Zulfi Bhutto of Pakistan: His Life and Times

Pakistanis still revere their slain prime minister, glib, charistmatic, Oxford-educated Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (1928-1979), who was arrested by his top general and hanged after two ignominious years in prison. His supporters hailed the fiery anti-Indian orator and pan-Islamic politician as a restorer of Pakistan's pride, and they see in his daughter Benazir Bhutto--ex-prime minster and now leader of the opposition--the promise of resuscitating Zulfi's glory. But this searching, brilliant, exhaustively researched biography dissolves Bhutto's aura to present him as a ``schizoid personality'' who ran Pakistan like a feudal lord. Wolpert, South Asian history professor at UCLA, tells how the ``Islamic Napoleon'' waged a disastrous genocidal war against newly independent Bangladesh, led a secret program to amass a nuclear arsenal for Pakistan and two-timed his Hindu wife Nusrat who, disconsolate over his lies and infidelities, attempted suicide. Photos. (June)