The International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (ICDDR/B)

All the American expatriates at the Pakistan-Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) Cholera Research Laboratory (PSCRL) in Dacca except the young Public Health Service officers were on two-year contracts. Phillips&s;s contract as Director expired on 31 December 1970. If Phillips had not voluntarily left Dacca by the end of 1970 he would have been obliged by other circumstances to leave a few months later. By the beginning of the seventies East Pakistan had been troubled for many years with political unrest. About 56 percent of the population of Pakistan, mainly Bengalis, lived in the East Wing of Pakistan under the conviction that they were being imposed upon by the 1,000-mile distant West Wing. The PSCRL in theory had involved the participation of all the SEATO nations; in practise, participation had been limited largely to Pakistan and the United States, with limited involvement of the United Kingdom.