WASHINGTON: The former United States President, Richard M. Nixon, referred privately to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi as an "old witch" and the then U.S. National Security Adviser, Henry Kissinger, insulted Indians in general, according to transcripts of Oval Office tapes and newly declassified documents.

Nixon and Dr. Kissinger met in the Oval Office on the morning of November 5, 1971, to discuss Nixon's conversation with Mrs. Gandhi the day before.

"We really slobbered over the old witch," Nixon told Dr. Kissinger, according to a transcript of their conversation released on Wednesday as part of a State Department compilation of significant documents involving American foreign policy.

Nixon's remark came as the two men speculated about Mrs. Gandhi's motives during the White House meeting and discussed India's intentions in the looming conflict with Pakistan. The U.S. was allied with Pakistan and saw India as too closely allied with the Soviet Union.

"The Indians are bastards anyway," Dr. Kissinger told the President. "They are starting a war there."Dr. Kissinger also told his boss that he had bested Mrs. Gandhi in their meeting. "She will not be able to go home and say that the United States did not give her a warm reception and therefore in despair she has got to go to war." Other documents chart U.S. contacts with China, as facilitated by Pakistan, and U.S. concern that India was developing nuclear technology. The archive covers U.S. policy in South Asia in 1971 and 1972.

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