by Gary J. Bass
30. MEA, HI/121/13/71, vol. II, Gandhi to Thant, 16 November 1971. NSC Files, Box H-083, WSAG Meetings, Kissinger to Nixon, 1 December 1971. NSC Files, Box 571, Indo-Pak War, Kissinger to Nixon, 1 December 1971. See FRUS, WSAG meeting, 1 December 1971, 4:17–4:50 p.m., pp. 585–90. See NSC Files, Box 571, Indo-Pak War, Saunders to Kissinger, 29 November 1971; NSC Files, Box 571, Indo-Pak War, Keating to Rogers, 29 November 1971, New Delhi 18383; NSC Files, Box H-083, WSAG Meetings, Saunders to Kissinger, 1 December 1971.
31. NSA, Kissinger-Raza telcon, 2 December 1971, 12:18 p.m. See NSC Files, Box 571, Indo-Pak War, Yahya to Nixon, 2 December 1971.
CHAPTER 18: THE FOURTEEN-DAY WAR
1. See Aimee Ginsburg, “The Sum of His Many Parts,” Open, 2 June 2012. Jacob retired at the rank of lieutenant general, but in 1971 was a major general.
2. V. K. Singh, Leadership in the Indian Army: Biographies of Twelve Soldiers (New Delhi: Sage, 2005), pp. 184–92. On India’s multiethnic army, see Stephen Peter Rosen, Societies and Military Power: India and Its Armies (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1996).
3. For Indian assessments, see 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 173, Haksar to Kaul, 20 December 1971; NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 235, Manekshaw-Kulikov talks, 24–25 February 1972. NSC Files, Box 570, Indo-Pak Crisis, CIA Office of National Estimates, “The Indo-Pakistani Crisis,” 22 September 1971. Library of Congress, Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Foreign Affairs Oral History Project, Archer Blood interview, 27 June 1989.
4. See J. F. R. Jacob, Surrender at Dacca: Birth of a Nation (New Delhi: Manohar, 1997), pp. 66–67.
5. MEA, WII/109/31/71, vol. I, Singh statement to UN Security Council, 12 December 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 173, Gandhi to Nixon, 15 December 1971. See NSC Files, Box 755, Presidential Correspondence File, Gandhi to Nixon, 15 December 1971.
6. Katherine Frank, Indira: The Life of Indira Nehru Gandhi (New York: HarperCollins, 2001), p. 338; Owen Bennett Jones, Pakistan: Eye of the Storm (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2009), p. 167; Richard Sisson and Leo Rose say the Indian attack was set for December 6 (War and Secession: Pakistan, India, and the Creation of Bangladesh [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990], pp. 213–14). 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. 325.
7. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 173, Gandhi to Nixon, 15 December 1971. See NSC Files, Box 755, Presidential Correspondence File, Gandhi to Nixon, 15 December 1971. On Pakistani military plans for preventive war, see Scott D. Sagan, in Scott D. Sagan and Kenneth N. Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate (New York: Norton, 1995), pp. 62–63. MEA, HI/121/13/71, vol. II, Sen statement to UN Security Council, 4 December 1971. Government of Pakistan, The Report of the Hamoodur Rehman Commission of Inquiry into the 1971 War (Lahore: Vanguard, 2001), p. 204. Sisson and Rose put the decision on November 30 (War and Secession, p. 230). Niazi seems to have been unaware of an imminent Indian attack (A. A. K. Niazi, The Betrayal of East Pakistan [Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1998], pp. 131–33). He would later regret Pakistan’s attack, arguing that India could not have unleashed all-out war against his eastern troops without it (Hamoodur Rehman Commission Report, p. 532).
8. MEA, WII/109/31/71, vol. I, Kaul-Keating discussion, 4 December 1971. Frank, Indira, p. 338. Sisson and Rose, War and Secession, pp. 213–14. P. N. Dhar, Indira Gandhi, the “Emergency,” and Indian Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 122. Pupul Jayakar, Indira Gandhi: An Intimate Biography (New York: Pantheon, 1992), p. 176.
9. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 173, Haksar to Gandhi, 7 December 1971; NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 173, Haksar to Gandhi, 11 December 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 235, Manekshaw-Kulikov talks, 24–25 February 1972. See Jacob, Surrender at Dacca, pp. 101–2. MEA, WII/109/31/71, vol. I, Singh statement to UN Security Council, 12 December 1971. Charles Mohr, “Mrs. Gandhi Vows to Repel the Foe,” New York Times, 4 December 1971, pp. A1, A10. MEA, WII/109/31/71, vol. I, Singh statement to UN Security Council, 12 December 1971.
10. MEA, HI/121/25/71, Gandhi statement in Lok Sabha, 4 December 1971. See MEA, HI/121/13/71, vol. II, Dixit to heads of mission, 4 December 1971; MEA, WII/109/31/71, vol. I, Kaul-Keating discussion, 4 December 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 173, Gandhi to Nixon, 15 December 1971. NSC Files, Box 755, Presidential Correspondence File, Gandhi to Nixon, 5 December 1971.
11. NSC Files, Box 572, Indo-Pak War, Keating to Rogers, 11 December 1971, New Delhi 19110. Narayan statement, 4 December 1971, Jayaprakash Narayan, Selected Works, ed. Bimal Prasad (New Delhi: Manohar, 2008), vol. 9, pp. 692–93. See Narayan to Singh, 3 December 1971, Narayan, Selected Works, p. 692. Singh to Narayan, 10 December 1971, Narayan, Selected Works, p. 877. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 173, Haksar to Gandhi, 7 December 1971.
12. Sukhwant Singh, India’s Wars Since Independence: The Liberation of Bangladesh (New Delhi: Vikas, 1980), vol. 1, p. 129.
13. NSA, Nixon-Kissinger telcon, 3 December 1971, late afternoon. See NSA, Kissinger-Raza telcon, 3 December 1971, 7 p.m.; FRUS, WSAG meeting, 3 December 1971, 11:19–11:55 a.m., pp. 596–604; NSA, Nixon-Kissinger telcon, 4 December 1971; White House tapes, Oval Office 630-2, 6 December 1971, 12:02–12:06 p.m. Kissinger said, “If every time we do something to the Indians, we have to do the same thing to Pakistan, we will be participating in the rape of Pakistan.” (FRUS, WSAG meeting, 8 December 1971, 11:13 a.m.–12:02 p.m., pp. 690–99.) Even when the CIA director told Kissinger that Pakistan had attacked three Indian airfields, Kissinger suspected Indian aggression (FRUS, WSAG meeting, 3 December 1971, 11:19–11:55 a.m., pp. 596–604). See NSC Files, Box 643, Country Files—Middle East, India/Pakistan, Kissinger to Nixon, “The Crisis in the Subcontinent: In Retrospect,” 6 December 1971; NSC Files, Box 571, Indo-Pak War, Saunders to Kissinger, “Achievements of US Influence in Pakistan,” 6 December 1971.
14. FRUS, NSC meeting, 6 December 1971, 1:30–3:30 p.m., pp. 669–73. See NSC Files, Box 643, Country Files—Middle East, India/Pakistan, Kissinger to Nixon, “The Crisis in the Subcontinent: In Retrospect,” 6 December 1971. NSA, Nixon-Rogers telcon, 3 December 1971, 10:55 a.m. For Nixon using the Finland analogy, see White House tapes, Oval Office 632-2, 8 December 1971, 9:25–10:18 a.m.
15. NSA, Nixon-Kissinger telcon, 4 December 1971. NSA, Nixon-Kissinger telcon, 5 December 1971. See NSA, Kissinger-Connally telcon, 5 December 1971. NSA, Kissinger-Sisco telcon, 4 December 1971, 9:15 a.m. NSA, Kissinger-Haig telcon, 4 December 1971. FRUS, WSAG meeting, 3 December 1971, 11:19–11:55 a.m., pp. 596–604. See NSA, Nixon-Rogers telcon, 3 December 1971, 10:55 a.m.; NSA, Nixon-Rogers telcon, 3 December 1971, 3:45 p.m.; NSA, Kissinger-Sisco telcon, 3 December 1971, 3 p.m.
