U.S. pleaded with China to ‘menace’ India during 1971 war

U.S. pleaded with China to ‘menace’ India during 1971 war, says book





New Delhi: The 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 Indian 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 the December of 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 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 “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-China policy posed threat to a major transformation in the Sino-American relations.
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 now erupted into a full-scale crisis.
The President and Kissinger had less interest in what the Indians or Pakistanis did to each other than in ensuring that nothing sidetracked Kissinger’s trip to China and the revolution in Sino-American relations. Our objective should be to “buoy up Yahya for at least another month while Pakistan served as the gateway to China,” Kissinger told Nixon at the beginning of June. “Even apart from the Chinese thing,” the President replied, “I wouldn’t ....help the Indians, the Indians are no god**** good.”
In July, on his way to Peking, 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,” Kissinger countered. “At the end of the monsoons, India will attack.” 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 Kissinger, who warned India that a war would be disaster for both the countries and the sub-continent would become an area for conflict among outside powers. He also said, “we would take the gravest view of any unprovoked Chinese aggression against India.”
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.” At this time, Kissinger states, “no one could speak for five minutes without Nixon hearing of his profound distrust of Indian motives, his concern over Soviet meddling, and above all his desire not to risk the opening to China by ill-considered posturing.” In an NSC meeting on July 16 Nixon said Indians would like nothing better than to use this tragedy to destroy PakistanKissinger agreed. He said Indians were 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 ties. No easing of tensions was evident from the exercises. — PTI



Sources:

http://www.hindu.com/2007/07/02/stor...0254941200.htm


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