The two leaders arrived at Tashkent, within an hour of each other, on January 3.  Marathon three-way meetings began soon thereafter. The Soviet hosts had so arranged that Shastri and Ayub had a villa each to himself, and nearby hotels accommodated their delegations. There was a “neutral villa” nearby where Shastri and Ayub held their meetings or Kosygin met the two together.

 For President Lyndon Johnson of the US this was a highly embarrassing situation. Pakistan was accusing him of “betrayal” of America’s “most allied ally”; India of having failed to live up to solemn American pledges that Pakistan “would never be allowed to use US-supplied weapons against India”. What made LBJ squirm the most was that Kosygin had become the mediator in a region from where America had vowed to keep the Soviet Union out. Yet he had no option but fully to support Kosygin’s initiative. Johnson was indeed the invisible presence at Tashkent all through the talks.

 By the evening of January 9 the talks had almost collapsed because there was no agreement on the issues that were on the top of the two leaders’ agendas. Shastri wanted the essence of a No-War pact to be incorporated in the document to emerge from Tashkent. Ayub would not hear of it but insisted that the two countries must set up a “self-executing machinery” to resolve Kashmir. Shastri rejected the idea out of hand.

 However, Kosygin, through Herculean efforts, persuaded the two leaders to accept a deftly worded draft that met their minimum aspirations and bypassed their main demands. It was no surprise therefore that the much-vaunted Tashkent spirit evaporated rather fast (as indeed did the subsequent Shimla spirit and Lahore spirit). Agra had generated only acrimony.

... contd.