16. NSA, Nixon-Kissinger telcon, 3 December 1971, late afternoon. NSA, Nixon-Kissinger telcon, 4 December 1971. NSA, Kissinger-Haig telcon, 4 December 1971. White House tapes, Oval Office 632-2, 8 December 1971, 9:25–10:18 a.m. Nixon first cut all military aid, worth about $31 million in total, and then quickly froze some $88 million of economic aid to India. He also refused to sign agreements—agreed upon before the war—for $72 million worth of food aid, and held back $75 million of World Bank development loans. (White House tapes, Oval Office 630-2, 6 December 1971, 12:02–12:06 p.m. NSC Files, Box 134, Kissinger Office Files, Country Files—Middle East, Saunders and Hoskinson to Kissinger, 7 December 1971. NSA, Kissinger-Huang memcon, 10 December 1971, 6:07–7:55 p.m.)
17. NSA, Nixon-Kissinger telcon, 4 December 1971. FRUS, National Security Council meeting, 6 December 1971, 1:30–3:30 p.m., pp. 669-73. The worst thing that Nixon ever said about Yahya, on the extremely rare occasion that he found fault there at all, was that “Pakistan mishandled the refugee situation in the beginning.” (FRUS, vol. E-7, White House tapes, Oval Office 637-3, 12 December 1971,
8:45–9:42 a.m.) NSA, Kissinger-Haig telcon, 4 December 1971.
18. NSA, Kissinger-Connally telcon, 5 December 1971. See FRUS, vol. E-7, Kissinger-Rogers telcon, 5 December 1971; Henry Kissinger, White House Years (Boston: Little, Brown, 1979), p. 897. For a wiser view, see Steve Coll, On the Grand Trunk Road: A Journey into South Asia (New York: Times Books, 1994), p. 257. NSA, Nixon-Kissinger telcon, 5 December 1971.
19. FRUS, vol. E-7, White House tapes, Oval Office 630-20, 6 December 1971, 6:14–6:38 p.m.
20. FRUS, vol. E-7, White House tapes, EOB 307-27, 8 December 1971, 4:20–5:01 p.m. See NSC Files, Box 643, Country Files—Middle East, India/Pakistan, Kissinger to Nixon, “The Crisis in the Subcontinent: In Retrospect,” 6 December 1971. NSA, Nixon-Kissinger telcon, 3 December 1971, 2:45 p.m. FRUS, vol. E-7, White House tapes, Oval Office 630-20, 6 December 1971, 6:14–6:38 p.m.
21. NSA, Nixon-Kissinger telcon, 4 December 1971. See NSA, Kissinger-Rogers telcon, 5 December 1971. NSA, Nixon-Kissinger telcon, 5 December 1971. See Kissinger-Connally telcon, 5 December 1971.
22. FRUS, vol. E-7, White House tapes, Oval Office 630-20, 6 December 1971, 6:14–6:38 p.m. See James Mann, The China Fantasy: How Our Leaders Explain Away Chinese Repression (New York: Viking, 2007), p. 70. FRUS, vol. E-7, White House tapes, Oval Office 633-11, 9 December 1971, 12:44–1:27 p.m. White House tapes, Oval Office 635-6, 10 December 1971, 9:10–10:31 a.m.
23. NSC Files, Box 643, Country Files—Middle East, India/Pakistan, Kissinger to Nixon, “The Crisis in the Subcontinent: In Retrospect,” 6 December 1971. See Kissinger, White House Years, p. 900. White House tapes, Oval Office 632-2, 8 December 1971, 9:25–10:18 a.m.
24. White House tapes, Oval Office 632-2, 8 December 1971, 9:25–10:18 a.m. In his diary, Haldeman wrote, “Henry is physically tired, … he does realize he’s at fault in the failure in India-Pakistan to date and doesn’t like that feeling.” (H. R. Haldeman, The Haldeman Diaries: Inside the Nixon White House [New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1994], 9 December 1971, p. 381.) Haldeman also speculated that Kissinger was most bruised by having to cancel a dinner at Harvard, where he would have been “raked over the coals” about “the poor East Pak refugees.” He said, “He may have thought he had finally bought himself back into his own society, and then all of sudden, zap, he’s thrown out of it again.” (White House tapes, Oval Office 632-2, 8 December 1971, 9:25–10:18 a.m.)
