by Gary J. Bass
43. MEA, HI/121/13/71, vol. II, Dixit to heads of mission, 4 December 1971. MEA, WII/121/60/71, Kennedy-Kaul discussion, 14 August 1971.
44. NMML, Kaul Papers, Subject File 19, part II, Singh briefing in London, n.d. June 1971.
45. MEA, WII/121/60/71, Kennedy-Kaul discussion, 14 August 1971; NMML, Kaul Papers, Subject File 19, part I, “Possible Questions and Answers on the Simla Agreement,” n.d. 1972; MEA, HI/121/13/71, vol. II, Dixit to ambassadors, 6 December 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 171, Chatterjee to Haksar, 6 July 1971.
46. Richard Reeves, President Nixon: Alone in the White House (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007), p. 386. See MEA, WII/161/1/71, Dixit to ambassadors, 4 March 1971; MEA, WII/161/1/71, Menon to Dixit, 25 May 1971; MEA, WII/161/1/71, Sen to Dixit, n.d. 1971; MEA, WII/161/1/71, Chadha to ambassadors, 18 August 1971; MEA, WII/161/1/71, Dixit to ambassadors, 23 July 1971. MEA, HI/121/13/71, vol. II, Fu speech, 19 November 1971. MEA, HI/121/13/71, vol. II, Dixit to heads of mission, 6 December 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 171, Chatterjee to Narendra Singh, 6 July 1971. The ambassador wanted to use the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), which held talks on July 16. (NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 220, Mirza to Pakistani ambassadors, 1 October 1971.)
47. MEA, WII/121/54/71, Singh to Kaul, 3 July 1971. MEA, HI/121/13/71, vol. I, Dixit to heads of mission, 29 October 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 171, Chatterjee to Narendra Singh, 6 July 1971. MEA, HI/121/13/71, vol. I, Ali statement to UN General Assembly, 27 September 1971. MEA, HI/121/13/71, vol. I, Singh statement to UN General Assembly, 27 September 1971. See MEA, HI/121/13/71, vol. I, Singh statement to UN General Assembly, 28 September 1971.
48. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 171, Chatterjee to Narendra Singh, 6 July 1971. Thant did this on July 20 (MEA, HI/121/13/71, vol. II, Dixit to heads of mission, 4 December 1971). PMS, 7/371/71, vol. II, Gandhi to Kirpal, 2 August 1971.
49. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 220, Mirza to Pakistani ambassadors, 1 October 1971. See White House tapes, EOB 272-17, 11 August 1971, 4:56–6:31 p.m. MEA, HI/121/13/71, vol. II, Dixit to heads of mission, 4 December 1971. See NMML, Kaul Papers, Subject File 19, part II, Singh briefing in London, n.d. June 1971, and MEA, HI/1012/78/71, Jha to Kaul, 7 September 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 169, Haksar to Kaul, 12 July 1971.
50. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 169, Haksar to Gandhi, 26 July 1971. MEA, HI/121/13/71, vol. II, Dixit note, 25 November 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 168, Haksar to Gandhi, 21 June 1971. MEA, WII/121/54/71, vol. I, Rasgotra to Menon, 30 June 1971. See Samantha Power, Chasing the Flame: Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World (New York: Penguin, 2008), pp. 25–26; MEA, HI/121/13/71, vol. II, Sadruddin speech, 18 November 1971; MEA, HI/121/13/71, vol. II, Sen speech, 18 November 1971. REF PAK, Box 3008, Van Hollen to Keating, 26 June 1971, State 115314. See White House tapes, Oval Office 619-13, 16 November 1971, 11:38 a.m.–12:05 p.m.; FRUS, Kissinger-Sisco telcon, 29 June 1971, 10:40 a.m., pp. 209–11. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 169, Haksar to Gandhi, 26 July 1971.
