by Gary J. Bass
12. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Keating to Rogers, 12 April 1971, New Delhi 5311.
13. NSA, Kissinger-Rogers telcon, 21 April 1971, 5:45 p.m. NSC Files, Box H-053, SRG Meetings, Saunders and Hoskinson to Kissinger, 8 April 1971. Italics removed.
14. FRUS, Farland to Kissinger, 21 April 1971, pp. 87–90.
15. FRUS, vol. E-7, Blood to Rogers, 10 April 1971, Dacca 1249.
16. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Farland to Rogers, 20 April 1971, Islamabad 3570. Blood, Cruel Birth, pp. 286–89.
17. White House tapes, Oval Office 478-2, 13 April 1971, 9:30–11:13 a.m.
18. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Blood to Rogers, 15 April 1971, Dacca 1321. See POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Van Hollen to Blood, 13 April 1971, State 62716; Blood, Cruel Birth, pp. 283–86.
19. NSC Files, Box H-053, SRG Meetings, Saunders and Hoskinson to Kissinger, 7 April 1971. See POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Keating to Rogers, 15 April 1971, New Delhi 5646.
20. U.S. Senate, Subcommittee on Refugees, Relief Problems in East Pakistan and India (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), 28 June 1971 hearing, pp. 28–29.
21. NSC Files, Box H–054, SRG Meetings, SRG meeting, Pakistan and Ceylon, 19 April 1971, Saunders to Kissinger, 16 April 1971. For 1971, Saunders explained to Kissinger, the president had already signed off on a credit of $13 million for purchasing spares, ammunition, and other equipment. See NSC Files, Box H-053, SRG Meetings, Saunders and Hoskinson to Kissinger, 7 April 1971. NSC Files, Box 574, Indo-Pak War, South Asian Military Supply, Saunders and Hoskinson to Kissinger, 17 May 1971. NSC Files, Box 574, Indo-Pak War, South Asian Military Supply, Kissinger to Nixon, 25 June 1971.
22. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Smith to Farland, 12 April 1971, State 61940. See POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Van Hollen to Farland, 15 April 1971, State 64521. NSC Files, Box 574, Indo-Pak War, South Asian Military Supply, Kissinger to Nixon, 25 June 1971. NSC Files, Box 574, Indo-Pak War, South Asian Military Supply, Saunders and Hoskinson to Kissinger, 17 May 1971. NSC Files, Box 574, Indo-Pak War, South Asian Military Supply, Kissinger to Nixon, 25 June 1971.
23. Christopher Van Hollen, “The Tilt Policy Revisited,” Asian Survey, vol. 20, no. 4 (April 1980), pp. 343–44. FRUS, SRG meeting, 9 April 1971, 11:15 a.m.–12:15 p.m., pp. 56–62.
24. NSC Files, Box 574, Indo-Pak War, South Asian Military Supply, Kissinger to Nixon, 25 June 1971. NSA, Kissinger-Bundy telcon, 27 April 1971, 9:05 a.m.
25. FRUS, SRG meeting, 19 April 1971, 3:10–4:10 p.m., pp. 76–84.
26. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Blood to Rogers, 17 April 1971, Dacca 1360; POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Blood to Rogers, 21 April 1971, Dacca 1437; POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Bell to Shakespeare, 24 April 1971, Dacca 1483; POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Blood to Rogers, 19 April 1971, Dacca 1388. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Farland to Rogers, 13 April 1971, Islamabad 3362. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Blood to Rogers, 12 April 1971, Dacca 1276. See POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Bell to Shakespeare, 13 April 1971, Dacca 1296. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Blood to Rogers, 16 April 1971, Dacca 1337. See POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Blood to Rogers, 19 April 1971, Dacca 1399.
27. James D. Fearon and David D. Laitin, “Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War,” American Political Science Review, vol. 97, no. 1 (February 2003), pp. 75–90; James D. Fearon, “Why Do Some Civil Wars Last So Much Longer than Others?” Journal of Peace Research, vol. 41, no. 3 (May 2004), pp. 275–302; Stathis N. Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006); Virginia Page Fortna, “Does Peacekeeping Keep Peace?” International Studies Quarterly, vol. 48, no. 2 (2004). POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Blood to Rogers, 20 April 1971, Dacca 1403. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Bell to Shakespeare, 19 April 1971, Dacca 1386. See POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Bell to Shakespeare, 28 April 1971, Dacca 1515. See A. A. K. Niazi, The Betrayal of East Pakistan (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 50–55.
