by Gary J. Bass
11. NSC Files, Box 570, Indo-Pak War, South Asia, Kissinger to Nixon, 18 August 1971. NSC Files, Box H-082, WSAG Meetings, Saunders and Hoskinson to Kissinger, “Contingency Planning—Indo-Pak Hostilities,” 3 September 1971. See NSC Files, Box H-082, WSAG Meetings, Saunders and Hoskinson to Kissinger, 3 September 1971. See also NSC Files, Box H-082, WSAG Meetings, Hoskinson and Kennedy to Kissinger, 25 May 1971; NSC Files, Box H-082, WSAG Meetings, “Analytical Summary of Contingency Paper,” 17 August 1971; NSC Files, Box H-082, WSAG Meetings, Hoskinson and Kennedy to Kissinger, “WSAG Meeting on South Asia,” 17 August 1971. Henry Kissinger, White House Years (Boston: Little, Brown, 1979), p. 865. NSC Files, Box H-058, SRG Meetings, Saunders and Kennedy to Kissinger, “Analytical Summary,” 12 July 1971. See NSC Files, Box H-082, WSAG Meetings, “China, the Soviet Union, and UN,” Eliot to Kissinger, 1 September 1971. See also NSC Files, Box H-082, WSAG Meetings, Eliot to Kissinger, “Contacts with the Chinese on the South Asian Crisis,” 27 August 1971. See NSC Files, Box H-082, WSAG Meetings, “Contingency Paper—Indo-Pakistan Hostilities,” Hoskinson and Kennedy to Kissinger, 11 November 1971, attached State Department paper, “Contingency Paper—Indo-Pakistan Hostilities,” probably August 1971. Gallup Organization, Hopes and Fears poll, 2–5 April 1971. Forty percent wanted to send supplies, 8 percent wanted to send troops, 38 percent would refuse to get involved, and 14 percent did not know. They were not asked about supporting the invasion.
12. 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 203, Kosygin-Singh conversation, 8 June 1971.
13. NSC Files, Box 597, Country Files—Middle East, India, vol. IV, Saunders to Kissinger, 7 September 1971. MEA, WII/121/54/71, Jha to Kaul, 27 August 1971. See P. N. Dhar, Indira Gandhi, the “Emergency,” and Indian Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 163, 171.
14. NSC Files, Box 597, Country Files—Middle East, India, vol. IV, Kissinger to Nixon, 24 August 1971. FRUS, WSAG meeting, 8 September 1971, pp. 393–404. FRUS, Jha-Kissinger memcon, 11 September 1971, pp. 407–8.
15. NSC Files, Box H-082, WSAG Meetings, Hoskinson and Kennedy to Kissinger, “Talking Points,” 7 October 1971. NSC Files, Box H-082, WSAG Meetings, Hoskinson and Kennedy to Kissinger, “Possible US Responses to Chinese Military Actions in South Asia,” 7 October 1971. FRUS, WSAG meeting, 7 October 1971, pp. 443–45. FRUS, vol. E-7, White House tapes, Oval Office 582-9, 30 September 1971, 4:10–5:31 p.m. NSA, Nixon-Kissinger telcon, 1 October 1971, 10:15 a.m. White House tapes, Oval Office 605-9, 28 October 1971, 11:23 a.m.–12:45 p.m.
16. MEA, HI/121/13/71, vol. II, Radio Peking broadcast, 5 December 1971. See FRUS, notes for Kissinger, 2 July 1971, p. 216; FRUS, Haig to Nixon, 9 July 1971, pp. 244–45. MEA, HI/1012/14/71, Mishra to Kaul, 5 November 1971.