51. NSC Files, Box H-058, SRG Meetings, Saunders to Kissinger, 22 July 1971. NSC Files, Box H-058, SRG Meetings, Eliot to Kissinger, 21 July 1971. White House tapes, Oval Office 605-9, 28 October 1971, 11:23 a.m.–12:45 p.m. Pakistan also supported it (NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 220, Ahmad to European ambassadors, 8 October 1971; NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 220, Sultan Khan to Dehlavi, 2 October 1971; MEA, HI/1012/30/71, Chib to Kaul, 5 August 1971). MEA, UI/251/33/71, vol. III, Rasgotra to Kaul, 14 July 1971. See MEA, UI/251/33/71, vol. III, Narendra Singh to Jha, 14 July 1971; MEA, UI/251/33/71, vol. III, Krishnan to Kaul, 14 July 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 169, Haksar to Gandhi, 26 July 1971. For Gandhi’s public denials that India was hiding anything, see MEA, HI/121/13/71, vol. I, Gandhi press conference, 19 October 1971. See MEA, HI/121/13/71, vol. II, Dixit to heads of mission, 4 December 1971.
52. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 169, Haksar to Gandhi, 24 July 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 170, Haksar to Gandhi, 14 August 1971. MEA, HI/121/13/71, vol. II, Dixit to heads of mission, 4 December 1971. NSC Files, Box H-082, WSAG Meetings, Eliot to Kissinger, 1 September 1971.
53. MEA, UI/251/33/71, vol. III, Rasgotra to Kaul, 14 July 1971. MEA, HI/121/13/71, vol. II, Dixit to heads of mission, 4 December 1971. NMML, Kaul Papers, Subject File 19, part II, Singh briefing in London, n.d. June 1971.
54. Shashi Tharoor, Reasons of State: Political Development and India’s Foreign Policy Under Indira Gandhi, 1966–1977 (New Delhi: Vikas, 1982), pp. 324–41. MEA, HI/121/13/71, vol. I, Gandhi press conference, 19 October 1971. MEA, UI/251/33/71, vol. III, Rasgotra to Kaul, 14 July 1971. Due to a cable garble, Schanberg was identified as DISNEY SCHANBERG.
55. Ajit Bhattacharjea, “A Day in Liberated Territory,” Times of India, 8 April 1971; Ajit Bhattacharjea, “A Trickle Becomes a Stream,” Times of India, 9 April 1971; Sudhir Thapliyal, “Operation Navaran,” Statesman, 23 April 1971; Frank Moraes, “Waiting for the Monsoon,” Indian Express, 1 May 1971; F. Chakravarty, “Ten Days with the Mukti Fauj,” Indian Express, 10 May 1971; Manash Ghose, “War Scars of Jessore,” Statesman, 3 April 1971; Chand Joshi, “The Lull,” Hindustan Times, 7 April 1971. On the Indian press, see Robin Jeffrey, India’s Newspaper Revolution: Capitalism, Politics and the Indian-Language Press, 1977–1999 (New York: Palgrave Macmillian, 2000). NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 89, Dhar to Haksar, n.d. 1971. MEA, HI/121/13/71, vol. II, Dixit to heads of mission, 4 December 1971.
56. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 89, Dhar letter, 18 April 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 168, Haksar to Gandhi, 10 June 1971. This was Romesh Thapar (see Bernard Weinraub, “The Kitty Kelley of Delhi Scandalizes the Nabobs,” New York Times, 9 July 1991).
57. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 170, Haksar to Gandhi, 8 August 1971. See NMML, Kaul Papers, Subject File 19, part II, Rogers-Gandhi talk, n.d. October 1971; NMML, Kaul Papers, Subject File 19, part I, Singh-Kissinger memcon, 7 July 1971; MEA, HI/121/13/71, vol. I, Singh statement in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, 24 June 1971. MEA, WII/109/13/71, vol. I, “MPs Angry over Arms Sale to Pakistan,” Indian Express, 25 June 1971. MEA, WII/109/13/71, vol. IV, Menon to Rasgotra, 25 June 1971. See MEA, WII/109/13/71, vol. IV, Jha to Singh, 22 June 1971, and MEA, HI/121/13/71, vol. I, Singh statement in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, 24 June 1971.