28. Chuck Yeager and Leo Janos, Yeager: An Autobiography (New York: Bantam, 1985), pp. 306–7, 311–12.
29. Blood, Cruel Birth, pp. 287–89.
30. FRUS, Nixon-Haig telcon, 29 April 1971, p. 99. FRUS, SRG meeting, 19 April 1971, 3:10–4:10 p.m., pp. 76–84. See NSA, Kissinger-Bundy telcon, 27 April 1971, 9:05 a.m.
31. NSC Files, Box 759, Presidential Correspondence File, Yahya to Nixon, 17 April 1971; POL INDIA-US, Box 2369, Yahya to Nixon, 17 April 1971.
32. FRUS, SRG meeting, 19 April 1971, 3:10–4:10 p.m., pp. 76–84. FRUS, SRG meeting, 9 April 1971, 11:15 a.m.–12:15 p.m., pp. 56–62. Kissinger makes the comparison to the American Civil War in White House Years, p. 852.
33. For a transcript of Keating’s interview, see POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Keating to Rogers, 16 April 1971, New Delhi 5734. His exact quote is “We have expressed concern publicly and privately about the possible use of US arms by the military in what is going on in East Pakistan so that the phrase ‘internal affair’ should [not] be overdone so far as our government’s statements are concerned.” (His transcript leaves out “not,” but it is clear from the context.) See POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Irwin to Keating, 15 April 1971, State 63807; POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Greene to Rogers, 16 April 1971, London 3434. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Johnson to Keating, 16 April 1971. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Van Hollen to Farland, 17 April 1971, State 65745. FRUS, vol. E-7, Blood to Rogers, 10 April 1971, Dacca 1249.
34. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Bush to Rogers, 20 April 1971, USUN 990. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Bush to Rogers, 26 April 1971, USUN 1066. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Bush to Rogers, 16 April 1971, USUN 970. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Armitage to Bush, 27 April 1971, State 72610.
35. Briefing Kissinger, Saunders was more circumspect, calling Farland’s analysis “fairly sound” but also including Keating’s “familiar views.” NSC Files, Box H-054, SRG Meetings, SRG meeting, Pakistan and Ceylon, 19 April 1971, Saunders and Hoskinson to Kissinger, 16 April 1971.
36. NSC Files, Box H-053, SRG Meetings, Saunders and Hoskinson to Kissinger, 7 April 1971. NSC Files, Box H-054, SRG Meetings, SRG meeting, Pakistan and Ceylon, 19 April 1971, Saunders to Kissinger, 16 April 1971. See NSC Files, Box H-054, SRG Meetings, SRG meeting, Pakistan and Ceylon, 19 April 1971, Sisco to Kissinger, 16 April 1971. FRUS, SRG meeting, 19 April 1971, 3:10–4:10 p.m., pp. 76–84.
37. NSC Files, Box H-054, SRG Meetings, SRG meeting, Pakistan and Ceylon, 19 April 1971, Sisco to Kissinger, 16 April 1971. NSC Files, Box 625, Country Files—Middle East, Pakistan, vol. IV, Saunders to Kissinger, 19 April 1971. His italics. NSC Files, Box H-054, SRG Meetings, SRG meeting, Pakistan and Ceylon, 19 April 1971, Kennedy, Saunders, and Hoskinson to Kissinger, 16 April 1971.
38. FRUS, SRG meeting, 9 April 1971, 11:15 a.m.–12:15 p.m., pp. 56–62. FRUS, SRG meeting, 19 April 1971, 3:10–4:10 p.m., pp. 76–84.
39. NSC Files, Kissinger Office Files, Country Files—Middle East, Box 138, Nixon note, passed by Kissinger to Hilaly, 10 May 1971. NSA, Zhou to Nixon, 21 April 1971. See Tyler, Great Wall, p. 92.
