Pak failed in bid to get US word on Kashmir plebiscite

After starting the 1965 war, Pakistan desperately sought an assurance from the US and United Nations for a plebiscite in Kashmir but failed in its bid.
The day on which the Indian forces entered Pakistan, US Ambassador in Islamabad Walter Patrick McConaughy met the then Pakistan President Ayub Khan and Foreign Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto who wanted an assurance from the US, UN and the international community for a plebiscite in Kashmir, declassified US documents of the era reveal.
During the conversation, McConaughy told them that Pakistan was responsible for this war, by sending troops inside Kashmir and using American weapons - which were given for use against communist China - against India.

The same day, the Johnson Administration in a separate telegram asked McConaughy to convey a tough message to Pakistan that it should not portray itself as a victim, for which it itself was to be blamed.
But the US officials had a tough job to do to convince Pakistan for an unconditional ceasefire.
At the peak of the 1965 Indo-Pak war, the then Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri wrote a letter to US President Lyndon Johnson wherein he informed the American leadership that New Delhi is willing to agree to an unconditional ceasefire.

In his letter dated September 16, 1965, he ruled out plebiscite in Kashmir arguing that the 1948 UN resolution in this regard was no longer acceptable.

Shastri's comments came after Bhutto told Americans that Pakistan was ready to be degraded as a nation but would not give up its claims over Kashmir.
In his letter to Johnson, Shastri wrote: "I should like to state quite categorically that there can be no further question of any plebiscite to ascertain the wishes of the people of Jammu & Kashmir.