On January 17, 1976, the then Army chief & deputy chief martial law administrator, Ziaur Rahman had a meeting with Davis Eugene Boster, the U.S. Ambassador in Dhaka. Ambassador Boster sent a telegram to the Washington after the meeting on January 19 where he mentioned the key discussion points, along with some comments.
The meeting notes suggest Ziaur Rahman was particularly concerned about the extensive growth of population, apart from feeding the growing population. Besides, he wanted to provide healthy environment for the students at the universities and improve the law and order situation of the country by empowering the police officials with the support of the U.S. and the U.K.
Population problem
Bangladesh in the 1970s was facing a serious challenge with the growing population. Estimates were suggesting that if the population growth is not checked, the population will be as high as 187,800,000 by 2003.
Ziaur Rahman, in the meeting, mentioned that he had a conversation with Senator George McGovern during his last visit to Bangladesh and wanted to reassure his commitment to cut the population growth. He also informed that an efficient secretary named Sattar was selected to lead the programme to reduce population growth.
Budget Support
The meeting brief also revealed that the U.S. government received a budget support request of $50 million and the U.S. government was actively pursuing for that. This is to note that the country faced a famine in 1974 and the foreign reserve situation was volatile at that moment.
Hence, Bangladesh required budget support from global partners to ensure the growing needs of the population are fulfilled.
Training police
Ziaur Rahman inquired the possibilities of sending a team of police to New York City where they could learn the methods of combating crime in dealing with miscreants and enhanced supply of light equipment such as rifle and communications gear for the police. The U.S. however was less positive about this.
Ambassador Boster mentioned that Zia had a similar conversation with the British High Commissioner and the British government was more positive about this.

Indian concern about a theft in temple
Conversation between the U.S. Ambassador and the DCMLA Zia suggested that the Indian press was surprisingly harsh about the new government in Bangladesh at that time and New Delhi was even concerned about a petty incident of theft in a temple in Dhaka.
Zia claimed that when the government looked into the matter they found that the temple was looted by seven thieves, four of whom were Muslims and three were Hindus. It was, according the the cable, ‘just a case of ordinary thievery of the kind they were always running into.’
Zia said that there had not been one single real incident of communal violence since November 1975.