The Blood Telegram Page 30

  Nixon showed far better form in this meeting than when he was sequestered with Kissinger or H. R. Haldeman. Highlighting U.S. donations for the refugees, he for once mentioned “human suffering,” and said that they must “go all out—all out—on the relief side.” But then he said, “Now let me be very blunt,” and ripped into Kenneth Keating: “Every Ambassador who goes to India falls in love with India.” (This direct presidential attack was so far out of bounds that Kissinger and Saunders censored it out of their official record of the conversation for the State Department.) Nixon told the senior State Department officials that they “have to cool off the pro-Indians in the State Department and out in South Asia.” He added that fewer Americans swooned for Pakistan, “because the Pakistanis are a different breed. The Pakistanis are straightforward—and sometimes extremely stupid. The Indians are more devious, sometimes so smart that we fall for their line.”63

  Although Nixon said he “holds no brief” for what Yahya had done, the United States could not allow India to use the refugees to launch a war to tear Pakistan apart. Starting a war that way, the president said, was what he might do if he were in New Delhi. “If there is a war, I will go on national television and ask Congress to cut off all aid to India,” said Nixon. “They won’t get a dime.”

  Pakistan got far gentler treatment. Nixon, noting his good relationship with Yahya, said that they needed to maintain some leverage there, and would only make suggestions in private. “It is not our job to determine the political future of Pakistan,” he said, dismissing getting involved in a political deal. “The Pakistanis have to work out their own future.” He firmly stuck up for Pakistan’s sovereignty, unshaken by the bloodshed there: “We will not measure our relationship with the government in terms of what it has done in East Pakistan. By that criterion, we would cut off relations with every Communist government in the world because of the slaughter that has taken place in the Communist countries.”

  Kissinger, fortified with presidential authority, returned to his Lincoln analogy: asking Yahya to deal with the Awami League leaders in Calcutta was “like asking Abraham Lincoln to deal with Jefferson Davis.” The United States could not participate in breaking Pakistan apart. Nixon agreed: “We can’t allow India to dictate the political future of East Pakistan.” Kissinger reminded them that U.S. relief was not “to squeeze Yahya to set political conditions,” but “to deprive the Indians of an excuse to attack.”64

  Finally the president dismissed his underlings, who trudged back downstairs to the Situation Room. Chastened, they scrambled into line. Now, as their meeting picked up after their Oval Office reprimand, when Kissinger delivered one of his familiar exhortations to the officials in the Situation Room (“I consider it intolerable that the World Bank should be setting political conditions for the resumption of assistance” to Pakistan), the group agreed heartily.65

  Nevertheless, Kissinger remained furious at them. He berated a Situation Room meeting for moving against the president’s wishes. When a State Department official mentioned drying up the pipeline of arms shipments to Pakistan, Kissinger snapped: “That’s not where we stand. You are trying to dry up the pipeline. You are asking them to dry up the pipeline.” He fumed, “The President has ruled on this 500 times.” He was sick of them going beyond their instructions: “I wonder what we would do if we were instructed to use a baseball bat—go to nuclear war?”66

  In August, trying to mute the public uproar, Nixon used a press conference to issue his first official statement on the Bengali massacres. As he told Kissinger beforehand, “I want to say very, very little about this. There’s gonna be questions, but I don’t give a damn, I’m just gonna cut ’em off, truthfully.”67

  Thus, in a brief comment to the reporters, the president rejected the idea of halting aid to Pakistan, saying instead that the “most constructive role we can play is to continue our economic assistance to West Pakistan.” Nixon did not condemn the slaughter, and instead said, “We are not going to engage in public pressure on the Government of Pakistan. That would be totally counterproductive. These are matters that we will discuss only in private channels.”68

  But Nixon had an enduring faith in the apathy of the American people. In the Oval Office, he told Haldeman that “nobody … gives a shit about Europe,” nor Latin America, nor Africa. “They care about the Jews in Israel because they’ve had a war, and India-Pakistan will make the news because there ain’t much else. But you know, I don’t think people are all stirred up about Pakistan. Do you?” “No,” said Haldeman. “I think Teddy’s trying to stir them.” There had been “horrible pictures” from East Pakistan, Haldeman conceded, but “You’ve been seeing horrible pictures of Indians and Pakistanis all your life, I mean the beggars in Delhi and all that kind of stuff.” Nixon said, “Any more than they were stirred up about Biafra. You know, Biafra stirred up a few Catholics. But you know, I think Biafra stirred people up more than Pakistan, because Pakistan they’re just a bunch of brown goddamn Moslems.”69

