WASHINGTON—The Nixon Administration's policy toward Pakistan since March 25 — the day the Pakistani Army launched its bloody repression of the East Pakistan autonomy movement — has been the object of both considerable diplomatic confusion and sharp criticism here and abroad.

The confusion, which State Department officials have found hard to clarify, is over what the United States hopes to accomplish by insisting that additional economic aid to Pakistan should not be foreclosed and by using technicalities to allow continued shipments of military equipment for the regime of President Yahya Khan. This policy has been strongly criticized by India, which resents such shipments to her less‐than friendly Pakistani neighbor, as well as by some American Senators and Congressmen who see plain “immorality,” as one Senator put it, in seeming to ignore the East Pakistani massacres.

Thus, last Thursday the House Foreign Affairs Committee voted to block all economic and military assistance to Pakistan until the 6.5 million East Pakistani refugees can return home from India and “reasonable stability” has been restored to their country. If confirmed, as expected, by the full House and by the Senate (where 31 Senators are sponsoring a similar measure), this decision will prevent the United States from supplying Pakistan with $118million in economic aid, $8‐million in technical assistance and $5.5‐million in credits for military sales and training for the fiscal year which began July 1.

In denying assistance to Pakistan, the legislators sided with the opinion of the World Bank and most of the members of the 11‐nation “Aid‐to‐Pakistan” consortium, headed by the bank, that new funds for the Islamabad Government should be withheld until President Yahya Khan has worked out a “political accommodation” with the East Pakistanis.

The State Department insists that it is not pushing for continued aid for Pakistan, but simply holding in “abeyance” all decisions on economic and military assistance pending a policy “review” that has been underway for more than three months without signs of a decision. Administration spokesmen have also said that aid requests for Pakistan are only “planning figures” and do not necessarily represent a commitment actually to disburse the funds. They argue further that the situation in Pakistan later this year is unpredictable, therefore it would be “unwise” to cut off the Pakistanis from American aid, directly or through the international consortium.

Still another Administration argument is that by applying too much pressure against President Yahya Khan the United States may lose “leverage” in Islamabad and, possibly, invite even closer cooperation than that now existing between Pakistan and China. This reasoning was offered to deflect criticism of the White House decision to go on honoring export licenses for military equipment for Pakistan issued before March 25. Two Pakistani freighters carried $2,227,771 worth of military equipment, including spare parts for tanks, combat aircraft and artillery, from the United States to Karachi in the last eight weeks.

Another possible reason for the Administration's refusal to be harsh on Islamabad emerged Thursday night when President Nixon disclosed that Henry A. Kissinger, his foreign policy adviser, had secretly visited Peking for talks with Premier Chou Enlai between July 9 and 11.

Diplomatic sources indicated that Pakistan might have been instrumental in arranging the Kissinger trip, and, in any event, it is known that he had flown from Pakistani territory with the local government maintaining secrecy over his movements.

Before the Presidential disclosure, the criticism of the Administration grew with the appearance of a report by a special mission of the World Bank describing the destruction wrought in East Pakistan by the West Pakistan troops—the State Department separately estimated nearly 250,000 deaths in the conflict—and declaring that for at least a year the eastern province will be unable to absorb economic development aid.

With India increasingly aligning its policies with the cause of the East Pakistani insurgents, the Nixon Administration risks turning the Indians as well as the 60 million people of East Pakistan against the United States over what they consider Washington's tacit support of President Yahya Khan. And with tensions in the subcontinent growing — fears are even being expressed of an Indian‐Pakistani war — pressures are rising for the Nixon Administration to reconsider its handling of this latest international powder‐keg.