40. NSA, Haig to Walters, 27 April 1971.
41. White House tapes, Oval Office 486-1, 22 April 1971, 9:41–10:41 a.m. NSA, Nixon-Kissinger telcon, 27 April 1971, 8:18 p.m.
42. NSC Files, Box 625, Country Files—Middle East, Pakistan, vol. IV, Lord to Kissinger, 21 April 1971.
43. NSC Files, Box 625, Country Files—Middle East, Pakistan, vol. IV, Kissinger to Nixon, 28 April 1971. White House tapes, Oval Office 486-1, 22 April 1971, 9:41–10:41 a.m. Richard Nixon, In the Arena: A Memoir of Victory, Defeat, and Renewal (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990), p. 16.
44. Robert Jackson, South Asian Crisis: India, Pakistan and Bangla Desh; A Political and Historical Analysis of the 1971 War (New York: Praeger, 1975), pp. 47–48. White House tapes, Oval Office 568-12, 9 September 1971, 4:05–6 p.m. NSC Files, Box 625, Country Files—Middle East, Pakistan, vol. IV, Kissinger to Nixon, 28 April 1971.
45. FRUS, p. 98n2. NSC Files, Box 625, Country Files—Middle East, Pakistan, vol. IV, Kissinger to Nixon, 28 April 1971.
46. Stanley I. Kutler, The Wars of Watergate: The Last Crisis of Ri
chard Nixon (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990), pp. 94–96. J. Anthony Lukas, Nightmare: The Underside of the Nixon Years (New York: Viking, 1976), p. 18. Haldeman, Haldeman Diaries, 28 June 1971, p. 308. See NSA, Nixon-Kissinger telcon, 23 May 1971, 2:30 p.m.
47. Haldeman, Haldeman Diaries, 20 June 1971, p. 303. See MEA, HI/1012/78/71, Jha to Kaul, 14 July 1971; Sam Tanenhaus, Whittaker Chambers: A Biography (New York: Random House, 1997), pp. 230–45, 254–73, 297–322, 438–39. Haldeman, Haldeman Diaries, 29 June 1971, p. 311.
48. Richard Reeves, President Nixon: Alone in the White House (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007), pp. 333, 339, 349. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, “40 Years After Watergate, Nixon Was Far Worse than We Thought,” Washington Post, 8 June 2012. See Reeves, President Nixon, pp. 330–39, 368–69; H. R. Haldeman with Joseph DiMona, The Ends of Power (New York: Times Books, 1978), pp. 111–12; Isaacson, Kissinger, pp. 327–31.
49. NSA, Huang-Kissinger memcon, 23 November 1971, 10–11:55 p.m. NSA, Kissinger-Sisco telcon, 22 November 1971, 5:47 p.m.
50. NSA, Kissinger-Bundy telcon, 27 April 1971, 9:05 a.m. FRUS, vol. E-7, White House tapes, Oval Office 521-13, 15 June 1971, 5:13–5:40 p.m.
51. Farland pointedly told Washington how the British government had yanked one of its senior diplomats out of Dacca. (POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Farland to Van Hollen, 16 April 1971, Islamabad 3337. Blood, Cruel Birth, p. 323.)
52. Blood, Cruel Birth, p. 289.
53. Ibid., p. 271.
54. See Kissinger, White House Years, p. 854.
55. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Carle to Rogers, 26 April 1971, Dacca 1492. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Carle to Rogers, 27 April 1971, Dacca 1501. Blood, Cruel Birth, pp. 292–93.