17. FRUS, WSAG meeting, 7 October 1971, pp. 436–45.
18. H. R. Haldeman, The Haldeman Diaries: Inside the Nixon White House (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1994), 18, 26 and 27 October 1971, pp. 365–66, 368–69. Kissinger, White House Years, pp. 776–77. Patrick E. Tyler, A Great Wall: Six Presidents and China (New York: PublicAffairs, 1999), p. 114. On the Lin Biao affair, see Gao Wenqian, Zhou Enlai: The Last Perfect Revolutionary, trans. Peter Rand and Lawrence R. Sullivan (New York: PublicAffairs, 2007) pp. 201–27; 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), p. 249.
19. Neville Maxwell, India’s China War (London: Jonathan Cape, 1970). NSA, Zhou-Kissinger memcon, 22 October 1971, 4:15–8:28 p.m.
20. White House tapes, Oval Office 613-12, 4 November 1971, 9:40 a.m.
21. NSC Files, Box H-058, SRG Meetings, Saunders talking points for Kissinger, 21 July 1971. See NSC Files, Box H-082, WSAG Meetings, INR assessment, 6 October 1971; and Narayan to Bhattacharya, 1 November 1971, Jayaprakash Narayan, Selected Works, ed. Bimal Prasad (New Delhi: Manohar, 2008), vol. 9, p. 677.
22. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 220, Muhammad Khan to Dehlavi, 2 October 1971. NSC Files, Box H-082, WSAG Meetings, INR assessment, 6 October 1971. J. F. R. Jacob, Surrender at Dacca: Birth of a Nation (New Delhi: Manohar, 1997), pp. 86–88. POL 23–9 PAK, Box 2533, Spivack to Rogers, 20 October 1971, Dacca 4498. NSC Files, Box 570, Indo-Pak War, Spivack to Rogers, 13 September 1971, Dacca 3777. FRUS, WSAG meeting, 7 October 1971, pp. 436–45. FRUS, vol. E-7, Sober to Rogers, 4 October 1971, Islamabad 10043. Sen notes, 27 October 1971, Narayan, Selected Works, pp. 862–69.
23. FRUS, vol. E-7, Sober to Rogers, 4 October 1971, Islamabad 10043. MEA, HI/1012/30/71, Chib to Kaul, 10 November 1971. NSC Files, Box 759, Presidential Correspondence File, Yahya to Nixon, 26 September 1971.
24. FRUS, Irwin to Nixon, 22 October 1971, pp. 476–78. FRUS, WSAG meeting, 7 October 1971, pp. 440–41. FRUS, WSAG meeting, 7 October 1971, pp. 436–45. See NSC Files, Box H-082, WSAG Meetings, Hoskinson and Kennedy to Kissinger, 7 October 1971.
25. NSA, Nixon-Kissinger telcon, 13 November 1971, 10:38 a.m. NSC Files, Box H-082, WSAG Meetings, INR assessment, 6 October 1971. FRUS, WSAG meeting, 7 October 1971, pp. 436–45.
26. NSA, Nixon-Kissinger telcon, 1 October 1971, 10:15 a.m. FRUS, Saunders and Hoskinson to Kissinger, 16 September 1971, pp. 413–15.
27. White House tapes, Oval Office 561-4, 11 August 1971, 9:10–11:40 a.m. FRUS, vol. E-7, White House tapes, Oval Office 582-9, 30 September 1971, 4:10–5:31 p.m.
28. FRUS, vol. E-7, White House tapes, Oval Office 582-9, 30 September 1971, 4:10–5:31 p.m. FRUS, WSAG meeting, 7 October 1971, pp. 436–45.