  Chapter 14

  Soviet Friends

  An Indian activist, sickened at “Butcher Nixon,” told anyone who would listen that “the butcher of Vietnam has met the butcher of Bangladesh and both butchers feel cosy in each other’s company.” A writer for the Times of India declared that Yahya was “guilty of as monstrous a crime as Hitler.” The campaigner Jayaprakash Narayan bitterly declared that the United States, which had once revolted against British imperial rule, “has become a major colonial power.”1

  To increasing numbers of Indians, the United States seemed more and more like an adversary. Indian strategists recoiled at U.S. backing for dictatorships in Greece, Spain, and Portugal, as well as Pakistan, while various Indian officials scathingly equated U.S. sponsorship of cruel regimes in Vietnam and Pakistan. Although the United States had been popular among Indians before, now the fraction of Indians who held good views of the country plummeted from two-thirds to one-half.2

  Above all, Indians seethed at the continuing flow of U.S. supplies to Pakistan. The Parliament was infuriated to discover that the U.S. Commerce Department had leased two Boeing 707s to Pakistan International Airlines, which would likely be used to fly Pakistani troops into Dacca. The facts were often distorted, with untrue and inflammatory Indian press reports that the United States was directly flying troops from West Pakistan to East Pakistan, and that U.S. arms were coming to Pakistan from Vietnam.3

  As Henry Kissinger explained to Richard Nixon, “Our military supply policy toward Pakistan has, more than any other single issue, contributed to the sharp deterioration in Indo-US relations.” It was “an emotionally charged and highly symbolic public issue,” with many Indians seeing “the trickle of arms we have continued to provide” as support for Yahya’s oppression of the Bengalis. Indeed, the Indian foreign ministry secretly argued that no matter the size of the arms shipments, they symbolized U.S. backing for Pakistan’s military crackdown, and had a psychological impact both on the Pakistani government and the Bengalis. Even the courteous foreign minister, Swaran Singh, burned once too often by Nixon and Kissinger, thundered to Parliament that the U.S. arms supply “amounts to condonation of genocide in Bangla Desh and encouragement to the continuation of the atrocities by the military rulers of Pakistan. It also amounts to an intervention on the side of the military rulers of West Pakistan against the people of Bangla Desh.”4

  From Delhi, the U.S. ambassador, Kenneth Keating, cabled a long and alarming report about deepening anti-Americanism, with the jaunty (although wrong) subject line “There’s No Place to Go but Up.” The Americans could no longer rely on the old assumption that Indians were unshakably fond of their country. He got massive stacks of hostile mail, berating the United States for helping to crush democracy, arming killers, and at best being a “silent spectator to genocide.” Everywhere he and his staff went, they were castigated by Indians from all ranks and classes, from a top general to an elderly servant in Punjab who was scandalized to have an American in his home
. The Nixon administration was enduringly alienating not just Indira Gandhi, not just pro-Soviet officials such as P. N. Haksar and D. P. Dhar, not just leftist elites and journalists, but a whole democratic society.5

  THE INDO-SOVIET FRIENDSHIP TREATY

  Indira Gandhi decided to go on a last-ditch tour of Western capitals. Haksar, while urging the prime minister to visit the West too, exhorted her to accept an invitation from Aleksei Kosygin, the Soviet premier, to a “people’s welcome” in Moscow. India’s relationship with the Soviet Union was thriving, with the Indian embassy in Moscow rejoicing at the “buoyant mood” there.6

  Despite months of lobbying by Dhar, until recently India’s ambassador in Moscow, Gandhi had shown no particular hurry to sign a friendship treaty with the Soviet Union. But now she faced the prospect of war with Pakistan, while the United States seemed distinctly hostile. After Kissinger’s breakthrough visit to Beijing, the United States and China could line up together against India. So in early August, Dhar raced from India back to Moscow to finalize the treaty.7