CHAPTER 8: EXODUS
1. See Stanley Wolpert, India (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), p. 236. Since Partition, Indian officials had complained that Pakistan was driving minority refugees from East Pakistan into India (MEA, WII/109/31/71, vol. I, Singh statement to UN Security Council, 12 December 1971). And Indian officials remembered that the communists had tried to mobilize Partition refugees in West Bengal after 1947. (Ian Talbot and Gurharpal Singh, Region and Partition: Bengal, Punjab and the Partition of the Subcontinent [New York: Oxford University Press, 1999], pp. 329–44; Joya Chatterji, The Spoils of Partition: Bengal and India, 1947–1967 [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007].) There was also an eerie echo of a near war. Back in 1950, in the aftermath of Partition, a far smaller Pakistani crackdown had sent a far smaller but still large number of refugees—almost fifty thousand in Calcutta alone—streaming into India. Hindu chauvinists in India lashed out at Indian Muslims in West Bengal, many of whom fled into East Pakistan. Hindu nationalists and much of the ruling Congress party demanded war. Jawaharlal Nehru, fearing escalation and the loss of domestic progress, worked hard to defuse a possible war. He successfully resolved the crisis through a combination of showily mobilizing Indian troops while offering a pact with Pakistan to safeguard minority rights. (Srinath Raghavan, War and Peace in Modern India [New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010], pp. 150–87.)
2. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 166, Haksar to Gandhi, 12 May 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 227, “Points for the Meeting,” 6 May 1971. This report estimates one and a half million refugees. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 166, Haksar to Sikri, 13 May 1971. On April 24, India reckoned there were half a million refugees (POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Keating to Rogers, 25 April 1971, New Delhi 6171).
3. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 227, Dias to Gandhi, 27 April 1971. See PMS, 7/371/71, vol. II, Afzalpurkar to Gandhi, 12 August 1971.
4. Manojit Mitra, “Flight from Butchery,” Statesman, 23 May 1971.
5. NMML, Kaul Papers, Subject File 19, part II, Singh briefing in London, n.d. June 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 166, Haksar to Sikri, 13 May 1971. See NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 166, Haksar notes, 20 May 1971.
6. P. N. Dhar, Indira Gandhi, the “Emergency,” and Indian Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 154. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 166, Haksar to Sikri, 13 May 1971. See NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 227, Dhar to Haksar, 4 April 1971.
7. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 169, Haksar minutes of Kissinger meeting, 6 July 1971. There had been a slow trickle of Bengali Hindus into India since Partition, with about five million coming between 1949 and 1971 (NSC Files, Box 570, Indo-Pak Crisis, South Asia, CIA Office of National Estimates, “The Indo-Pakistani Crisis,” 22 September 1971). But this sudden rush would exceed that number in a matter of months. The first wave of refugees had been Muslims, but that had quickly changed. (MEA, WII/121/54/71, vol. II, East Bengal memorandum, n.d. 1971.) See also MEA, HI/1012/30/71, Chib to Kaul, 9 June 1971.
8. Narayan-Islam meeting, 8–9 July 1971, Jayaprakash Narayan, Selected Works, ed. Bimal Prasad (New Delhi: Manohar, 2008), vol. 9, p. 847. MEA, WII/121/54/71, vol. II, refugee statistics, 3 July 1971. NMML, Kaul Papers, Subject File 19, part II, Singh briefing in London, n.d. June 1971.
9. Dhar, Indira Gandhi, the “Emergency,” and Indian Democracy, pp. 152–54. See NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 227, Dias to Gandhi, 27 April 1971.
10. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2530, Keating to Rogers, 24 April 1971, New Delhi 6163. See POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Keating to Rogers, 4 May 1971, New Delhi 6741; and PMS, 7/371/71, vol. II, Afzalpurkar to Gandhi, 12 August 1971. NMML, Kaul Papers, Subject File 19, part II, Singh briefing in London, n.d. June 1971. Sydney H. Schanberg, “The Only Way to Describe It Is ‘Hell,’ ” New York Times, 20 June 1971; Sydney H. Schanberg, “West Pakistan Pursues Subjugation of Bengalis,” New York Times, 14 July 1971. John Kenneth Galbraith, “The Unbelievable Happens in Bengal,” New York Times Magazine, 31 October 1971. NMML, Kaul Papers, Subject File 19, part II, Singh briefing in London, n.d. June 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 166, Gandhi statement in Lok Sabha, 24 May 1971. Pupul Jayakar repeats this as fact (Indira Gandhi: An Intimate Biography [New York: Pantheon, 1992], p. 167). See also NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 170, Haksar to Gandhi, 8 August 1971.