29. White House tapes, Oval Office 553-3, 2 August 1971, 9:45 a.m. NSC Files, Box H-082, WSAG Meetings, Saunders and Hoskinson to Kissinger, “Contingency Planning—Indo-Pak Hostilities,” 3 September 1971; NSC Files, Box H-082, WSAG Meetings, Eliot to Kissinger, “Contact with the Chinese on the South Asian Crisis,” 27 August 1971. NSC Files, Box H-082, WSAG Meetings, Eliot to Kissinger, 3 September 1971. NSC Files, Box H-082, WSAG Meetings, Saunders and Hoskinson to Kissinger, “Cut-Off of Aid to India,” 3 September 1971. NSC Files, Box H-082, WSAG Meetings, Eliot to Kissinger, “Cut-Off of Aid to India,” 3 September 1971. See NSC Files, Box 627, Country Files—Middle East, Pakistan, vol. VIII, Kissinger to Nixon, “Relief and Economic Assistance,” 3 November 1971; NSC Files, Box 627, Country Files—Middle East, Pakistan, vol. VIII, Kissinger to Nixon, 3 November 1971. This added up to over $9 billion over the past fifteen years (NSC Files, Box 627, Country Files—Middle East, Pakistan, vol. VIII, Rogers to Nixon, 28 October 1971). NSC Files, Box H-082, WSAG Meetings, Eliot to Kissinger, 3 September 1971. NSC Files, Box H-082, WSAG Meetings, Saunders and Hoskinson to Kissinger, “Cut-Off of Aid to India,” 3 September 1971. NSC Files, Box H-082, WSAG Meetings, Eliot to Kissinger, “Cut-Off of Aid to India,” 3 September 1971. FRUS, WSAG meeting, 7 October 1971, pp. 436–45.
30. MEA, HI/1012/30/71, Chib to Kaul, 6 October 1971. Gandhi visited Moscow on September 27–29. White House tapes, Oval Office 580-20, 29 September 1971, 3:03–5 p.m. See FRUS, Nixon-Gromyko memcon, 29 September 1971, pp. 424–25. MEA, HI/1012/57/71, Sethi to army staff, monthly military digest, 5 October 1971. HI/1012/57/71, Damodaran to Kaul, 22 October 1971. HI/1012/57/71, Damodaran to Kaul, 15 November 1971.
31. FRUS, Irwin to Nixon, 22 October 1971, pp. 476–78. NSC Files, Box 627, Country Files—Middle East, Pakistan, vol. VIII, Kissinger to Nixon, 3 November 1971. Katherine Frank, Indira: The Life of Indira Nehru Gandhi (New York: HarperCollins, 2001), p. 335. Jonathan Kandell, “Kurt Waldheim Dies at 88; Ex-UN Chief Hid Nazi Past,” New York Times, 14 June 2007. Pupul Jayakar, Indira Gandhi: An Intimate Biography (New York: Pantheon, 1992), p. 169. For a skeptical biography of Malraux, see Olivier Todd, André Malraux: Une vie (Paris: Gallimard, 2001). MEA, HI/121/13/71, vol. II, Dixit to ambassadors, 22 November 1971. Oriana Fallaci, Interviews with History and Conversations with Power (New York: Rizzoli, 2011), p. 265.
32. MEA, HI/121/13/7
1, vol. II, Dixit to ambassadors, 22 November 1971. See Gandhi speeches, 24 and 29 October 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. 134–36, 140–44. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X_Ex5CCxsk. The interviewer was the BBC’s Michael Charlton, on November 1. (See Jayakar, Indira Gandhi, p. 174, although her quotes are paraphrases.)
33. FRUS, vol. E-7, Farland to Rogers, 28 September 1971, Islamabad 9833. Archer K. Blood, The Cruel Birth of Bangladesh: Memoirs of an American Diplomat (Dacca: University Press of Bangladesh, 2002), p. 333.
34. FRUS, Farland to Rogers, 15 July 1971, Islamabad 7172, p. 263. See NSC Files, Box H-058, SRG Meetings, Davis to Irwin, “Scenario for Action in Indo-Pakistan Crisis,” 29 July 1971. NSC Files, Box H-082, WSAG Meetings, Eliot to Kissinger, “Situation Report: India/Pakistan,” 1 September 1971. MEA, HI/1012/30/71, Chib to Kaul, 4 September 1971. NMML, Kaul Papers, Subject File 19, part II, Rogers-Gandhi talk, n.d. October 1971. MEA, HI/1012/30/71, Chib to Kaul, 6 October 1971. Government of Pakistan, The Report of the Hamoodur Rehman Commission of Inquiry into the 1971 War (Lahore: Vanguard, 2001), p. 502; see p. 262.
