by Gary J. Bass
4. McMahon, “Geopolitical Fantasies,” p. 251. Nixon, RN, p. 133. Richard Nixon, In the Arena: A Memoir of Victory, Defeat, and Renewal (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990), p. 71.
5. Stephen P. Cohen, The Pakistan Army (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 137–39. Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994), pp. 527, 548–49, 636–37. Dennis Kux, Estranged Democracies: India and the United States, 1941–1991 (New Delhi: Sage, 1993), pp. 105–15. H. W. Brands, India and the United States: The Cold Peace (Boston: Twayne, 1990), pp. 73–77. M. Srinivas Chary, The Eagle and the Peacock: U.S. Foreign Policy Toward India Since Independence (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1995), pp. 93–104. Michael R. Beschloss, Mayday: Eisenhower, Khrushchev and the U-2 Affair (New York: Harper & Row, 1988). Mussarat Jabeen and Muhammad Saleem Mazhar, “Security Game,” Pakistan Economic and Social Review, vol. 49, no. 1 (summer 2011), pp. 115–22.
6. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 170, Gandhi to Nixon, 7 August 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 170, Haksar to Jha, 7 August 1971.
7. The State Department had a lower official reckoning of U.S. support for Pakistan: since 1950, Pakistan had received a total of $779.9 million in foreign military sales and military assistance (NSC Files, Box 574, Indo-Pak War, South Asian Congressional, Van Hollen to Keating, 28 July 1971, State 137256). MEA, WII/125/112/71, “Supply of Arms by USA to Pakistan,” Kaul to Singh, 2 December 1971. For the lower sum of $1.5 billion, see MEA, WII/121/54/71, vol. II, “Supply of Arms by USA to Pakistan,” 3 July 1971.
8. Brands, India and the United States, pp. 76, 90–96. See K. Subrahmanyam, “Military Aid to Pakistan and Its Repercussions on Bangla Desh,” in Ranjit Gupta and Radhakrishna, eds., World Meet on Bangla Desh (New Delhi: Impex, 1971), pp. 110–13. Vojtech Mastny, “The Soviet Union’s Partnership with India,” Journal of Cold War Studies, vol. 12, no. 3 (summer 2010), pp. 55–59, 62–63. Kux, Estranged Democracies, pp. 118–20, 140–60. T. N. Kaul, The Kissinger Years: Indo-American Relations (New Delhi: Arnold-Heinemann, 1980), pp. 30–36. Chary, Eagle and the Peacock, pp. 105–7.
9. John Kenneth Galbraith, Ambassador’s Journal (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1969), pp. 487–93. Raghavan, War and Peace in Modern India, pp. 307–10. Brands, India and the United States, pp. 99–101. For a splendid short account of the war, see Srinath Raghavan, “A Bad Knock,” in Daniel Marston and Chandar Sundaram, eds., A Military History of India and South Asia (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2006). MEA, WII/125/112/71, Kholsa to Menon, 2 December 1971. By 1965, this totaled some $77.6 million (MEA, WII/125/112/71, Subramanian memorandum, 3 July 1971). Another account puts it at $76 million (MEA, WII/125/112/71, Kholsa to Menon, 2 December 1971). Kux, Estranged Democracies, pp. 181–83, 186–218. Chary, Eagle and the Peacock, pp. 113–24.
10. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 170, Gandhi to Nixon, 7 August 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 170, Haksar to Jha, 7 August 1971. Henry Kissinger, White House Years (Boston: Little, Brown, 1979), p. 846. Sumit Ganguly, “Of Great Expectations and Bitter Disappointments,” Asian Affairs, vol. 15, no. 4 (winter 1988–89), pp. 212–19. Subrahmanyam, “Military Aid to Pakistan and Its Repercussions on Bangla Desh,” p. 114. Kux, Estranged Democracies, pp. 235–40. Brands, India and the United States, pp. 110–11.
