 The compilation sheds little or no light on Ayub's role as a soldier and the army chief. It skips even an event as monumental as the 1965 war - Ayub's Waterloo. Off to a turbulent start in the wake of the ‘Pindi conspiracy unearthed within less than a couple of months of his assumption of command in March, 1951, Ayub came face-to-face with yet another crisis, the so-called 1951 Flap in the aftermath of the massing of the Indian troops all along the West Pakistan Border.
The man who sailed through the crisis, with flying colors, happened to be the Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan. He flashed his famous ‘Mukka' (tight fist) to make India relent and talk.
Ayub says little or nothing about his role in the military face-offs with India in Chad Bet (1965) in the Rann of Kutch and any number of major violations of the ceasefire line to bring the two countries into a sort of a war-like crisis. Not a word about the Sino-Indian war of October 1962 and the opportunity it supposedly offered Pakistan to intervene and for a resolution of the Kashmir issue by military means.
Title: Field Marshal Mohammad Ayub Khan:
A Selection of Talks and Interviews 1964 - 1967
Transcribed and Edited by: Nadia Ghani
Publisher: Oxford University Press, Pakistan (April 8, 2010)
Price: PKR. 315
Pages: 795, Hardcover
ISBN-10: 0195476247
ISBN-13: 978-0195476248
The seminal question arising after a close examination of all the books on Ayub including his own autobiography, Friends Not Masters, his diaries and the work under review is: Could Ayub have made it to the top in the undivided pre-partition Indian Army? Though hypothetical and equally applicable to all others rewarded by the emergence of Pakistan, the question can still be posed. Ayub's wartime record was anything but commendable. He commanded the I Assam Regiment in the Manipur sector of the Burma front (January to December 1945) in the closing stage of the war, not entirely to the satisfaction of his divisional commander and was relieved of command somewhat unceremoniously.
Back to GHQ (India) for orders, he was kicked upstairs as full colonel and appointed Deputy Chief of the Inter-Services Selection - practically the end of the road for him. Then came Pakistan. He was promoted to brigadier and assigned to the Punjab Boundary Force under Major. Gen. Pete Rees. His record as an officer of the PBF had not been very good. The Force was disbanded soon afterwards and he was placed in command of the Dargai Brigade.
In January 1948 he was transferred to Dhaka as the GOC 14 Infantry Division in the rank of a local major-general, (with the pay and perks of a brigadier) and virtually pushed out of the mainstream. The senior most, Major-General Mohammad Akbar Khan (Rangroot - Pak Army No.1) an old World War-1 ranker had not been in the run at all for the top job due to age and his humble background as an officer. The next senior Maj. Gen. N.A.M. Raza was ignored reportedly for his haughty temperament and civilian predications as a patron of art and culture.
Commander of the Lahore-based 10 Infantry Division; Maj-Gen. Iftikhar Ahmed had been all but formally notified as the first Pakistani C-in-C of the Army when luck intervened for Ayub. Iftikhar, along with another brilliant officer and Maj. Gen. (designate) Sher Khan, were killed in an air crash near Jungshahi in November 1949, on his way to Karachi to proceed to England for a course at the Imperial Defence College (IDC), Camberley.
The fatal crash left Ayub as the lone contender for the top job. Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan (the only leader of whom Ayub invariably had a kind word) had been his principal backer and ultimate appointing authority. That was despite "Gracey harboring misgivings" about Ayub, says Shuja Nawaz in the introduction to his book. Nevertheless, Gracey, in Ayub's final Annual Confidential Report (ACR) "graciously" recommended him for the top job.
In his own mistaken belief, Ayub viewed himself as the founder of the Pakistan Army. In the words of Shuja Nawaz, Ayub "appeared to have an inflated view of his own capacity to strategize and govern." He would never admit that World War II had virtually passed him by and in Pakistan the Kashmir war remained a bridge too far from his distant Dhaka post.
It had been left to the two British Army Chiefs Messervy and Gracey, almost wholly to the latter, to conduct the Kashmir war in his own fashion. Noted among his Pakistani subordinates had been Brigadiers Akbar and the two Sher Khans through the war and Maj. Generals N.A.M. Raza and Nazir after the ceasefire.
As the only general officer in place, East Pakistan gave Ayub a bloated sense of his own power in the bureaucratic and economic backyard of the country. Unburdened by the pressures of war and post-war in Kashmir, East Pakistan offered Ayub all the time in the world to think of himself as Pakistan's man of destiny. "It will be a big day when we will have the first Pakistani C-in-C..."
It is not generally known that Ayub became "seriously ill" in 1951. He developed complications after a simple appendix operation. "My nervous system in the process got affected and even now when I am harassed by people, my body reacts in a strange way and becomes brittle."
That should explain his frequent loss of temper in the face of the slightest criticism. His frequent use of such vulgarisms as "dulla/dayus" (pimp/scoundrel) especially in his interaction with senior journalists was highly resented.
Instead of the people and good governance, he viewed the army as the country's "symbol and source of sovereignty" - a formulation that did the greatest harm to the simple professionalism of the army and the political/constitutional fabric of the country. Through sheer, unbridled vanity and deep-seated distrust of politicians as a class, Ayub did irreparable harm to the country, without ever realizing it. His was a tragedy of errors of a man who believed he would be the king and do no wrong. 
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