Representing Pakistan (1960)

This photograph, captured in 1960, shows then President Ayub Khan at the Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ Conference in London. He had no foreign minister, so he took with him Lieutenant General Mohammed Yousuf, Pakistan’s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom. Standing next to them is French Foreign Minister Jacques Maurice Coube de Murville, who later went on to become the prime minister of France. After this conference, Ayub Khan travelled officially to Paris to meet President Charles de Gaulle.

The 1960 Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ Conference was the tenth meeting of the heads of government of the Commonwealth of Nations. It was held in May with Prime Minister Harold Macmillan as the host.

This was the first Commonwealth conference since Malayan independence in August 1957. At the meeting, Malaya’s prime minister Tunku Abdul Rahman and his government vigorously opposed the apartheid policies of South Africa and, with the support of Pakistan, India and Ghana, demanded that the issue be addressed by the Commonwealth. However, Macmillan insisted that the final communique could only include matters on which the leaders were unanimous.