11. See POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2530, Bell to Shakespeare, 1 April 1971, Dacca 1037; POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2530, Keating to Rogers, 2 April 1971, New Delhi 4864. NMML, Kaul Papers, Subject File 19, part II, Singh briefing in London, n.d. June 1971. See NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 280, Dhar-Gromyko meeting, 4 August 1971; MEA, WII/109/31/71, vol. I, Singh statement to UN Security Council, 12 December 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 227, Dhar to Kaul, 28 April 1971.
12. MEA, HI/1012/30/71, Chib to Kaul, 9 June 1971. MEA, HI/1012/57/71, Dhar to Kaul, 13 May 1971. Dhar also wrote of “the holocaust in East Bengal” (NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 227, Dhar to Haksar, 29 April 1971). See Shashi Tharoor, Reasons of State: Political Development and India’s Foreign Policy Under Indira Gandhi, 1966–1977 (New Delhi: Vikas, 1982), pp. 145–46. MEA, WII/121/54/71, vol. II, East Bengal memorandum, n.d. 1971. The foreign ministry also wrote that Yahya’s regime was engaged in a “purge of non-Muslims from East Bengal.” In a May 1971 interview with Blitz, Gandhi said, “Formerly it was the Pakistan Army against the Bangla Desh people—Hindus and Muslims alike. Now Hindus seem to be the target.” (R. K. Karanjia and K. A. Abbas, Face to Face with Indira Gandhi [New Delhi: Chetana Publications, 1974], p. 66.)
13. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 163, Haksar to Gandhi, 10 January 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 163, Haksar to Gandhi, 10 January 1971. On Vietnam, see NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 163, Haksar to Gandhi, Trudeau briefing, 11 January 1971. India’s shifting views of sovereignty confirm the argument of Stephen D. Krasner, Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), especially pp. 3–42, 73–90, 105–26. See Louis Henkin, “That ‘S’ Word,” Fordham Law Review, vol. 68, no. 1 (October 1999), pp. 1–14; Louis Henkin, International Law: Politics, Values and Functions (Norwell, Mass.: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1995), pp. 23–44; Louis Henkin, “The Mythology of Sovereignty,” American Society of International Law Newslette
r, March–May 1993.
14. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 164, Haksar notes for Gandhi meeting with opposition, March 1971. See NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 164, Haksar draft parliamentary statement, 27 March 1971; POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2530, Bush to Rogers, 2 April 1971, airgram A-499, for Sen note verbale to Thant, 30 March 1971; P. N. Haksar, Premonitions (Bombay: Interpress, 1979), pp. 42–43; G. W. Choudhury, The Last Days of United Pakistan (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1974), p. 187.
15. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 220, R&AW report, “Threat of a Military Attack or Infiltration Campaign by Pakistan,” January 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 164, Haksar to Gandhi, 31 March 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 164, Haksar notes for Gandhi meeting with opposition, March 1971. See NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 164, Haksar draft parliamentary statement, 27 March 1971; NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 227, Jha to Kaul, 12 March 1971; NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 170, Kashmir memorandum, August 1971; MEA, HI/121/13/71, vol. II, Dixit to heads of mission, 4 December 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 227, Dhar to Haksar, 4 April 1971.
16. Narayan statement, 27 March 1971, Narayan, Selected Works, pp. 610–11. See POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Bell to Rogers, 22 April 1971, Dacca 1456. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2530, Bush to Rogers, 2 April 1971, airgram A-499, for Sen note verbale to Thant, 30 March 1971. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Bush to Rogers, 20 April 1971, USUN 990; POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Bush to Rogers, 26 April 1971, USUN 1066.
17. Haksar tried and failed to persuade Gandhi to say that “the Rulers of Pakistan ought to know that the civil laws of every State calling itself civilised clearly provide that the right to do what you may wish within the four corners of your own house does not confer a right to commit nuisance or negligence affecting one’s neighbour” (NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 166, Haksar to Gandhi, 23 May 1971). NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 166, Haksar to Gandhi, 12 May 1971. See NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 227, Dhar to Kaul, 28 April 1971. Narayan statement, 2 April 1971, Narayan, Selected Works, pp. 612–13.