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U.S. pleaded with China to ‘menace’ India: book

“Nixon, Kissinger tried to rope in China to prevent the formation of Bangladesh”

Nixon describes Indians as “slippery, treacherous people”

Book refers to the late Indira Gandhi’s travels to several Western capitals

Henry Kissinger

New Delhi: Recently declassified United States official records throw light on the anger and frustration that seized President Richard Nixon during the 1971 India-Pakistan war and how Washington secretly pleaded with China to “menace” India by moving troops to the border.

Poring over thousands of pages of national security files and telephone transcripts of the then U.S. National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger and 2,800 hours of Nixon tapes, well-known American author and historian Robert Dallek recalls the events in the White House during December 1971 in a just-published book Nixon and Kissinger-Partners in Power.

Nixon’s infamous tilt towards Pakistan is well known but the author reveals many other facets of how Nixon and Mr. Kissinger were upset with India and how they tried to rope in China in a bid to prevent the formation of Bangladesh.

Nixon describes Indians as “a slippery, treacherous people” while his National Security Adviser calls them “insufferably arrogant.”

The story began in the fall of 1971, when differences in the administration and the country over White House’s China policy posed a threat to a major transformation in Sino-American relations.

Richard Nixon

A larger danger to rapprochement with Peking and detente with Moscow came from rising tensions in South Asia. Long-standing tensions between the Punjabis, who dominated the Central Government in West Pakistan, and the Bengalis in the East had erupted into a full-scale crisis.

The President and Mr. Kissinger were less interested in what the Indians or Pakistanis did to each other than in ensuring that nothing sidetracked Mr. Kissinger’s trip to China and the revolution in Sino-American relations. “Our objective should be to buoy up Yahya [Pakistan President Yahya Khan] for at least another month while Pakistan served as the gateway to China,” Mr. Kissinger told Nixon in the beginning of June. “Even apart from the Chinese thing,” the President replied, “I wouldn’t ....help the Indians, the Indians are no goddamn good.”

In July, on his way to Peking, Mr. Kissinger discussed the crisis with Pakistani and Indian officials in Islamabad and New Delhi. Before he left, Joe Sisco (a diplomat) urged him to take a tough line with Indira Gandhi.

Sisco said, “You people in the White House don’t understand how serious” the situation is. “We know,” Mr. Kissinger countered. “At the end of the monsoons, India will attack.”

Mr. Kissinger’s meetings with the Pakistanis were cordial, but, predictably, the Indians complained that the U.S. support of Pakistan was encouraging a “policy of adventurism,” which China was also promoting.

Indira Gandhi saw little chance of a political settlement: She did not want to use force and was open to suggestions, she told Mr. Kissinger, who warned India that a war would be a disaster for both the countries and the sub-continent would become an area of conflict among outside powers. He also said, “We would take the gravest view of any unprovoked Chinese aggression against India.”

Mr. Kissinger recalls returning from his trip with “a premonition of disaster.” He expected India to attack Pakistan after the summer monsoons. He feared that China might then intervene on Pakistan’s behalf, which would move Moscow “to teach Peking a lesson.” In an NSC meeting on July 16, Nixon said the Indians would like nothing better than to use this tragedy to destroy Pakistan.Mr. Kissinger agreed. He said the Indians were “insufferably arrogant,” and eager for a conflict that would allow them to overwhelm Pakistan and take on China. “Everything we have done with China will [then] go down the drain.”

The book refers to the late Indira Gandhi’s travels to several Western capitals, including Washington, at the beginning of November. Nixon agreed to see her as a last-ditch effort to head off a conflict. Two conversations on November 4 and 5 were case studies in heads of State speaking past each other.

During a meeting in November in the Oval office, they agreed to discuss tensions in South Asia, with a second day’s meeting to focus on Sino-American relations. No easing of tensions was evident from the exercises.

As the situation escalated, Mr. Kissinger was angry at being told that the U.S. policy was “weak.” Peking had done nothing. Nixon and Mr. Kissinger discussed the potential results of Chinese action. If China menaced India, they anticipated a Soviet military response. If the U.S. then did nothing, Mr. Kissinger predicted, “we will be finished.”

Nixon asked, “So what do we do if the Soviets move against them? Start lobbing nuclear weapons in, is that what you mean?” Mr. Kissinger replied, “if the Soviets move against them...and succeed, that will be the final showdown ...we will be finished. We’ll be thorough.”

But a message from the Soviets assured Washington that India had no intention of attacking West Pakistan and that ceasefire discussions were under way. To their surprise and relief, the U.S. got a Chinese message that said nothing about moving troops to the Indian border.

Victory for India

Instead, appreciating that independence for East Pakistan was a foregone conclusion, Peking said it was prepared to endorse an American U.N. proposal for a standstill ceasefire and forego a demand for mutual troop withdrawals. The crisis now petered to a conclusion. Between December 14 and 17, Indian forces completed their conquest of East Pakistan and agreed to a ceasefire in West Pakistan with no occupation of additional Pakistani territory. Although Nixon and Mr. Kissinger put the best possible face on the outcome, the result of the war was essentially a victory for India and its ally the Soviet Union which declared the emergence of Bangladesh from the ruins of East Pakistan, a triumph for socialist and democratic principles, the book recalls. — PTI

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