11. MEA, WII/125/112/71, Subramanian memorandum, 3 July 1971. See MEA, WII/125/112/71, Kholsa to Menon, 2 December 1971. For the whole period, India reckoned it got $85.4 million in grants and arms sales (MEA, WII/125/112/71, Subramanian memorandum, 3 July 1971; see MEA, WII/125/112/71, Kholsa to Menon, 2 December 1971). According to the U.S. government, since 1950, India had received $173.3 million in foreign military sales and military assistance from the United States (NSC Files, Box 574, Indo-Pak War, South Asian Congressional, Van Hollen to Keating, 28 July 1971, State 137256). Ganguly, “Great Expectations,” pp. 212–19. T. N. Kaul, Reminiscences Discreet and Indiscreet (New Delhi: Lancers Publishers, 1982), pp. 277–90. James W. Bjorkman, “Public Law 480 and the Policies of Self-Help and Short Tether,” in Lloyd I. Rudolph and Susanne Hoeber Rudolph, eds., The Regional Imperative (New Delhi: Concept, 1980), pp. 201–62. Kux, Estranged Democracies, pp. 240–47, 264–68. Brands, India and the United States, pp. 116–18, 121–22. Chary, Eagle and the Peacock, pp. 124–27.
12. White House tapes, Oval Office 622-1, 22 November 1971, 3:51–3:58 p.m. For a sketch of his foreign policy orientation, see Richard M. Nixon, Richard Nixon: Speeches, Writings, Documents, ed. Rick Perlstein (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008), pp. 191–99. For classic overviews of the man and the era, see Wills, Nixon Agonistes; Tom Wicker, One of Us: Richard Nixon and the American Dream (New York: Random House, 1991); Walter Isaacson, Kissinger: A Biography (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992); Robert Dallek, Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power (New York: HarperCollins, 2007); Rick Perlstein, Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America (New York: Scribner, 2008); and David Greenberg, Nixon’s Shadow: The History of an Image (New York: Norton, 2003). On the global context, see Odd Arne Westad, The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), and Daniel Sargent, “From Internationalism to Globalism: The United States and the Transformation of International Politics in the 1970s,” PhD diss., Harvard University, 2009. Brands, India and the United States, pp. 60–67. Chary, Eagle and the Peacock, pp. 57–69. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2530, Keating to Rogers, 8 April 1971, New Delhi 5243; MEA, HI/1012/78/71, Jha to Kaul, 7 April 1971; MEA, WII/109/31/71, vol. I, Singh statement to UN Security Council, 13 December 1971.
13. Nixon, In the Arena, pp. 328–29.
14. White House tapes, Oval Office 461-10, 2 March 1971, 12:07–12:44 p.m. FRUS, vol. E-7, Nixon-Yahya memcon, 25 October 1970, 10:49–11:45 a.m. Kissinger, White House Years, p. 848.
15. White House tapes, Oval Office 617-17, 15 November 1971, 4:31–4:39 p.m. White House tapes, White House telephone 16-48, 8 December 1971, 11:06–11:14 a.m.
16. Kissinger, White House Years, p. 848. Shashi Tharoor, Reasons of State: Political Development and India’s Foreign Policy Under Indira Gandhi, 1966–1977 (New Delhi: Vikas, 1982), pp. 112–13. Nixon, RN, pp. 131–32. Krishan Bhatia, Indira: A Biography of Prime Minister Gandhi (New York: Praeger, 1974), p. 250. Nixon, In the Arena, pp. 48–49. Tad Szulc, The Illusion of Peace: Foreign Policy in the Nixon Years (New York: Viking, 1977), pp. 4–5, 16. NSA, Nixon-Kissinger telcon, 26 November 1971, 10:42 a.m. See Nixon, Leaders, pp. 273–74. Kux, Estranged Democracies, p. 280.
17. White House tapes, Oval Office 462-5, 5 March 1971, 8:30–10:15 a.m.; White House tapes, Oval Office 505-4, 26 May 1971, 10:03–11:35 a.m.