58. Communist Party of India pamphlet, Case for Bangla Desh, May 1971. Dhar, Indira Gandhi, the “Emergency,” and Indian Democracy, p. 166. For an overview of Parliament’s abilities and limits, see Tharoor, Reasons of State, pp. 215–81. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 169, Haksar to Gandhi, 24 July 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 169, Gandhi to Madhok, Haksar draft, July 1971. See NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 89, Narayan to Gandhi, 5 August 1971. On Hindu nationalism, see Ashutosh Varshney, Contested Meanings: India’s National Identity, Hindu Nationalism, and the Politics of Anxiety (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Center for International Affairs, 1993); and Atul Kohli, “Can Democracies Accommodate Ethnic Nationalism?” Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 56, no. 2 (May 1997), pp. 323–44. On Indian ethnic parties, see Kanchan Chandra, Why Ethnic Parties Succeed: Patronage and Ethnic Headcounts in India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).
59. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 89, Dhar to Haksar, n.d. 1971. See Gandhi speech, 15 August 1971, The Years of Endeavour: Selected Speeches of Indira Gandhi, August 1969–August 1972 (New Delhi: Indian Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, 1975), vol. 2, pp. 117–21. On the popular dissatisfaction that often arises in democracies in long wars, see Donald Kagan, Pericles of Athens and the Birth of Democracy (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991), pp. 230–31.
60. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 89, Dhar to Haksar, n.d. 1971. See NSC Files, Box 570, Indo-Pak War, Sisco to Keating, 10 June 1971, State 102568.
61. Jayaprakash Narayan, “Bangladesh and India’s Future,” Indian Express, 27–28 October 1971, Narayan, Selected Works, pp. 660–66. See Narayan note,
29 June 1971, Narayan, Selected Works, p. 627. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 89, Gandhi-Kennedy conversation, Malhoutra notes, 16 August 1971. Ramachandra Guha, India After Gandhi: The History of the World’s Largest Democracy (New York: Ecco, 2003), pp. 462–63, 515–16.
62. Tharoor, Reasons of State, p. 59. Gandhi had a favorable rating of 68 percent in August 1971, actually up four percentage points since her election victory. Tharoor, Reasons of State, pp. 282–92, 304–24. See Devesh Kapur and Pratap Bhanu Mehta, The Indian Parliament as an Institution of Accountability (Geneva: United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, 2006). Tharoor, Reasons of State, p. 291–96, 299. The exact numbers were 57 percent for recognizing Bangladesh to 24 percent against. This poll was in October 1971. See PMS, 7/371/71, vol. II, Afzalpurkar to Gandhi, 12 August 1971.
63. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 169, Haksar to Gandhi, 14 July 1971. Dhar, Indira Gandhi, the “Emergency,” and Indian Democracy, pp. 168–69. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 168, Haksar to Mitra, 26 June 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 169, Narain to Swaminathan, 1 July 1971; NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 229, Narain to Swaminathan, 1 July 1971 (Haksar showed this letter to Gandhi on July 14); NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 169, Swaminathan to Haksar, 3 July 1971; NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 169, Swaminathan to Narain, 3 July 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 229, Haksar to Dhar, 22 May 1971.
64. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 89, Dhar to Haksar, n.d. 1971.
CHAPTER 13: “THE HELL WITH THE DAMN CONGRESS”
1. For the famous stories breaking the news of My Lai, see Seymour Hersh, “Lieutenant Accused of Murdering 109 Civilians,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 13 November 1969; Seymour Hersh, “Hamlet Attack Called ‘Point-Blank Murder,’ ” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 20 November 1969; and Seymour Hersh, “Ex-GI Tells of Killing Civilians at Pinkville,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 25 November 1969, all in Reporting Vietnam: American Journalism, 1969–1975 (New York: Library of America, 1998), vol. 2, pp. 13–27. See Telford Taylor, “Judging Calley Is Not Enough,” Life, 9 April 1971, pp. 20–23. Richard Reeves, President Nixon: Alone in the White House (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007), pp. 306–8. Calley was sentenced to life imprisonment, doing hard labor. Nixon quickly had Calley released to his apartment, telling H. R. Haldeman with satisfaction that “at least a P[resident] can do something once in a while.” Haldeman wrote that the “general public reaction has been stupendous” in support of Calley (H. R. Haldeman, The Haldeman Diaries: Inside the Nixon White House [New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1994], 1 April 1971, p. 265). Some 79 percent of Americans disapproved of the Calley verdict, although 50 percent thought that the My Lai massacre was a common incident. (George H. Gallup, The Gallup Poll: Public Opinion, 1935–1971 [New York: Random House, 1972], vol. 3, 7 April 1971 poll, p. 2296.) Nixon—backed by Gerald Ford, then the House minority leader, and Jimmy Carter, then the governor of Georgia—freed Calley from the stockade, and his sentence was later reduced to ten years. After Nixon’s resignation, his army secretary would parole Calley. (Richard M. Nixon, RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon [New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990], pp. 499–500.)
