by Gary J. Bass
13. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 165, Haksar to Dhar, 7 April 1971. See NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 165, Haksar to Acharya, 7 April 1971.
14. Desaix Myers, “Ki Korbo?” n.d. 1971, on file with author.
15. Dhar, Indira Gandhi, the “Emergency,” and Indian Democracy, pp. 154–55. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2530, Keating to Rogers, 1 April 1971, New Delhi 4755. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Gordon to Rogers, 13 April 1971, Calcutta 638. Guha, India After Gandhi, p. 452. Shashi Tharoor, Reasons of State: Political Development and India’s Foreign Policy Under Indira Gandhi, 1966–1977 (New Delhi: Vikas, 1982), p. 125.
16. PMS, 7/371/71, vol. I, “Influx from East Pakistan,” 27 March 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 227, Dias to Gandhi, 27 April 1971. See POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Bush to Rogers, 16 April 1971, USUN 970. Dhar, Indira Gandhi, the “Emergency,” and Indian Democracy, pp. 152–53.
17. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 164, Haksar to Gandhi, 31 March 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 164, Congress draft resolution, 29 March 1971. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Gordon to Rogers, 16 April 1971, Calcutta 671. India estimated twenty-five thousand refugees in West Bengal, and ten thousand more in Assam and Tripura. Independently, the Times of India put the total at 175,000. (POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Keating to Rogers, 20 April 1971, New Delhi 5900.) MEA, HI/1012/30/71, Chib to Kaul, 6 May 1971. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Gordon to Rogers, 13 April 1971, Calcutta 638.
18. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Keating to Rogers, 26 April 1971, New Delhi 6254. Sukhwant Singh, India’s Wars Since Independence: The Liberation of Bangladesh (New Delhi: Vikas, 1980), vol. 1, p. 9.
19. See NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 227, Kao to Gandhi, 13 April 1971. Tharoor, Reasons of State, p. 125. MEA, HI/1012/30/71, Chib to Kaul, 6 May 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 235, Manekshaw-Kulikov talks, 24–25 February 1972. Dhar, Indira Gandhi, the “Emergency,” and Indian Democracy, p. 157. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Keating to Rogers, 15 April 1971, New Delhi 5646. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 227, unsigned top secret note, 1 May 1971.
20. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 276, Subrahmanyam to Haksar, 4 April 1971. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2530, Keating to Rogers, 5 April 1971, New Delhi 4952. NSC Files, Box 625, Country Files—Middle East, Pakistan, vol. V, Hilaly to Kissinger, 14 June 1971. Subrahmanyam argued that India’s national security would depend on the fortunes of a new Bangladesh, and that India must act decisively to safeguard the infant state’s survival. See K. Subrahmanymam, “U.S. Policy Towards India,” China Report, January–April 1972, pp. 36–53; P. R. Kumaraswamy, ed., Security Beyond Survival: Essays for K. Subrahmanymam (New Delhi: Sage, 2004); Rory Metcalf, “A Farewell to India’s Henry Kissinger,” Foreign Policy online, 3 February 2011; B. G. Verghese, “The Legend That Is K Subrahmanyam,” Rediff.com, 5 October 2004.
21. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 276, Subrahmanyam, “Bangla Desh and Our Policy Options,” 4 April 1971. See Inder Malhotra, Indira Gandhi: A Personal and Political Biography (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1989), p. 133.
22. Pupul Jayakar, Indira Gandhi: An Intimate Biography (New York: Pantheon, 1992), p. 184.
23. See J. F. R. Jacob, Surrender at Dacca: Birth of a Nation (New Delhi: Manohar, 1997), p. 36.
24. FRUS, WSAG meeting, 26 May 1971, 4:35 p.m., pp. 149–56. V. K. Singh, Leadership in the Indian Army: Biographies of Twelve Soldiers (New Delhi: Sage, 2005), pp. 204–5. For another version, see Jacob, Surrender at Dacca, pp. 181–83. Manekshaw told a similar but less grandiose version to Pupul Jayakar (Indira Gandhi, pp. 166–67). She puts this meeting on April 25, but she sometimes gets dates wrong by as much as a month.