18. Oriana Fallaci, Interviews with History and Conversations with Power (New York: Rizzoli, 2011), p. 43. Wicker, One of Us, pp. 651–53. See Kissinger, White House Years, p. 760; Wills, Nixon Agonistes, p. 409; Dallek, Nixon and Kissinger, p. 91. For Nixon’s reflections on friendship, including the Chinese leadership, see his In the Arena, pp. 238–44.
19. MEA, WII/121/54/71, Kissinger-Singh meeting, 7 July 1971. Kissinger, White House Years, pp. 848–49. Government of Pakistan, The Report of the Hamoodur Rehman Commission of Inquiry into the 1971 War (Lahore: Vanguard, 2001), p. 67. FRUS, vol. E-7, Nixon-Yahya memcon, 25 October 1970, 10:49–11:45 a.m.
20. Owen Bennett Jones, Pakistan: Eye of the Storm (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2009), insert after p. 160. Hamoodur Rehman Commission Report, pp. 122–23, 289. Archer K. Blood, The Cruel Birth of Bangladesh: Memoirs of an American Diplomat (Dacca: University Press of Bangladesh, 2002), p. 41.
21. White House tapes, Oval Office 610-1, 1 November 1971, 4:04–5:08 p.m. NSA, Nixon-Kissinger telcon, 5 December 1971. White House tapes, Oval Office 558-10, 9 August 1971, 5:44–6:18 p.m. See Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, The Final Days (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1976), pp. 185–96; Dallek, Nixon and Kissinger, p. 93; Isaacson, Kissinger, pp. 139–51.
22. Henry A. Kissinger, A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh, a
nd the Problems of Peace, 1812–22 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1973), p. 328. For a provocative argument on how Kissinger’s past and thought shaped his foreign policy in office, see Jeremi Suri, Henry Kissinger and the American Century (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007); see also Isaacson, Kissinger, pp. 21–67. Wicker, One of Us, pp. 655–63. See Jeremi Suri, “Henry Kissinger and American Grand Strategy,” and Fredrik Logevall and Andrew Preston, “The Adventurous Journey of Nixon in the World,” both in Logevall and Preston, eds., Nixon in the World; and David Rothkopf, Running the World: The Inside Story of the National Security Council and the Architects of American Foreign Policy (New York: PublicAffairs, 2004), pp. 111–12.
23. White House tapes, Oval Office 561-4, 11 August 1971, 9:10–11:40 a.m. See Dallek, Nixon and Kissinger, pp. 78–103.
24. H. R. Haldeman, The Haldeman Diaries: Inside the Nixon White House (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1994), 3 March 1971, pp. 253–54; 22 February 1971, pp. 249–50; 2 March 1971, p. 253. See Isaacson, Kissinger, pp. 195–98. Haldeman, Haldeman Diaries, 9 March 1971, p. 255. White House tapes, Oval Office 519-1, 14 June 1971, 8:49 a.m. See John Ehrlichman, Witness to Power: The Nixon Years (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982), pp. 296–300; H. R. Haldeman with Joseph DiMona, The Ends of Power (New York: Times Books, 1978), pp. 94–95; Isaacson, Kissinger, pp. 209–11.
25. Henry A. Kissinger, “Reflections on American Diplomacy,” Foreign Affairs, October 1956. See Henry A. Kissinger, “Domestic Structure and Foreign Policy” (1966), American Foreign Policy: Three Essays (New York: Norton, 1969), p. 19; Kissinger, World Restored, p. 326. NSA, Zhou-Kissinger memcon, 9 July 1971, 4:35 p.m.
26. Haldeman, Haldeman Diaries, 29 June 1971, p. 309, and 19 February 1971, p. 248. See Isaacson, Kissinger, p. 136. Kissinger would have the FBI wiretap many of his own staffers (Isaacson, Kissinger, pp. 212–27).
27. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 171, Jha to Kaul, 9 August 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 277, Jha to Kaul, 18 April 1971.
28. Kissinger, White House Years, pp. 847, 842. Library of Congress, Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Foreign Affairs Oral History Project, Winston Lord interview, 28 April 1998.
29. Library of Congress, Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Foreign Affairs Oral History Project, Winston Lord interview, 28 April 1998 and subsequent. Szulc, Illusion of Peace, pp. 20–21. NSA, Kissinger talk to White House interns, 11 August 1971. See Isaacson, Kissinger, pp. 188–95.
30. Kissinger, Diplomacy, p. 564.
31. NSA, Kissinger-Sisco telcon, 27 July 1971, 10:13 a.m.
32. In 1967, under Lyndon Johnson, the United States began to supply spare parts and nonlethal equipment to both India and Pakistan. Because Pakistan already had such a large stock of U.S. weapons, this fresh provision of spare parts had been far more of a boon to Pakistan than to India (MEA, WII/125/112/71, Kholsa to Menon, 2 December 1971). U.S. arms sales to Pakistan crept back, with a total of almost $65 million by 1970 (NSC Files, Box 574, Indo-Pak War, South Asian Congressional, Van Hollen to Keating, 28 July 1971, State 137256). NSC Files, Box 624, Country Files—Middle East, Pakistan, vol. III, Nutter to Laird, 22 October 1970. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Keating to Rogers, 16 April 1971, New Delhi 5734. The State Department publicly admitted that U.S. support was running to about $10 million a year, but the New York Times reported that U.S. Air Force sales alone from 1967 to 1970 came to almost $48 million (Tad Szulc, “U.S. Military Goods Sent to Pakistan Despite Ban,” New York Times, 22 June 1971, pp. A1, 11).
33. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 220, Heath-Gandhi conversation, 24 October 1971. See Subrahmanyam, “Military Aid to Pakistan,” p. 114. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 235, Manekshaw-Kulikov talks, 24–25 February 1972.
34. NSC Files, Box 624, Country Files—Middle East, Pakistan, vol. III, Nixon-Yahya memcon, 25 October 1970, 10:45 a.m. FRUS, vol. E-7, Nixon-Yahya memcon, 25 October 1970.
CHAPTER 2: CYCLONE PAKISTAN
1. Archer K. Blood, The Cruel Birth of Bangladesh: Memoirs of an American Diplomat (Dacca: University Press of Bangladesh, 2002), p. xvii.
2. Ibid., p. 15.
3. Library of Congress, Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Foreign Affairs Oral History Project, Archer Blood interview, 27 June 1989.
4. Blood, Cruel Birth, pp. 1–2, 5.
5. They had two daughters, Shireen, eleven years old, and Barbara, ten, and a son, Peter, eight. They later had a second son, Archer Lloyd. (Ibid., pp. 22–23.)
6. Ibid., pp. 5, 12–13, 9, 16.
7. Library of Congress, Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Foreign Affairs Oral History Project, Archer Blood interview, 27 June 1989. Blood, Cruel Birth, p. 23.
8. Library of Congress, Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Foreign Affairs Oral History Project, Archer Blood interview, 27 June 1989. Blood, Cruel Birth, pp. 25–31.
9. Blood, Cruel Birth, p. 35.
10. The phrase “basket case” is usually attributed to Kissinger, who did use it, but it actually seems to have been first coined by U. Alexis Johnson. “They’ll be an international basket case,” he said. “But not necessarily our basket case,” Kissinger replied. (FRUS, WSAG meeting, 6 December 1971, 11:07– 11:56 a.m., p. 666.) This was published by the columnist Jack Anderson (“U.S. Moves Give Soviets Hold on India,” Washington Post, 16 December 1971). To this day, Bangladeshis understandably resent the slap. Its recent economic growth belies the label (Sadanand Dhume, “Bangladesh, ‘Basket Case’ No More,” Wall Street Journal, 29 September 2010); for a nuanced discussion, see Mohammad Rezaul Bari, “The Basket Case,” Forum (Dacca), vol. 3, no. 3 (March 2008). Azizur Rahman Khan, “The Comilla Model and the Integrated Rural Development Programme of Bangladesh,” World Development, vol. 7, nos. 4–5 (1979), pp. 397–422. Nasim Yousaf, “A Tribute to Dr. Akhter Hameed Khan,” Statesman, 17 October 2006.