35. FRUS, Gandhi to Nixon, 11 August 1971, p. 319. See FRUS, WSAG meeting, 7 October 1971, pp. 436–45; NSC Files, Box 626, Country Files—Middle East, Pakistan, vol. VI, Kissinger to Nixon, 24 August 1971. White House tapes, Oval Office 558-10, 9 August 1971, 5:44–6:18 p.m. White House tapes, Oval Office 559-3, 10 August 1971, 9:11–10:05 a.m.
36. FRUS, Farland to Rogers, 20 August 1971, Islamabad 8501, pp. 357–58. See White House tapes, Oval Office 611-3, 2 November 1971, 12:47– 1:13 p.m.; NSC Files, Box 627, Country Files—Middle East, Pakistan, vol. VIII, Nixon-Sadruddin memcon, 16 November 1971.
37. India had successfully warded off famine in the refugee camps (NSC Files, Box 597, Country Files—Middle East, India, vol. IV, Saunders and Hoskinson to Kissinger, 3 July 1971). NSC Files, Box 570, Indo-Pak War, Eliot to Kissinger, 29 July 1971. See Paul R. Greenough, Prosperity and Misery in Modern Bengal: The Famine of 1943–1944 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982); Rakesh Batabyal, Communalism in Bengal: From Famine to Noakhali, 1943–47 (New Delhi: Sage, 2005); Das Tarakchandra, Bengal Famine (1943) as Revealed in a Survey of the Destitutes in Calcutta (Calcutta: University of Calcutta, 1949); Karunamoy Mukerji, Agriculture, Famine and Rehabilitation in South Asia: A Regional Approach (Santiniketan, India: Viswa-Bharati, 1965); Ela Sen, Darkening Days, Being a Narrative of Famine-Stricken Bengal (Calcutta: Susil Gupta, 1944); Madhusree Mukerjee, Churchill’s Secret War: The British Empire and the Ravaging of India During World War II (New York: Basic, 2010); Thomas Keneally, Three Famines: Starvation and Politics (New York: PublicAffairs, 2011); Jean Drèze, Amartya Sen, and Athar Hussain, eds., The Political Economy of Hunger (Oxford: Clarendon, 1994); and Jean Drèze and Amartya Sen, Hunger and Public Action (Oxford: Clarendon, 1989). FRUS, SRG meeting, 23 July 1971, pp. 270–83. NSA, Kissinger-Rogers telcon, 6 August 1971, 10:22 a.m. White House tapes, Oval Office 553-3, 2 August 1971, 9:45 a.m.
38. FRUS, SRG meeting, 11 August 1971, pp. 320–23. See NSC Files, Box H-058, SRG Meetings, Saunders to Kissinger, 10 August 1971. NSC Files, Box 759, Presidential Correspondence File, Nixon to Yahya, 14 August 1971.
39. 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. NSC Files, Box 625, Country Files—Middle East, Pakistan, vol. V, Farland to Rogers, 15 July 1971, Islamabad 7164. NSC Files, Box H-058, SRG Meetings, Davis to Irwin, “East Pakistan Humanitarian Relief,” 29 July 1971. NSC Files, Box H-058, SRG Meetings, Eliot to Kissinger, “Humanitarian Relief Measures in East Pakistan,” 5 August 1971. NSC Files, Box 626, Country Files—Middle East, Pakistan, vol. VI, Eliot to Kissinger, 17 August 1971. NSC Files, Box 570, Indo-Pak War, South Asia, Kissinger to Nixon, 18 August 1971. Other countries offered only $12 million for the United Nations’ efforts in East Pakistan. White House tapes, Oval Office 553-3, 2 August 1971, 9:45 a.m.