  K. C. Pant, a minister of state for home affairs, says this was a pragmatic measure, made necessary because India was preparing to go to war. In his Moscow meetings, Dhar was rhapsodic. He denounced Pakistan’s “genocide on a majority” and the United States for supporting that with arms shipments. The United States and Pakistan, he said, would be infuriated by the treaty: “Great friendships do invite big jealousies.”8

  Although today many Indians remember fondly the Soviet Union’s support in their time of need, the Soviet leadership was still unenthusiastic about India’s rush toward war. Throughout the crisis, Leonid Brezhnev’s regime was wary of war, with no stomach for the likely outcome of a dismembered Pakistan. The Soviet Union was not about to recognize Bangladesh. Clearly referring to the Mukti Bahini rebels, Kosygin uncomfortably suggested that the Indians maintain total secrecy about what was happening at their borders. Not pledging Soviet support in the event of a war, he instead urged India to strengthen its own military. Even at this climactic moment, he reiterated the “absolute need of protecting peace,” and bluntly said that war was not in India’s interest. On the single most important issue, the two states were at odds.9

  Still, on August 8, Andrei Gromyko, the Soviet foreign minister, was in Delhi, ready to sign the treaty. This was, Haksar enthusiastically told Gandhi, a historic moment with the highest importance. Admitting Indian sponsorship of the Mukti Bahini, Haksar was comfortable privately telling the Soviets about “the cost of giving support to the freedom fighters.” Haksar reminded the Soviets of the cruelty of Pakistan’s actions and the public pressure on India’s democratic government—something that Gromyko, representing a tyrannical state with an awful human rights record, might not have altogether appreciated. Above all, Haksar was pleased to have Soviet support, offsetting the risk that, “egged on by China and general support of the United States, Pakistani Military Junta might, in fact, precipitate a conflict.” Both Gandhi and Haksar fully understood that a Soviet treaty “would certainly infuriate President Nixon and also the Chinese.”10

  Gandhi—flanked by Haksar and Dhar, the two ebullient architects of this Soviet deal, as well as the pro-Soviet foreign secretary, T. N. Kaul—gave Gromyko a warm welcome to Delhi. Trying to allay Soviet anxieties about Indian belligerence, she assured him that the treaty would help bring peace. But she also told Gromyko that she felt “like an island being pressurised by the rest of Indian humanity to adopt a militant line.” Haksar hoped for Soviet help to prevent a war, or to help India win one. But while the Indians were obviously fishing for some kind of permission to go to war, as far as can be gleaned from the Indian documentary record, Gromyko did not give it. He praised the Indian army as “the army of a peace-loving State,” and said that nobody who favored peace could dislike the treaty.11

  Even so, Gromyko came bearing gifts. The Soviet Union’s assistance with refugee relief remained quite miserly, but he offered a limited amount of weaponry: artillery, patrol ships, military helicopters. None of it would be available in time for an imminent war. In a haunting preview of a nuclearized subcontinent, Gromyko offered tons of heavy water for “the peaceful development of atomic energy.”12

  On August 9, Swaran Singh and Gromyko signed their treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation. Even as these things go, it was a distinctly gaseous document, pledging “sincere friendship, good neighbourliness and comprehensive cooperation.” The most crucial point was an article declaring that if either country was attacked, the other would consult to “remove such threat” and “take appropriate effective measures to ensure peace and the security of their countries.” This stopped short of an actual promise of defense, but, as the Indian embassy in Moscow proudly noted, was widely seen as a “deterrent warning to both China and Pakistan.”13

  To this day, many Indians remember the Soviet treaty as a grand occasion, with a stalwart foreign friend proving its mettle in the darkest hour. Haksar wrote that “many hopes will be aroused.” Indian diplomats reported that the treaty “shocked Islamabad into a sense of reality.” Major General Jacob-Farj-Rafael Jacob says, “The Russians helped us a lot. I always will appreciate it. I have a lot of time for the Russians.” The Soviet Union did find ways to be helpful—warning India about the perils posed by Nixon’s upcoming trip to China, swiftly backing up India’s complaints about Mujib being put on trial, agreeing to have Gromyko skip a visit to Pakistan—so long as it did not mean encouraging a war. But for all the hoopla, the treaty did not overcome the major disconnect between the Brezhnev and Gandhi governments: the Soviet wish that India avoid a war with Pakistan.14

  The Indian government basked in a moment of success. Before the Bengali crisis, Indian officials could have expected domestic complaints about such a shock to nonalignment. But now, after months of parliamentary hazing about a sluggish foreign policy, this bold move gave Gandhi’s government something to boast about.

