Word: mirza
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...October 7, General Ayub and President Iskander Mirza deposed Premier Firoz Khan Noon, abolished the constitution, suspended legislatures and political parties, declared martial law, and took over the government of Pakistan. Acting barely four months before Pakistan's first nation-wide elections were to take place, they accomplished the revolution without bloodshed or even, as General Ayub observed, "head knocking...
...clear to Mirza, and to most observers, that since the death in 1948 of founding father Mohammed Ali Jinnah, that is to say almost since its inception, Pakistan has been "going to the dogs." More conspicuous than the lack of reform movement was the lack of an atmosphere where anyone would even take the idea of reform seriously. Fearing a "bloody revolution" from below, Mirza convinced Ayub that it was necessary to replace the inept democratic regime with a "benign martial law to assist the civil power to clean up this mess...
...jovial scene. President Iskander Mirza and his new Premier, General Mohammed Ayub Khan, sat having tea together for the benefit of newsreel cameramen. Like the good friends they were, they joshed each other, and when Mirza noticed that the general was blinking in the glare of strong lights set up by the cameramen, he chuckled: "You've got to learn to be an actor." Two and a half hours later that evening. President Mirza was stunned to discover that General Ayub Khan was a better actor than he had thought. Three lieutenant generals appeared at the presidential palace, informed...
Single Helmsman. Next morning, Mirza, who less than a month ago had abolished parliamentary government and decided to rule with the army's help, was off to a holiday spot in the Quetta hills, while servants crated his personal belongings and prepared the presidential palace for its new occupant. At another Karachi mansion, General Ayub (pronounced: eye-yub) strode across the lawn to meet newsmen. Out of uniform, the general was wearing a blue cord suit with a red handkerchief peeping from a breast pocket, a pastel green shirt, a striped...
...cigarettes and lemonade, he urged that no one worry about the deposed President because his good friend (and fellow graduate at Sandhurst) was being retired on a double pension and was leaving for Britain, as "it might be too embarrassing for him to stay here." Why had he fired Mirza? "Somehow or other, people felt that he was as much responsible for the political deterioration as anyone else." Besides, the armed farces wanted "a man at the helm that people have complete faith...