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Nixon and Kissinger saw India as a 'Soviet stooge', and downplayed reports of Pakistani genocide in what was then East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). While US consular officials in Dacca, East Pakistan's capital, privately criticized the U.S. government's 'failure to denounce atrocities', Nixon and Kissinger did not want 'to get (the) West Pakistanis turned against us (the US)'.
These are merely two of the many revelations regarding the US role in the 1971 South Asia crisis, that has come to light thanks to newly released documentation contained in the State Department's Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) series and reposted Wednesday by the National Security Archive.
The editors of the document made significant use of White House tapes, and transcripts of Henry Kissinger's telephone conversations, besides the usual official cables and memoranda, to piece together the story of that time.
Dr. William Burr, senior analyst at the National Security Archive, says the US did not want to turn Pakistan against Washington at least in part because Yahya Khan, then President of Pakistan, was secretly serving as communications conduit for the US in its quest for rapprochement with China.
The close China-Pakistan relationship was central to Nixon's wish to 'tilt' US policy toward Pakistan, in part to demonstrate to Beijing that Washington would support its allies.
'I think we've got to tell (the Chinese) that some movement on their part toward the Indian border could be very significant,' Kissinger said, according to the document.
On December 8, 1971, Nixon and Kissinger agreed to transfer planes to Pakistan and to tell China that 'if you are ever going to move, this is the time.' Kissinger noted the danger that could arise 'if our bluff is called.'
Later on December 8, Nixon and Kissinger decided to send an aircraft carrier and other naval forces to the Bay of Bengal in order to prevent a "Soviet stooge, supported by Soviet arms" from overrunning Pakistan.
On December 10, Kissinger delicately encouraged China to take action against India, and guaranteed US support if the Soviets retaliated.
'If the People's Republic were to consider the situation on the Indian subcontinent a threat to security, and if it took measures to protect its security, the US would oppose efforts of others to interfere with the People's Republic,' the document quotes Kissinger as saying.
Nixon and Kissinger, the documents reveal, defined the crisis in the Indian sub-continent in context of its own interests; the two saw India as a Soviet client state that was determined to weaken Pakistan fatally.
Earlier this week, the Office of the Historian at the State Department hosted a major conference on US policy in South Asia, focusing on the 1971 India-Pakistan war triggered by the crisis over Bangladesh. Much of the discussion focused on, and flowed from, a new volume of documentation edited by Louis J Smith for the FRUS series.
'This volume deserves the attention of the widest possible readership because of its fascinating, sometimes startling, revelations on Nixon administration policy,' Burr said. 'It gives the reader an unparalleled perspective on the inner workings of White House policy throughout the crisis.'
As Indian forces moved into Bangladesh, Nixon and Kissinger saw the event as a Cold War confrontation that could involve a China-Soviet conflict, which in turn could trigger a US-Soviet confrontation.