  Parliament quickly ratified the treaty, and even Jayaprakash Narayan, a constant burr in Gandhi’s hide, welcomed it, although not without testily adding that it was high time for the government to recognize Bangladesh. Still, some in Parliament were less enthusiastic, grumbling that the treaty would limit India’s independence. The Jana Sangh was leery. One rival legislator warned of the danger that India, having driven out the British, could become a kind of Soviet colony. Another Lok Sabha member warned that Hungary and Czechoslovakia had signed similar treaties before being crushed by Soviet tanks.15

  Gandhi’s government emphasized that the treaty would bolster its policy of nonalignment—as if the magical incantation of the words could obscure the plain meaning of signing a treaty with one superpower against the other one. The Nehruvian ideal of nonalignment had imagined India standing aloof from the Cold War. But this crisis had now pulled in both the superpowers, as well as China. With the White House’s opening to China and now India’s Soviet treaty, the Cold War enveloped the subcontinent.16

  “THE REFUGEES WHO FLED FROM HITLER’S TYRANNY”

  Long before the Soviet treaty, Nixon had been vexed at India for its chummy relationship with the Soviet Union. Now he was livid.

  He menacingly said that if he were Indian, “I would be damned concerned about having my great, good friend be a Soviet, with the Chinese sitting out there and the United States a hell of a long way off.” After trying to dismissively brush off the Soviet Union’s “little deal,” Nixon darkly suggested that the Soviets might help unleash a war in the subcontinent.17

  Kissinger had never been particularly interested in the messy politics of Bengali nationalism, but things had shifted to his familiar Cold War chessboard. This now looked like a contest of U.S. and Soviet client states. He later wrote, “With the treaty, Moscow threw a lighted match into a powder keg.” He sharply noted that the treaty’s mere existence “seriously undercut” India’s “cherished” principle of nonalignment. For now, he took a relatively benign view of Soviet intentions, suggesting that the Soviet
s were trying to deter Pakistan and restrain India. But Soviet backing might tempt Indians to confront Pakistan, potentially sparking a war. Showing his realpolitik genius, Kissinger later said that if the Indians “move into the Russian camp it will drive the Chinese over to us.”18

  For anyone who misremembers the Cold War as a tidy contest of democracies against dictatorships, this was topsy-turvy. Rubbing it in, the Soviet ambassador in Washington wryly informed Kissinger of the irony of seeing the Soviet Union lined up with “the pillar of democracy” while the United States lined up with the Chinese. Kissinger later retorted (paraphrasing an Austrian statesman from 1848) that the Soviets “will be surprised to learn the depths of Indian ingratitude.”19

  In fact, in Delhi, P. N. Haksar was fulsome in his gratefulness. Drafting a speech for Gandhi, he raised the temperature on the Americans: “Bangla Desh constitutes a test of the professions of peoples and governments; it is a test for the conscience of every individual who cares for human liberty and dignity.” He indirectly blasted the United States: “Do the seventy-five million people of Bangla Desh have the right to live? Can a majority be tyrannised by a small minority? Is it right that this minority should continue to receive arms and political comfort from other countries?”20

  Gandhi, more tactfully, clearly saw the need for damage control. She was not as enamored of the Soviet Union as Haksar or Dhar, and had taken some cajoling to go along with this turn from nonalignment. She did not go so far as to offer a similar friendship treaty to the United States, as Kaul suggested, but on August 7—just two days before the signing of the Soviet treaty—she finally bestirred herself to accept the Nixon administration’s invitation to make a state visit to Washington. She had still not replied to two letters from Nixon, one from May, the other personally handed to her by Kissinger in Delhi in July. Presidents of the United States are accustomed to getting their mail answered a little more punctually.21