2. Gallup Poll, vol. 3, 18 March 1971 poll, p. 2292. Some 28 percent named Vietnam as the most important problem for the country, ahead of 24 percent for the economy, 12 percent for other world issues, 7 percent for crime, and 7 percent for race relations. Stephen E. Ambrose, Nixon: The Triumph of a Politician, 1969–1972 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989), vol. 2, p. 417; David Greenberg, “Nixon as Statesman,” and Lien-Hang T. Nguyen, “Waging War on All Fronts,” both in Fredrik Logevall and Andrew Preston, eds., Nixon in the World: American Foreign Relations, 1969–1977 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008). For an excellent analysis of the domestic scene, see Rick Perlstein, Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America (New York: Scribner, 2008).
3. Walter Isaacson, Kissinger: A Biography (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), pp. 159–68, 171–79, 234–55. Stanley I. Kutler, The Wars of Watergate: The Last Crisis of Richard Nixon (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990), pp. 21–31, 69–74. MEA, HI/1012/78/71, Jha to Kaul, 7 May 1971. Reeves, President Nixon, pp. 318–21. See Garry Wills, Nixon Agonistes: The Crisis of the Self-Made Man (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1970), pp. 388–402. MEA, HI/1012/78/71, Jha to Kaul, 7 April 1971. MEA, HI/1012/78/71, Jha to Kaul, 14 July 1971. Gallup Poll, vol. 3, 9 May 1971 poll, p. 2305. Gallup Poll, vol. 3, 11 July 1971 poll, pp. 2314–15.
4. Tom Wicker, One of Us: Richard Nixon and the American Dream (New York: Random House, 1991), p. 591. Gallup Poll, vol. 3, 31 January 1971 poll, p. 2285. The number favoring withdrawal was 73 percent. Gallup Poll, vol. 3, 7 March 1971 poll, p. 2291. Forty-six percent approved of Nixon’s handling of Vietnam, while 41 percent disapproved; 65 percent thought Nixon’s team was not telling enough.
5. Henry Kissinger, White House Years (Boston: Little, Brown, 1979), p. 854. In the New York Times, Anthony Lewis wrote that Nixon claimed that the United States could not pull all its troops out of Vietnam yet because “there might be a ‘bloodbath’ in South Vietnam. Well, there has just been a bloodbath in East Pakistan, one of the largest and most blatant in a very long time, and the sounds of protest from Washington have not been audible.” (“America and the World,” New York Times, 12 June 1971.) John Kenneth Galbraith, “The Unbelievable Happens in Bengal,” New York Times Magazine, 31 October 1971. Desaix Myers, “Ki Korbo?” n.d. 1971, on file with author.
6. White House tapes, White House telephone 16-76, 9 December 1971, 7:42–8:10 p.m. White House tapes, Oval Office 477-1, 12 April 1971, 10:24–10:33 a.m. Nixon made a similar point in his Oval Office face-off with Kenneth Keating, when the ambassador brought up Congress: “Hell, they had us involved in a civil war in Biafra, and now they want us out of Pakistan.” (FRUS, vol. E-7, White House tapes, Oval Office 521-13, 15 June 1971, 5:13–5:40 p.m.) White House tapes, Oval Office 658-31, 27 January 1972, 3:13–3:46 p.m.
7. Jean Drèze and Amartya Sen, Hunger and Public Action (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), pp. 122, 126, 212–15, 221–25. Jean Drèze and Amartya Sen, India: Economic Development and Social Opportunity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 57–86, 87–92. Naeem Mohaiemen, “Accelerated Media and 1971 Genocide,” Forum (Dacca) 5, no. 12 (December 2011).
