More than four decades ago, the Nixon Administration knowingly broke US law to help Pakistani army against Bangladesh and encouraged China to mass troops on Indian border to oppose the strong stand taken by the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, according to a new book.
In his latest book, Princeton historian Gary Bass 'The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger and a Forgotten Genocide' documents how the then US President Richard Nixon and his Secretary of State Henry Kissinger supported Pakistan military dictatorship as it brutally quashed the results of a historic free election.
The Pakistani army launched a crackdown on East Pakistan, killing hundreds of thousands of people and sending ten million refugees fleeing to India - one of the worst humanitarian crisis of the 20th century.
The author writes in the latest book, which is scheduled to hit the book market on September 24, how Nixon-Kissinger hated both India and Indira Gandhi and tried their level best to oppose the strong moral stand taken by the then Indian Prime Minister.
Nixon and Kissinger thought in Cold War terms but also indulged in their personal disdain for India and its leader Indira Gandhi, Bass writes in the book, adding that they even secretly encourages China to mass troops on their India border, and illegally supplied weapons to the Pakistani military, all while censoring American officials who dared to speak up.
Based on previously unheard White House tapes, the book gives a fresh insight into the Nixon-Kissinger hatred against Indira Gandhi, and how the then American leadership supported the butchering of innocent people, who dared to speak their voice and vote against Islamabad.
As India under the strong leadership of Indira Gandhi decided to rescue the lives of people of then East Pakistan from the brutality of the Pakistani military, Bass writes in the book - running into nearly 500 pages - that Kissinger proposed three "dangerous" initiatives against India.
"The United States would illegally allow Iran and Jordan to send squadrons of US aircraft to Pakistan, secretly asks China to mass its troops on the Indian border, and deploy a US aircraft carrier group to the Bay of Bengal to threaten India. He urged Nixon to stun India with all three moves simultaneously," Bass wrote.