25. Jayakar, Indira Gandhi, p. 167. Singh, Leadership in the Indian Army, pp. 204–5. See K. F. Rustamji, The British, the Bandits and the Bordermen: From the Diaries of K. F. Rustamji, ed. P. V. Rajgopal (New Delhi: Wisdom Tree, 2009), p. 317; Malhotra, Indira Gandhi, pp. 134–35; Singh, Liberation of Bangladesh, pp. 18–29. P. N. Dhar, seeking to disprove the claim that India had a plan to dismember Pakistan, has claimed that Gandhi only asked Manekshaw for his opinion, knowing what his answer would be, as a way of cooling off her hawks (Dhar, Indira Gandhi, the “Emergency,” and Indian Democracy, p. 157). But in both Manekshaw’s and Jayakar’s versions, Gandhi was advocating war herself.
26. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2530, Keating to Rogers, 2 April 1971, New Delhi 4806. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 227, “Situational Report of Bangladesh Army,” 5 July 1971. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2530, Farland to Rogers, 8 April 1971, Islamabad 3228; POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Gordon to Rogers, 27 April 1971, Calcutta 744; NSC Files, Box 625, Country Files—Middle East, Pakistan, vol. IV, Pavelle to Laird, 26 March 1971; NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 169, Haksar minutes of Kissinger meeting, 6 July 1971; NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 171, “Political Prospective,” 18 August 1971; A. T. M. Abdul Wahab, Mukti Bahini Wins Victory (Dacca: Columbia Prokashani, 2004), pp. 131–33. Pakistan later tried to lure these dangerously trained men back, with a hedged offer from General Tikka Khan, East Pakistan’s military governor, that those who returned to their posts would be “treated compassionately” (POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Bell to Shakespeare, 19 April 1971, Dacca 1386). Library of Congress, Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Foreign Affairs Oral History Project, Archer Blood interview, 27 June 1989. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 227, “Situational Report of Bangladesh Army,” 5 July 1971. See POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Blood to Rogers, 19 April 1971, Dacca 1388; POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Farland to Rogers, 24 April 1971, Islamabad 3779. Pakistan’s own Lieutenant General A. A. K. Niazi writes that “the Bengali troops had not yet mutinied” when Pakistan began its crackdown (The Betrayal of East Pakistan [Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1998], p. 45). POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Farland to Rogers, 24 April 1971, Islamabad 3779.
27. MEA, HI/1012/30/71, Chib to Kaul, 6 May 1971. Sydney H. Schanberg, “Bengalis Form a Cabinet as the Bloodshed Goes On,” New York Times, 14 April 1971, pp. A1, A12.
28. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 89, Dhar to Haksar, n.d. 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 227, Dhar to Haksar, 4 April 1971 (his italics).
29. Rustamji, The British, the Bandits and the Bordermen, pp. 298–99. See K. F. Rustamji, I Was Nehru’s Shadow: From the Diaries of K. F. Rustamji, ed. P. V. Rajgopal (New Delhi: Wisdom Tree, 2006).
30. Rustamji, The British, the Bandits and the Bordermen, p. 302. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 227, “Special Assistance,” 1 April 1971. The paper is unsigned, but it could well be written by Haksar.
31. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 165, Haksar to Swaminathan, 17 April 1971. See B. Raman, The Kaoboys of R&AW: Down Memory Lane (New Delhi: Lancer, 2007), p. 9. On the R&AW and the functioning of India’s intelligence agencies, see NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 170, “Rationalisation of the intelligence and Security set-up,” August 1971.
32. NSC Files, Box 625, Country Files—Middle East, Pakistan, vol. V, Hilaly to Kissinger, 14 June 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 166, Haksar to Gandhi, 6 May 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 227, Rustamji to Narain, 14 April 1971. Rustamji, The British, the Bandits and the Bordermen, p. 315. See Abdul Wahab, Mukti Bahini Wins Victory, p. 152. Jacob, Surrender at Dacca, pp. 37–39.
33. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 227, Kao to Gandhi, 13 April 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 166, Haksar to Gandhi, briefing for opposition leaders, before 7 May 1971. She gave the sum of 600 million rupees, and India in August 1971 announced a continuation of an official exchange rate of 7.5 rupees to the dollar.
34. Jacob, Surrender at Dacca, p. 41. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Keating to Rogers, 19 April 1971, New Delhi 5827. See POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Keating to Rogers, 23 April 1971, New Delhi 6149; POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Gordon to Rogers, 19 April 1971, Calcutta 688; POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Gordon to Rogers, 23 April 1971, Calcutta 726. The proclamation was made on April 10, and asserted that Mujib had declared Bangladesh’s independence on March 26. (H. Rahman, ed., History of the Bangladesh War of Independence: Documents
[Dacca: Bangladesh Ministry of Information, 1982], vol. 3, pp. 4–6.) NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 227, “Points for the Meeting,” 6 May 1971. This was probably written by Haksar. See POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, “India and ‘Bangla Desh,’ ” INR note, 26 April 1971.
35. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 166, Haksar to Gandhi, briefing for opposition leaders, before 7 May 1971. See NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 166, Haksar to Gandhi, 6 May 1971; Muyeedul Hasan, “1971: PNH in Bridging the Security Gap,” Subrata Banerjee, ed., Contributions in Remembrance: Homage to P. N. Haksar (Chandigarh, India: Centre for Research and Industrial Development, 2004), vol. 2, pp. 21–28. See also M. Rashiduzzaman, “The National Awami Party of Pakistan,” Pacific Affairs, vol. 43, no. 3 (fall 1970), pp. 394-409.
36. Rustamji, The British, the Bandits and the Bordermen, p. 315.
37. Ibid., pp. 303–5. Jacob, Surrender at Dacca, pp. 41–43. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 227, Rustamji to Narain, 14 April 1971. See NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 227, “Situational Report of Bangladesh Army,” 5 July 1971. On Tajuddin Ahmad, see NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 227, Rustamji to Narain, 14 April 1971; Rustamji, The British, the Bandits and the Bordermen, pp. 300–301.
38. Singh, Leadership in the Indian Army, p. 206. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 235, Manekshaw-Kulikov talks, 24–25 February 1972.
39. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 258, Rustamji to Manekshaw, 23 April 1971. Rustamji says that the army took charge on April 30 in West Bengal, and sixteen days later in Assam and Tripura (Rustamji, The British, the Bandits and the Bordermen, p. 318). Jacob says he got his orders to train the rebels on or about April 22, which matches when Manekshaw made to take control of the Border Security Force.
40. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 227, Kao report, “Bangla Desh,” 3 July 1971.
41. Dhar, Indira Gandhi, the “Emergency,” and Indian Democracy, p. 164. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Keating to Rogers, 16 April 1971, New Delhi 5738.
42. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Gordon to Rogers, 24 April 1971, Calcutta 729. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Gordon to Rogers, 28 April 1971, Calcutta 750. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Gordon to Rogers, 21 April 1971, Calcutta 699.
43. Sydney H. Schanberg, “Bengalis Form a Cabinet as the Bloodshed Goes On,” New York Times, 14 April 1971, pp. A1, A12. In my interview, he said “Assam” instead of “Tripura.” See Sydney H. Schanberg, “Bengalis Seeking to Regroup Their Forces for Guerrilla Action,” New York Times, 22 April 1971.
44. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2530, Farland to Rogers, 8 April 1971, Islamabad 3228; POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Keating to Rogers, 12 April 1971, New Delhi 5311; POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Gordon to Rogers, 16 April 1971, Calcutta 671; POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Davies to Farland, 20 April 1971, State 67455. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Gordon to Rogers, 27 April 1971, Calcutta 744. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Gordon to Rogers, 24 April 1971, Calcutta 729. FRUS, SRG meeting, 19 April 1971, 3:10–4:10 p.m., pp. 76-84. See NSC Files, Box 570, Indo-Pak Crisis, South Asia, CIA Office of National Estimates, “The Indo-Pakistani Crisis,” 22 September 1971. NSC Files, Box 625, Country Files—Middle East, Pakistan, vol. IV, Kissinger to Nixon, 28 April 1971. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Keating to Rogers, 12 April 1971, New Delhi 5311.
45. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Keating to Rogers, 25 April 1971, New Delhi 6171; NSC Files, Box 625, Country Files—Middle East, Pakistan, vol. V, Farland to Rogers, 22 May 1971, Karachi 1186; NSC Files, Box 625, Country Files—Middle East, Pakistan, vol. V, Hilaly to Kissinger, 14 June 1971. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Stone to Rogers, 4 May 1971, New Delhi 6741. MEA, HI/121/13/71, vol. II, Dixit to heads of mission, 4 December 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 227, unsigned top secret note, 1 May 1971.
46. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 166, Haksar to Gandhi, 6 May 1971.
47. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 227, Haksar to Gandhi, 6 May 1971; NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 166, Haksar to Gandhi, 6 May 1971.
48. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 166, Haksar to Gandhi, briefing for opposition leaders, before 7 May 1971.
49. Sen notes, 27 October 1971, Jayaprakash Narayan, Selected Works, ed. Bimal Prasad (New Delhi: Manohar, 2008), vol. 9, pp. 862–69. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 89, Dhar letter, 18 April 1971.
50. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 227, Kao to Gandhi, 13 April 1971. For similar assessments, see POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Blood to Rogers, 19 April 1971, Dacca 1399; POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Gordon to Rogers, 10 April 1971, Calcutta 618; POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Gordon to Rogers, 13 April 1971, Calcutta 638; POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Gordon to Rogers, 16 April 1971, Calcutta 671.
51. Archer K. Blood, The Cruel Birth of Bangladesh: Memoirs of an American Diplomat (Dacca: University Press of Bangladesh, 2002), pp. 271–78. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 227, Dias to Gandhi, 27 April 1971. See POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Gordon to Rogers, 19 April 1971, Calcutta 687.
52. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Gordon to Rogers, 19 April 1971, Calcutta 688. NMML, Kaul Papers, Subject File 19, part II, Singh briefing in London, n.d. June 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 166, Haksar to Gandhi, briefing for opposition leaders, before 7 May 1971.
53. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 276, Subrahmanyam, “Bangla Desh and Our Policy Options,” 4 April 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 89, Dhar to Haksar, n.d. 1971.
54. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 227, Kao report, “Bangla Desh,” 3 July 1971.
55. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 166, Haksar to Gandhi, briefing for opposition leaders, before 7 May 1971.
CHAPTER 7: “DON’T SQUEEZE YAHYA”
1. James Mann, About Face: A History of America’s Curious Relationship with China, from Nixon to Clinton (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998), pp. 3–4. Library of Congress, Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Foreign Affairs Oral History Project, Winston Lord interview, 28 April 1998.
2. White House tapes, Oval Office 626-10, 30 November 1971, 11:23 a.m.–12:03 p.m. NSA, Kissinger to Nixon, circa 12 September 1970. NSA, Kissinger-Sainteny memcon, 27 September 1970; NSA, Smyser to Kissinger, 7 November 1970; NSA, Smyser to Kissinger, 18 January 1971. NSA, Ceaus¸escu-Kissinger memcon, 27 October 1970. See Huang Hua, Memoirs (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 2008), pp. 222–23; John H. Holdridge, Crossing the Divide: An Insider’s Account of Normalization of U.S.-China Relations (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1997), pp. 32–37, 39–43.
