He scorned a "phobia" among some Americans that "everything India does is good, and everything Pakistan does is bad", and once told the military leader of Pakistan (Yahya Khan), "There is a psychosis in this country about India," writes Princeton University professor Gary J Bass in "The Blood Telegram: India's Secret War in East Pakistan."
The book, published by Random House India, is a riveting history of the Pakistani army's crackdown on the then East Pakistan (today's independent Bangladesh), killing thousands of people and sending ten million refugees fleeing into India.
"I don't like the Indians," the author quotes Nixon as saying at the height of the Bengali crisis.
Bass says beyond his prejudices, he had reason piled upon reason for this "distaste" for India and Indians.
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"The most basic was the Cold War: presidents of the US since Harry Truman had been frustrated by India's policy of nonalignment, which Nixon, much like his predecessors, viewed as Nehruvian posturing. India was on suspiciously good terms with the Soviet Union," the book says.
He described Americans' popular sympathies for India as a "psychological disorder", he says.
On top of that, Bass says, there was a mutual loathing between Nixon and Indira Gandhi. He had not cared for Jawaharal Nehru, either, but she had an extraordinary ability to get under his skin.
"After about 20 minutes of strained chat, she asked one of her aides, in Hindi, how much longer this was going to take. Nixon had not gotten the precise meaning, but he sure caught the tone," he says.