DOM
mated by men of West Pakistan
who took over the top jobs from
the British when they left.
The country's most obvious claim
to improbability is it's freak geo.
graphical construction. It's eastern
sector is separated from its western
part by more than 1000 miles of
hostile (Indian) territory. It is as If
Maryland and Virginia had decided
to form a separate nation with
Texas and Oklahoma, and as II the
"A ue