3. FRUS, vol. E-7, Nixon-Yahya memcon, 25 October 1970. See NSC Files, Box 624, Country Files—Middle East, Pakistan, vol. III, Nixon-Yahya memcon, 25 October 1970, 10:45 a.m. On Yahya’s impressions of China, see White House tapes, Oval Office 603-1, 27 October 1971, 9:40 a.m.–12:22 p.m. NSA, Hilaly-Kissinger memcon, 9 December 1970, 6:05 p.m. See Ji Chaozu, The Man on Mao’s Right: From Harvard Yard to Tiananmen Square, My Life Inside China’s Foreign Ministry (New York: Random House, 2008), pp. 244–45; Patrick E. Tyler, A Great Wall: Six Presidents and China (New York: PublicAffairs, 1999), p. 87. NSA, Kissinger-Hilaly memcon, 16 December 1970.
4. Henry Kissinger, White House Years (Boston: Little, Brown, 1979), p. 913.
5. NSA, Kissinger-Bogdan memcon, 11 January 1971. See NSA, Bogdan-Kissinger memcon, 29 January 1971, 12:30 p.m. Tyler, Great Wall, p. 88. H. R. Haldeman, The Haldeman Diaries: Inside the Nixon White House (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1994), 14 April 1971, p. 272. White House tapes, Oval Office 479-1, 14 April 1971, 9–9:45 a.m. See White House tapes, Oval Office 477-1, 12 April 1971, 10:24–10:33 a.m. On the Sainteny channel, see Kissinger, White House Years, p. 703. Haldeman, Haldeman Diaries, 20 April 1971, p. 275. On the Warsaw channel, see Kissinger, White House Years, pp. 688–93. NSA, Haig to Walters, 27 April 1971. White House tapes, Oval Office 486-1, 22 April 1971, 9:41–10:41 a.m. On the Romanian channel, see Kissinger, White House Years, pp. 699, 703–4. See Walter Isaacson, Kissinger: A Biography (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), pp. 333–39.
6. Kissinger, White House Years, p. 855. Library of Congress, Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Foreign Affairs Oral History Project, W
inston Lord interview, 28 April 1998 and subsequent.
7. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Bell to Shakespeare, 10 April 1971, Dacca 1234.
8. Archer K. Blood, The Cruel Birth of Bangladesh: Memoirs of an American Diplomat (Dacca: University Press of Bangladesh, 2002), p. 278. Desaix Myers, “Ki Korbo?” n.d. 1971, on file with author.
9. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2530, Spengler to Farland, 30 March 1971, State 53692. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2530, Smith to Farland, 29 March 1971, State 52825. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2530, Gordon to Rogers, 1 April 1971, Calcutta 521. See POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2530, Gordon to Rogers, 3 April 1971, Calcutta 539; POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2530, Sisco to Farland, 1 April 1971, State 55431. See James Fearon, “Domestic Political Audiences and the Escalation of International Disputes,” American Political Science Review, vol. 88, no. 3 (September 1994), p. 581. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Keating to Rogers, 21 April 1971, New Delhi 5974. MEA, HI/1012/78/71, Jha to Kaul, 7 May 1971.
10. NSC Files, Box H–053, SRG Meetings, Rogers to Nixon, 7 April 1971. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Sisco to Farland, 12 April 1971, State 61721. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Farland to Rogers, 13 April 1971, Islamabad 3337. For another copy, see POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Irwin to Bush, 13 April 1971, State 62172.
11. FRUS, vol. E-7, Blood to Rogers, 10 April 1971, Dacca 1249. NSC Files, Box 625, Country Files—Middle East, Pakistan, vol. IV, Blood to Rogers, 12 April 1971. There are some garbles in the cable, which I have corrected. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Blood to Rogers, 16 April 1971, Dacca 1337. NSC Files, Box 625, Country Files—Middle East, Pakistan, vol. IV, Blood to Rogers, 16 April 1971, Dacca 1337. See NSC Files, Box 625, Country Files—Middle East, Pakistan, vol. IV, Nixon-Ahmad memcon, 10 May 1971.