8. MEA, HI/1012/78/71, Jha to Kaul, 7 April 1971. See “Bloodbath in Bengal,” New York Times, 7 April 1971. MEA, HI/1012/78/71, Jha to Kaul, 7 May 1971. See MEA, HI/1012/78/71, Jha to Kaul, 7 September 1971. See R. Narayan, “American Response,” in Mohammed Ayoob et al., Bangla Desh: A Struggle for Nationhood (New Delhi: Vikas, 1971), pp. 133–67. MEA, WII/109/31/71, vol. II, “Attitudes in the US Congress,” n.d. December 1971. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2530, Keating to Rogers, 8 April 1971, New Delhi 5243. Indira Gandhi was somewhat more popular among Americans than Nixon, with 41 percent admiring her greatly and 24 percent admiring her somewhat (Harris Survey, October 1971).
9. MEA, WII/109/31/71, vol. II, “Attitudes in the US Congress,” n.d. December 1971.
10. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 167, Jha to Kaul, 22 December 1970.
11. White House tapes, Oval Office 505-18, 28 May 1971, 9:08 a.m. Haldeman, Haldeman Diaries, 9 June 1971, p. 297. Gallup Poll, vol. 3, 11 March 1971, p. 2291. Kennedy got 25 percent, Muskie 26 percent, and Hubert Humphrey 21 percent. In direct contests, he beat out both Muskie and Hubert Humphrey (Gallup Poll, vol. 3, 28 March 1971 poll, pp. 2294-95). Among Democrats, Kennedy beat Humphrey 47 percent to 42 percent, and Muskie 45 percent to 43 percent. In another poll, Kennedy got 29 percent of Democrats, to Muskie’s 21 percent (Gallup Poll, vol. 3, 16 May 1971, p. 2306). In January, 38 percent of respondents said they would vote for Kennedy, while 47 percent preferred Nixon (Gallup Poll, vol. 3, 22 January 1971 poll, p. 2284). Peter S. Canellos, ed., Last Lion: The Fall and Rise of Ted Kennedy (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2009), pp. 145–73, 184–86.
12. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Kennedy to Rogers, 6 April 1971. NSC Files, Box 574, Indo-Pak War, South Asian Co
ngressional, Hilaly to Kissinger, n.d. August 1971. NSC Files, Box 574, Indo-Pak War, South Asian Congressional, Hilaly to Kennedy, 4 June 1971. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Abshire to Kennedy, 20 April 1971. NSC Files, Box 626, Country Files—Middle East, Pakistan, vol. VI, Eliot to Kissinger, 17 August 1971. See POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2530, Keating to Rogers, 3 April 1971, New Delhi 4878; POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2530, Keating to Rogers, 5 April 1971, New Delhi 4952. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Keating to Rogers, 10 April 1971, New Delhi 5280.
13. NSC Files, Box 574, Indo-Pak War, South Asian Congressional, Kennedy statement, 18 June 1971. See NSC Files, Box 574, Indo-Pak War, South Asian Congressional, Kennedy speech, 2 June 1971. Kennedy’s subcommittee was part of the Senate Judiciary Committee. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2530, Gordon to Rogers, 8 April 1971, Calcutta 589. NSC Files, Box 574, Indo-Pak War, South Asian Congressional, Hilaly to Kennedy, 3 June 1971. NSC Files, Box 626, Country Files—Middle East, Pakistan, vol. VI, Haig to Kissinger, 3 August 1971. Gallup Poll, vol. 3, 4 June 1971 poll, p. 2309. Nixon got 42 percent, Kennedy 41 percent, George Wallace 10 percent, and 7 percent were undecided. On Vietnam, see Gallup Poll, vol. 3, 6 June 1971 poll, p. 2309.
14. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2530, Spengler to Farland, 9 April 1971, State 61066. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 166, Rasgotra to Kaul, 15 May 1971. NSC Files, Box 574, Indo-Pak War, South Asian Congressional, Muskie speech, 4 November 1971. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Keating to Rogers, 12 April 1971, New Delhi 5379. Archer K. Blood, The Cruel Birth of Bangladesh: Memoirs of an American Diplomat (Dacca: University Press of Bangladesh, 2002), pp. 254–56.
15. Blood, Cruel Birth, pp. 325–30. The records of the meeting have been lost, but Blood left a series of written answers. The State Department sent them along with a note that his views did not necessarily reflect official policy. REF PAK, Box 3008, Farland to Rogers, 28 June 1971, Islamabad 6487.