Nixon asked China to abort Bangladesh

Syed Aslam · Guest

Richard Nixon - 37th President of USA [1969 - 1974 ].
Nixon asked China to abort Bangladesh

New Delhi, July 2 (bdnews24.com) – The recently declassified US official records throw new light on how President Richard Nixon along with his legendary National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger tried to rope in China in a bid to stop Bangladesh being born.

President Nixon's anger and frustration during the 1971 Indo-Pak war and how Washington secretly pleaded with China to "menace" India by moving troops to the Indian border so that Bangladesh can stay under Pakistani rule are documented in a just-published book 'Nixon and Kissinger-Partners in Power'.

Nixon's infamous tilt towards Pakistan is well documented but poring over thousands of pages of national security files and telephone transcripts of Kissinger, and 2,800 hours of Nixon tapes, well-known American historian Robert Dallek recalls the events in the White House during the December of 1971 in the book.

Dallek also presents a definitive analysis of Nixon and Kissinger 's complex, often troubled partnership in running American foreign policy from January 1969 through August 1974.

The tapes show the two men egging each other on to savage their enemies. The two men gloat that the 1971 war between India and Pakistan that resulted in the emergence of Bangladesh will cause American liberals "untold anguish because their beloved India was so clearly the aggressor".

The story began in the fall of 1971, when the president and Kissinger had less interest in what the Indians or Pakistanis did to each other than in assuring that nothing sidetracked Kissinger's trip to China and the revolution in Sino-American relations.

"Our objective should be to buoy up Yahya for at least another month while Pakistan served as the gateway to China," Kissinger told Nixon at the beginning of June.

"Even apart from the Chinese thing," the president replied, "I wouldn't....help the Indians, the Indians are no goddamn good."

Dallek has constructed a riveting story, studded with extraordinary incidents—how Nixon in 1971 wondered to an aide after a bout of Kissinger histrionics whether his national security adviser needed psychiatric help.

And how Kissinger would grovel before his master, flattering him and even criticising his fellow Jews for their "self-serving" behaviour: "You can't even tell the bastards anything in confidence, because they'll leak it."
Sumon K Chakrabarti, a senior special correspondent with CNN-IBN, writes exclusively for bdnews24.co

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