25. White House tapes, Oval Office 631-7, 7 December 1971, 4:33–5:05 p.m. White House tapes, Oval Office 631-11, 7 December 1971, 6:28–7:04 p.m. White House tapes, Oval Office 632-2, 8 December 1971, 9:25–10:18 a.m. Haldeman, Haldeman Diaries, 7 December 1971, p. 380. White House tapes, Oval Office 631-1, 7 December 1971, 12:57–1:58 p.m. See White House tapes, Oval Office 631-7, 7 December 1971, 4:33–5:05 p.m. John Ehrlichman, Witness to Power: The Nixon Years (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982), pp. 307–8. See Walter Isaacson, Kissinger: A Biography (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), pp. 391–92; Mark Feldstein, Poisoning the Press: Richard Nixon, Jack Anderson, and the Rise of Washington’s Scandal Culture (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2010).
26. White House tapes, Oval Office 632-2, 8 December 1971, 9:25–10:18 a.m. On the impact of World War II on Kissinger’s thinking about the vulnerability of democracies—which did not seem to encompass India’s democracy—see Jeremi Suri, Henry Kissinger and the American Century (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007).
27. White House tapes, Oval Office 632-2, 8 December 1971, 9:25–10:18 a.m. NSA, Bush notes, 10 December 1971.
28. White House tapes, Oval Office 630-2, 6 December 1971, 12:02–12:06 p.m.
29. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 89, Dhar to Haksar, n.d. 1971. See, for instance, Sen notes, 27 October 1971, Narayan, Selected Works, pp. 862–69.
30. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 235, Manekshaw-Kulikov talks, 24–25 February 1972. See Singh, Liberation of Bangladesh, pp. 68–69; Lachhman Singh, Indian Sword Strikes in East Pakistan (New Delhi: Vikas, 1979), pp. 82–150; Robert Jackson, South Asian Crisis: India, Pakistan and Bangla Desh: A Political and Historical Analysis of the 1971 War (New York: Praeger, 1975), pp. 106–45; D. R. Mankekar, Pakistan Cut to Size (New Delhi: Indian Book Company, 1972), pp. 53–54.
31. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 220, R&AW report, “Threat of a Military Attack or Infiltration Campaign by Pakistan,” January 1971. Jacob to Gill, 15 November 1971, Jacob, Surrender at Dacca, pp. 179–80. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 235, Manekshaw-Kulikov talks, 24–25 February 1972. As the State Department noted a few days into the war, India, while swooping down on East Pakistan, largely maintained a “defensive stance in the West.” (NSC Files, Box 571, Indo-Pak War, State Department situation report, 6 December 1971.) See MEA, WII/109/31/71, vol. I, Kaul-Keating discussion, 4 December 1971; Rosen, Societies and Military Power, pp. 248–50.
32. NSC Files, Box 570, Indo-Pak Crisis, South Asia, CIA Office of National Estimates, “The Indo-Pakistani Crisis,” 22 September 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 235, Manekshaw-Kulikov talks, 24–25 February 1972.
33. Hamoodur Rehman Commission Report, p. 173. Mankekar, Pakistan Cut to Size, pp. 53, 95–96. Pran Chopra, India’s Second Liberation (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1974), pp. 138–39, 161–62.
34. James P. Sterba, “India MIG’s in 8 Raids Against Dacca Airport,” New York Times, 5 December 1971, p. A24.
35. FRUS, Pentagon meeting, 6 December 1971, 9:37–10:40 a.m., pp. 652–56. D. K. Palit, The Lightning Campaign: The Indo-Pakistan War, 1971 (Salisbury, U.K.: Compton Press, 1972), pp. 114–15. Chopra, India’s Second Liberation, pp. 140–42, 164. Singh, Liberation of Bangladesh, p. 215. Hamoodur Rehman Commission Report, pp. 233–37. Mankekar, Pakistan Cut to Size, pp. 98–99. For an overview, see S. S. Sethi, The Decisive War: Emergence of a New Nation (New Delhi: Sagar Publications, 1972), pp. 138–41.
36. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 235, Manekshaw-Kulikov talks, 24–25 February 1972. Singh, Liberation of Bangladesh, p. 58.
37. Palit, Lightning Campaign, pp. 101–3, 114. Mankekar, Pakistan Cut to Size, pp. 51–54, 63. Singh, Liberation of Bangladesh, pp. 192–93. See Ahmed Abdullah Jamal, “Mukti Bahini and the Liberation War of Bangladesh,” Asian Affairs, vol. 30, no. 4 (October–December 2008), pp. 5–17.
38. Jacob, Surrender at Dacca, pp. 125–27. Palit, Lightning Campaign, pp. 114–15. Lachhman Singh, Victory in Bangladesh (New Delhi: Natraj Publishers, 1981), pp. 148–53. Mankekar, Pakistan Cut to Size, p. 62. Chopra, India’s Second Liberation, pp. 180–81.
39. Jacob, Surrender at Dacca, p. 130. Singh, Victory in Bangladesh, pp. 37–39; Singh, Liberation of Bangladesh, pp. 202–21; Mankekar, Pakistan Cut to Size, pp. 53–54.
40. Singh, Victory in Bangladesh, pp. 143–47; Mankekar, Pakistan Cut to Size, p. 63. Sydney H. Schanberg, “A Village Ablaze, a Blown Bridge; Enraptured Jessore Greets Troops,” New York Times, 21 December 1971.
41. A. T. M. Abdul Wahab, Mukti Bahini Wins Victory (Dacca: Columbia Prokashani, 2004), p. 199. Habibul Alam, Brave of Heart: The Urban Guerilla Warfare of Sector-2, During the Liberation War of Bangladesh (Dacca: Academic Press and Publishers Library, 2006), pp. 286–88, 290–91, 51, 283.
42. Sydney H. Schanberg, “A Village Ablaze, a Blown Bridge; Enraptured Jessore Greets Troops,” New York Times, 21 December 1971.
43. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 173, Manekshaw to Farman Ali, 13 December 1971; NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 173, Haksar to Kaul, 13 December 1971; NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 235, Manekshaw-Kulikov talks, 24–25 February 1972; Singh, Leadership in the Indian Army, pp. 207–8. MEA, WII/109/31/71, vol. I, Kaul-Keating discussion, 4 December 1971. See Singh, Victory in Bangladesh, pp. 241–42.
44. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 235, Manekshaw-Kulikov talks, 24–25 February 1972. Singh, Victory in Bangladesh, p. 72. MEA, HI/1012/57/71, Sethi to army staff, monthly military digest, 5 January 1972.
45. NSC Files, Box 572, Indo-Pak War, Farland to Rogers, 8 December 1971, Islamabad 12215.
NSC Files, Box 572, Indo-Pak War, Farland to Rogers, 9 December 1971, Islamabad 12295. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 174, Henri to Thant, 10 December 1971.
46. FRUS, WSAG meeting, 6 December 1971, 11:07–11:56 a.m., pp. 656–67. NSC Files, Box 572, Indo-Pak War, Sisco to Keating, 8 December 1971. NSA, Nixon-Kissinger telcon, 4 December 1971. See White House tapes, White House telephone 16-37, 7 December 1971, 11:31–11:54 p.m. FRUS, vol. E-7, White House tapes, Oval Office 635-8, 10 December 1971, 10:51–11:12 a.m. NSC Files, Box 643, Country Files—Middle East, India/Pakistan, Spivack to Rogers, 10 December 1971, Dacca 5570. There is another copy in NSC Files, Box 572, Indo-Pak War.
47. NSC Files, Box 572, Indo-Pak War, Keating to Rogers, 7 December 1971, New Delhi 18877. NSC Files, Box 572, Indo-Pak War, Keating to Rogers, 9 December 1971, New Delhi 19015. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 174, Haksar to Sen, 11 December 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 174, Haksar to Dutt, 13 December 1971.
48. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 173, Haksar to Kaul, 15 December 1971. MEA, HI/121/13/71, vol. II, Tajuddin Ahmad statement, 13 December 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 173, Haksar to Dutt, 15 December 1971. NSC Files, Box 572, Indo-Pak War, CIA situation report, 9 December 1971. This report has many redactions.