11. Blood, Cruel Birth, p. 36.
12. See Sydney H. Schanberg, Beyond the Killing Fields: War Writings (Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, 2010).
13. Owen Bennett Jones, Pakistan: Eye of the Storm (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2009), pp. 143–45. Ayesha Jalal, The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985). POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2530, Keating to Rogers, 8 April 1971, New Delhi 5243. Blood, Cruel Birth, p. 2. On Partition, see Yasmin Khan, The Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2007); Patrick French, Liberty or Death: India’s Journey to Independence and Division (London: HarperCollins, 1997); Ian Talbot and Gurharpal Singh, The Partition of India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).
14. Blood, Cruel Birth, p. 2. P. N. Dhar, Indira Gandhi, the “Emergency,” and Indian Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 149. Joseph Lelyveld, “Divided Pakistan Was Born from Shaky Abstraction,” New York Times, 7 April 1971.
15. Dhar, Indira Gandhi, the “Emergency,” and Indian Democracy, p. 152. Tariq Ali, Can Pakistan Survive? The Death of a State (London: Penguin, 1983), p. 91. Sydney H. Schanberg, “Hours of Terror for a Trapped Bengali Officer,” New York Times, 17 April 1971. Dom Moraes, Mrs Gandhi (London: Jonathan Cape, 1980), p. 189. NSC Files, Box H-052, SRG Meetings, Hoskinson to Kissinger, 5 March 1971. Jones, Pakistan, pp. 145–48. See G. W. Choudhury, The Last Days of United Pakistan (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1974), pp. 1–12.
16. Blood, Cruel Birth, pp. 2–3. Jones, Pakistan, pp. 146-53.
17. Khawaja Alqama, Bengali Elite Perceptions of Pakistan (Karachi: Royal Book Co., 1997), pp. 264–85. NSC Files, Box H-052, SRG Meetings, NSSM-118, 3 March 1971; NSC Files, Box H-081, WSAG Meetings, NSSM-118, 3 March 1971. See MEA, HI/121/13/71, vol. I, Singh statement to United Nations General Assembly, 27 September 1971. Blood, Cruel Birth, p. 3. For a superb analysis, see Ayesha Jalal, Democracy and Authoritarianism in South Asia: A Comparative and Historical Perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1995), pp. 48–63.
18. Library of Congress, Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Foreign Affairs Oral History Project, Archer Blood interview, 27 June 1989. Blood, Cruel Birth, pp. 31–32.
19. MEA, HI/1012/30/71, Chib to Kaul, 4 March 1971. MEA, HI/1012/32/71, Sen Gupta to Acharya, 5 February 1971. Blood, Cruel Birth, pp. 33, 37. FRUS, vol. E-7, Nixon-Yahya memcon, 25 October 1970.
20. NSC Files, Box 624, Country Files—Middle East, Pakistan, vol. III, Sober to Rogers, 5 October 1970, Rawalpindi 7809. See Blood, Cruel Birth, p. 64.
21. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Bell to Shakespeare, 21 April 1971, Dacca 1440. Blood, Cruel Birth, pp. 74, 98–99, 107, 113. See NSC Files, Box 624, Country Files—Middle East, Pakistan, vol. III, Inter-Departmental Working Group on East Pakistan Disaster Relief, Daily Status Report, 20 November 1970; and NSC Files, Box 624, Country Files—Middle East, Pakistan, vol. III, Holly to Farland, 15 November 1970, State 187185.