40. NSC Files, Box 575, Indo-Pak War, South Asian Relief, Hoskinson and Saunders brief for Nixon, 27 October 1971.
41. NSC Files, Box H-082, WSAG Meetings, Williams to Rogers, 3 September 1971.
42. NSC Files, Box H-058, SRG Meetings, Saunders and Kennedy to Kissinger, Analytical Summary, 10 August 1971. NSC Files, Box 570, Indo-Pak War, South Asia, Kissinger to Nixon, 18 August 1971. FRUS, WSAG meeting, 7 October 1971, pp. 436–45. Kissinger suffered some denial here, questioning if there were really nine million refugees now, and telling a surprised Situation Room crowd, “I don’t believe that the Pakistanis are generating refugees.” But the World Bank found the nine million figure credible. (MEA, HI/121/13/71, vol. II, Sadruddin speech, 18 November 1971. MEA, HI/121/13/71, vol. II, Dixit to heads of mission, 4 December 1971.) POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2533, Spivack to Rogers, 20 October 1971, Dacca 4498.
43. NSC Files, Box H-082, WSAG Meetings, Williams to Rogers, 5 November 1971.
44. NSC Files, Box 759, Presidential Correspondence File, Nixon to Yahya, 14 August 1971. FRUS, Nixon to Yahya, 30 October 1971, pp. 483–85. NSC Files, Box H-082, WSAG Meetings, Saunders to Kissinger, 12 November 1971. NSC Files, Box 626, Country Files—Middle East, Pakistan, vol. VI, Williams to Rogers, 20 August 1971, Islamabad 8534. The cable is signed Farland, following protocol. Yahya planned to publish a new constitution on December 20, to convene the National Assembly on December 27, and after that form a new government in which the Bengali majority would hold most of the ministries. That would be followed by new governors for the provinces, and new provincial assemblies. (FRUS, Raynolds to Rogers, 11 October 1971, Karachi 2029, pp. 462–63.) NSC Files, Box H-058, SRG Meetings, Saunders and Kennedy to Kissinger, Analytical Summary, 10 August 1971. FRUS, vol. E-7, White House tapes, Oval Office 582-9, 30 September 1971, 4:10–5:31 p.m.
45. FRUS, Saunders to Kissinger, 13 August 1971, pp. 329–30. FRUS, Farland to Sisco, 24 August 1971, Islamabad 8631, pp. 365–67. NSC Files, Box 626, Country Files—Middle East, Pakistan, vol. VI, Hoskinson to Kissinger, 25 August 1971. NSC Files, Box H-082, WSAG Meetings, Hoskinson and Kennedy to Kissinger, 7 October 1971. See NSC Files, Box 134, Kissinger Office Files, Country Files—Middle East, “USG Contacts with Bangla Desh,” 6 December 1971. FRUS, Irwin to Gordon, 21 September 1971, State 173942, pp. 417–18. See NSA, Kissinger-Rockefeller telcon, 3 November 1971, 7 p.m.; NSC Files, Box 571, Indo-Pak War, Farland to Rogers, 29 November 1971, Islamabad 11759; NSC Files, Box 571, Indo-Pak War, Van Hollen to Farland, 27 November 1971, State 214960. FRUS, Gordon to Rogers, 18 October 1971, Calcutta 2662, p. 457. FRUS, WSAG meeting, 7 October 1971, p. 440. FRUS, WSAG meeting, 7 October 1971, pp. 436–45.
46. FRUS, vol. E-7, POL PAK, Sober to Rogers, 4 October 1971, Islamabad 10043. NSC Files, Box 570, Indo-Pak Crisis, CIA Office of National Estimates, “The Indo-Pakistani Crisis,” 22 September 1971.
