My dear Sir

Only a few lines to let you know that I am discharging my responsibilities here to the best of my ability. I shall write you a detailed report of my work on my return to Pakistan and I am sure you will be satisfied with the manner in which I have done my humble best to serve the interests of my country and my president.

I would like to take this opportunity to reassure you of my imperishable and devoted loyalty to you. Exactly four months before the death of my late father, he had advised me to remain steadfastly loyal to you, as you were 'not an individual but an institution'. For the greater good of my own country, I feel that your services to Pakistan are indispensable. When the history of our country is written... your name will be placed even before that of Mr. Jinnah. Sir, I say this because I mean it and not because you are the president of my country.

If I have the conviction and the courage to enter into a dispute with a former prime minister, I do not think I could be found guilty of the charge of flattery.

If you and the Begum Sahiba require anything from here, please do not hesitate to order me for it.

"With profound respects both to you and to the Begum Sahiba...".

Gross flattery, or subtle flattery? This is how the champion of Pakistan's democracy, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, began his political life - on the Persian axis, thanks to an alliance between two well-meaning wives of Irani descent married to two ambitious men. Bhutto undoubtedly was duly grateful to his own wife for having secured his entry to Iskander Mirza's darbar and thus onto the bottom rung of his chosen slippery ladder.

His first public appointment was as leader of our delegation to the United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea at Geneva. To Mirza, the young, highly educated 'brilliant' up-and-coming barrister was a fitting choice and it was from Geneva, in April 1958, that he addressed his letter to 'my president'.

When Bhutto returned from Europe bearing gifts for his president, Mirza decided to reward him and early in October of that same year, after the first imposition of martial law, he was appointed a cabinet minister. During that fateful October, Bhutto endeared himself to the army commander-in-chief and defence minister, General Ayub Khan by his willingness, shrewdness, flair and efficiency, and was thus suitably rewarded when Ayub turfed out Mirza and mounted the tiger. Bhutto was then appointed foreign minister and proved himself both abroad and at home.

On the home front, as secretary general of Ayub's Convention Muslim League, he excelled himself by masterminding his military master's triumphant victory against the democratic forces of the Madar-i-Millat in the 1964 elections.

It was somewhere around this period of his career that he was heard to mutter: 'The only way to get rid of a general is to take him to war and make him lose it.' And that was precisely what he did, ably assisted by a handful of fellow patriots. No matter that the 1965 war was lost; it served its purpose.

It gave rise to the non-existent 'Tashkent secret', and it successfully killed his love affair with Ayub, leaving Bhutto free to move on his own. He managed his sacking by his 1966 bid for power, and he then managed to get into jail - the place from where 'heros' emerge. His dismissal and imprisonment sparked off riots, revolts and demonstrations and Ayub, ill and tired, dismounted and handed over the reins to Yahya Khan.

To Zulfikar's credit must go the fact that it is he who is responsible for our army having produced, so far, one field marshal, his role in the elevation being a closely guarded secret until revealed by him in 1976 when he made an honest admission in a note he addressed to his foreign secretary and chief of army staff:

"I will tell you how Ayub Khan became a field marshal..... He told me in Nathiagali in 1959 that he was worried over the quarrel between General Moosa and General Habibullah ... he asked me for my advice on how to place himself head and shoulders above their squabbles.... I told him one way was to show complete impartiality.... and I made the other suggestion rather cynically.... I told him it would be better if he elevated his own rank from that of general to field marshal. He thought it a brilliant idea. He was simply overjoyed ... 'the idea is brilliant, it will create stability'.... I am therefore the hero of Ayub Khan's valorous battles. Of course, the object of this note is not to dismantle the man ... I am only setting the record straight."

Now, it was President Field Marshal Ayub Khan who, to all intents and purposes, caused Rangila Raja President General Agha Mohammad Yahya Khan to become the first man in this country's history to hold truly 'free and fair' elections. As for Yahya, it can be said, fairly and squarely, that it was due to him that Bhutto was enabled to make his final leap to the top.

Bhutto, of course, was not averse to martial law which was such a help to him on his way up, and he continues to hold an honoured place in our history books as the first civilian chief martial law administrator at the head of the fourth of our martial law governments. His career, at all its phases, involved martial law or an 'emergency' of one type or another. Try as he might, he could not get away from it. It inducted, elevated, deposed and finally killed him.

Are there such men who now surround this president who may urge him to become our second field marshal? Pervez Musharraf so far has his feet on the ground. His expressed wish is to wage war against terrorism, extremism, bigotry, intolerance and all the other isms which have a stranglehold on the progress of this country and hustle us back hundreds of years.

His wish is to enforce law and order, and to rid the country of its many laws embodying extremism, including importantly the iniquitous blasphemy laws. He has realized that one top priority is to control the population of Pakistan as it is unable to sustain its present numbers, let alone the future projected numbers; and he well knows the necessity and value of education.

In these past days this month, he has undoubtedly made a major blunder by unnecessarily deciding to hold a referendum, and then compounding the blunder by touring the country making speeches to crowds transported in requisitioned public vehicles, and by doing so wasting public money for his own purposes. But be that so, there are very many of us who will vote for him for want of a better man.

What our President General must realize and understand is that whereas authority can be delegated, responsibility cannot.