I find that weird because I personally know an American who visited Pakistan in the early 80’s. I went to college with a Pakistani. When he graduated, his American roommate flew over to visit him. This would have been 82 or 83.
He visited in 1981 when Pakistan was still on the do not visit list. By the middle of 82 or 83, they were allowing people to start coming back into the Country thanks to efforts by the Reagan Administration. You have to remember the Carter years of debacle with these countries.
Know more about what the State Department was doing in the early 80’s then I did before and if I never knew it would have been fine. Reagan years opened Pakistan back up, but in the summer of 1981, nothing had changed — Afghanistan and Pakistan were on the blacklist.
I also don’t remember Pakistan having been on any “proscribed travel list”. Soviet Union, Cuba, North Korea — sure — but I don’t remember Pakistan being on any list.