47. Blood, Cruel Birth, p. 332.
48. MEA, WII/109/31/71, vol. I, “U.S. Administration’s policy towards Bangla Desh,” n.d. 1971 (September or later). MEA, WII/109/31/71, vol. II, “U.S. Administration’s policy towards Bangla Desh,” n.d. 1971.
49. MEA, WII/109/31/71, vol. I, Singh-Keating discussion, 7 December 1971, 12:15 p.m. MEA, HI/1012/30/71, Chib to Kaul, 6 October 1971. MEA, HI/1012/30/71, Chib to Kaul, 10 November 1971. NMML, Kaul Papers, Subject File 19, part II, Rogers-Gandhi talk, n.d. October 1971. Haksar was set to retire in on September 4, to be replaced by the economist P. N. Dhar (Dhar, Indira Gandhi, the “Emergency,” and Indian Democracy, p. 174), but he remained her crucial adviser on foreign policy, and seems to have stayed in office until 1973 (Shashi Tharoor, Reasons of State: Political Development and India’s Foreign Policy Under Indira Gandhi, 1966–1977 [New Delhi: Vikas, 1982], p. 145).
50. NSC Files, Box 627, Country Files—Middle East, Pakistan, vol. VIII, Kissinger to Nixon, “Relief and Economic Assistance,” 3 November 1971. See NSC Files, Box 134, Kissinger Office Files, Country Fi
les—Middle East, Relief for Refugees in India, 6 December 1971. The World Bank was recommending about $700 million annually for the refugees (MEA, HI/121/13/71, vol. II, Sadruddin speech, 18 November 1971; MEA, HI/121/13/71, vol. II, Dixit to heads of mission, 4 December 1971). See NSC Files, Box 574, Indo-Pak War, South Asian Congressional, Kennedy speech, 1 November 1971.
51. NSC Files, Box 570, Indo-Pak War, Nixon to Kissinger, 25 October 1971.
52. MEA, WII/109/31/71, vol. I, Singh statement to UN Security Council, 12 December 1971. See MEA, HI/1012/30/71, Chib to Kaul, 10 November 1971. FRUS, Irwin to Farland, 30 October 1971, State 198660, pp. 485–89. FRUS, Farland to Rogers, 2 November 1971, Islamabad 10905, pp. 490–91. NSC Files, Box 627, Country Files—Middle East, Pakistan, vol. VIII, Kissinger to Nixon, 3 November 1971.
53. MEA, HI/121/13/71, vol. I, Gandhi press conference, 19 October 1971. NSC Files, Box 570, Indo-Pak War, Irwin to Farland, 21 October 1971, State 185010. MEA, HI/121/13/71, vol. II, Gandhi to Thant, 16 November 1971. MEA, HI/1012/30/71, Chib to Kaul, 10 November 1971. MEA, HI/121/13/71, vol. II, Dixit to heads of mission, 4 December 1971. MEA, WII/109/31/71, vol. I, Singh statement to UN Security Council, 12 December 1971. NMML, Kaul Papers, Subject File 19, part II, Rogers-Gandhi talk, n.d. October 1971. NSC Files, Box 627, Country Files—Middle East, Pakistan, vol. VIII, Rogers to Nixon, 28 October 1971. Rogers said that India was running some thirty training camps for the Mukti Bahini, barring United Nations observers, snubbing U Thant as a mediator, and dismissing possible negotiations between Yahya and Bangladeshi leaders.
54. Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt, 1976), pp. 132-34. Karuna Mantena, “Genealogies of Catastrophe,” in Seyla Benhabib, Roy T. Tsao, and Peter Verovsek, eds., Politics in Dark Times: Encounters with Hannah Arendt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010). Arendt to McCarthy, 8 December 1971, Carold Brightman, ed., Between Friends: The Correspondence of Hannah Arendt and Mary McCarthy, 1949–1975 (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1995), p. 303. See Indira Gandhi, Letters to an American Friend, 1950–1984, ed. Dorothy Norman (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1985), pp. 134–35.