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Kissinger's "Bangladesh transcripts"

JAN 22: In the Nixon White House, Henry Kissinger served first as national security adviser and later as secretary of state. His telephone transcripts reveal a man of great intellect, wit and charm. But they also show his cold calculation regarding affairs of the day, most vividly in a hands-off approach toward a bloody South Asian crisis in 1971.

In December 1970, Pakistan held its first free, democratic election for its National Assembly, with an East Pakistan political party winning most of the seats. The loss of West Pakistan's traditional power prompted its leader, military dictator and U.S. ally Gen. Agha Muhammad Yahya Khan, to postpone Parliament's opening and inspired huge street protests by the Bengali East Pakistanis.

In March 1971, Yahya's military began a brutal crackdown in East Pakistan. It is believed that about 10,000 civilians were killed within three days and that the eventual toll was a stunning 3 million. An estimated 10 million Bengalis fled across the border into India.

Yahya was a Nixon administration favorite for several reasons, notably for his role in secret approaches the U.S. made to the People's Republic of China. This relationship helps explain the unsympathetic response Kissinger, then Nixon's national security adviser, gave to diplomatic cables from Archer Blood, a Chicago native who was U.S. consul general in Dhaka, East Pakistan [now Bangladesh]. Blood sent a series of messages to the State Department describing carnage and decrying the brutality of Yahya's military.

By the time Kissinger and Nixon spoke March 28, 1971, Blood's first cable had arrived, saying in part, "We are mute and horrified witnesses to a reign of terror by the Pak military. . . . We should be expressing our shock, at least privately, to GOP [government of Pakistan], at this wave of terror directed against their own countrymen by Pak military."

Kissinger and Nixon were suspicious of Foreign Service officers such as Blood, seeing them as "bleeding-heart liberals" who sympathized too greatly with the nations to which they were posted. They also believed that claims of atrocities in Pakistan were exaggerated.

What follows are excerpts from telephone conversations secretly monitored and transcribed by a Kissinger secretary with occasional spelling and grammatical errors that were never corrected.

Kissinger: . . . We've had a bleeding cable from our Consul in Dacca [Dhaka] who wants us to put out a statement condemning what the West Pakistanis are doing. But of course we won't consider it.

Nixon: Oh for Christ's sake.

Kissinger: Well, he's just one of these pansies.

Nixon: And he says `condemning them?'

Kissinger: Yeah, for genocide.

Nixon: Well, now remove him. I want him out of the job. You understand. You get that over to. . . . Who's in charge of that one? That's Sisco [Joseph Sisco, an assistant secretary of state].

Kissinger: Right.

Nixon: That man's to be out of there. That kind of fellow with that kind of lack of balance and so forth. . . . He's obviously in there joining one side or the other. He's supposed to stay out of this goddamned war.

Kissinger: That's right. If we do that we're going to have anti-American riots in West Pakistan.

Nixon: That's right. I don't want that kind of fellow there and I want his background checked immediately. I want to know who he is and so forth. Then kick him the hell out of there.

Kissinger: Right.

Nixon: Move him some place else.

Kissinger: Right.

Nixon: Isn't that awful. Jesus Christ, I mean I wouldn't put out a statement praising it, but we're not going to condemn it either.

Kissinger: No matter what we think of . . . . Even if we didn't have that relationship with Yahya, this is just not . . . there's nothing we can say that isn't going to get us more trouble than it's worth, for either side.

Nixon: That's right. Well, boy! Isn't that something. Shows you what those career guys would have us do virtually every time. You know, they get over there, they get involved . . . .

Kissinger: Exactly.

Nixon: Par for the course . . .

Consul Blood and U.S. diplomatic colleagues sent an April 6, 1971, cable declaring, "Our government has failed to denounce the suppression of democracy. Our government has failed to take forceful measure to protect its citizens while at the same time bending over backwards to placate the West Pak dominated government and to less likely and deservedly negative international public relations impact against them." It states that "unfortunately, the overworked term genocide is applicable."

That same day Kissinger talks to Secretary of State William Rogers, whom he sparred with regularly. The president was preparing a major speech for the next evening, to announce what he would call the success of so-called Vietnamization after major military operations in Cambodia and Laos.

Rogers: I wanted to talk about that goddam message from our people in Dacca [Dhaka]. Did you see it?

Kissinger: No.

Rogers: It's miserable. They bitched about our policy and have given it lots of distribution so it will probably leak. It's inexcusable.

Kissinger: And it will probably get to Ted Kennedy.

Rogers: I am sure it will.

Kissinger: Somebody gives him cables. I have had him call me about them.

Rogers: It's a terrible telegram. Couldn't be worse/says we failed to defend American lives and are morally bankrupt.

Kissinger: Blood did that?

Rogers: Quite a few of them signed it. You know we are doing everything we can about it. Trying to get the telegrams back as many as we can. We are going to get a message back to them.

Kissinger: I am going in these two days to keep it from the President until he has given his speech.

Rogers: If you can keep it from him I will appreciate it. In the first place I think we have made a good choice.

Kissinger: The Chinese haven't said anything.

Rogers: They talk about condemning atrocities. There are pictures of the East Pakistanis murdering people.

Kissinger: Yes. There was one of an East Pakistani holding a head. Do you remember when they said there were 1000 bodies and they had the graves and then we couldn't find 20?

Rogers: To me it is outrageous they would send this.

Kissinger: Unless it hits the wires I will hold it. I will not forward it.

Rogers: We should get our answers out at the same time the stories come out.

Kissinger: I will not pass it on. . .

Blood was reassigned to the State Department's office of personnel. "I paid a price for my dissent," he told The Washington Post in 1982. "The line between right and wrong was just too clear-cut." Blood was given posts as acting ambassador to Afghanistan and as charge d'affaires in New Delhi before retiring in 1982. He died last year.

(By James Warren, Chicago Tribune)