Towards the end of The Blood Telegram, Gary Bass describes the contemporary Pakistani attitude towards the events of 1971 as one that is best characterised as “collective amnesia”. While many Pakistanis evidently recognise that the Bangladeshi independence movement was at least partially motivated by the discrimination and exploitation of Bengal at the hands of the West Pakistani establishment, there is a general lack of awareness about the true scale of the atrocities that took place. Moreover, many Pakistanis today attribute the break-up of the country to Indian machinations and American perfidy; had India not intervened in the conflict, and had America given Pakistan more support, this line of thinking suggests, Bangladesh would have never come into existence.

As Bass points out in this eminently readable and exhaustively researched account of the events of 1971, this view of history is one that is fundamentally incorrect. For one, given the multifaceted nature of the Bengali nationalist movement, as well as the myriad causes that gave rise to it, it is far from clear that the eventual creation of Bangladesh was something that could only have happened with Indian assistance. Secondly, the problem in 1971 was not a lack of American backing for Pakistan. If anything, Bass suggests that President Nixon and his secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, extended too much support to Pakistan. Indeed, through an examination of records from the White House and the State Department, including conversations between Nixon and Kissinger, Bass concludes that the US government actively worked to prop up the Yahya Khan regime in Pakistan despite the emergence of overwhelming evidence that the Pakistani military had unleashed a wave of repression and brutality in Bengal that would ultimately lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians.

The fact that Nixon and Kissinger were cognisant of the conditions on the ground in East Pakistan is made clear through the existence of diplomatic cables, sent from the US consulate in Dhaka, describing the brutality unleashed by the Pakistani military in its attempts to quell the Bengali nationalist movement. The Blood Telegram gets its name from Archer Blood, the US consul general in East Pakistan during 1971, and the telegram he sent to the State Department on April 6, 1971. In what is widely believed to be perhaps the most strongly worded note of dissent sounded by an American diplomat against the policies of the US government, Blood accused Nixon and Kissinger of “moral bankruptcy” for their failure to act against a West Pakistani regime that had started a systematic campaign of violence that targeted Dhaka’s Hindu population, as well as Bengali nationalists and their sympathisers. For Archer Blood, the word “genocide” was an apt description for what had been taking place in Dhaka since the initiation of Operation Searchlight by the Pakistani military on March 25. Archer Blood and his staff had been in Dhaka since the start of the operation, in which students and professors at Dhaka University had been massacred by Pakistani troops, and had continued to bear witness to the killing of thousands of mostly Hindu Bengalis over the course of the next two weeks.

All in all, most independent estimates suggest that about 300,000 Bengali civilians were killed as a result of the Pakistani military’s attempts to quash the Bangladesh independence movement, with a further 8 to 10 million people fleeing to India as refugees in 1971. It has also been alleged that tens of thousands of women were raped by Pakistani forces during the campaign. Even the Hamoodur Rehman Commission, which led the government of Pakistan’s official inquiry into the events of 1971, reported that at least 26,000 civilians had been killed by the Pakistan army, and that other atrocities had also been committed.

As argued by Bass, Archer Blood’s disgust with US support for West Pakistan was rooted in recognition of the fact that in 1971, the US actually possessed the wherewithal to shape Pakistani policy. President Nixon had first visited South Asia in 1953 in his capacity as vice president during the Eisenhower administration. It was during this trip that Nixon developed his well-known aversion to India, bemoaning the country’s commitment to a policy of non-alignment, and suspecting it of being far too close to the Soviet Union. By contrast, Nixon found Pakistan to be a more hospitable country, avowedly anti-communist and possessing a powerful military establishment that was more than willing to enter into a relationship with the United States.

Nixon’s initial impression of Pakistan would drive US policy in the region for years to come. Upon Nixon’s recommendation, President Eisenhower initiated a programme of economic and military assistance to Pakistan, providing the country with a tremendous amount of aid and military hardware. Given Pakistan’s willingness to pursue the United States’ anti-communist agenda, concretised in Pakistan’s admittance to Seato and Cento, the US continued to pursue a policy that treated India with suspicion while engaging in ever greater amounts of cooperation with Pakistan.

In 1971, Pakistan’s tremendous dependence on the United States in both military and economic terms meant that Nixon arguably possessed the means through which to curtail Pakistan’s excesses in Bengal. Instead, as Bass convincingly demonstrates in The Blood Telegram, Nixon and Kissinger provided Yahya Khan with unflinching and unconditional support. This was rooted in a number of different factors. Firstly, as Nixon’s often coarse and abusive language amply demonstrates, support for Pakistan was at least partly driven by the president’s deep and abiding loathing for India in general, and Indira Gandhi in particular. Secondly, while echoing Nixon’s personal bias against India, Henry Kissinger repeatedly voiced his support for foreign policy decisions determined by realpolitik rather than principle. Within this framework, Kissinger believed that it was important for America to support a staunchly pro-West and anti-Soviet ally regardless of the cost in terms of public indignation and international opprobrium. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the decision to stand behind Yahya Khan was also influenced by broader geo-strategic developments in 1971; President Nixon had long desired to create a diplomatic opening with China, and Yahya Khan had been instrumental as an intermediary setting up contact between the United States and China. As a result of Yahya Khan’s efforts, Henry Kissinger secretly visited China twice in 1971. This was followed by a visit from Nixon himself the following year. Given the geo-strategic stakes involved for the United States, which actively sought to have a more cordial relationship with the Chinese in order to preempt the spread of Soviet influence in Asia and the rest of the world, supporting Yahya Khan and the West Pakistani regime was of paramount importanceThe picture that emerges from Bass’ account of the US role in 1971 is one that paints Nixon and Kissinger as secretive, ideologically driven, and insensitive cynics who were more than willing to turn a blind eye to Pakistani atrocities in Bengal as long as their own political ambitions were achieved. The most gripping parts of Bass’ narrative come from his accounts of conversations between Nixon and Kissinger in which they show their complete and total contempt for India and Indira Gandhi, their respect for Yahya Khan, and their almost casual acceptance of the deaths of thousands of innocent people. Embroiled as the United States was in the Vietnam War, at a time when the principle of humanitarian intervention had not yet been established, Archer Blood’s desire for direct American intervention in the conflict was always unlikely to be entertained.

This edition of The Blood Telegram, published by Random House India, is subtitled India’s Secret War in East Pakistan. While this decision might make sense in terms of marketing the book in South Asia, it is a curiously misleading title given the book’s almost total emphasis on America’s role during 1971. Indeed, international editions of the book carry the subtitle Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide, which is a much more accurate description of the actual thrust of the book’s argument. Nonetheless, Gary Bass does spend some time examining India’s own motivations and actions in 1971, and arrives at the conclusion that for all its humanitarian justifications, India’s intervention in the conflict was at least partially the result of a desire to strike a strategic blow against Pakistan. Faced with a full-blown refugee crisis that required an overstretched Indian government to house 10 million refugees at a reported cost of over half a billion dollars, Bass acknowledges that there was a humanitarian dimension to India’s intercession on behalf of the Bangladeshi independence movement. Nonetheless, through his examination of the archival evidence available, Bass concludes that the decision to support the liberation movement, through the provision of bases, supplies and, eventually, military support, was one that was borne out of a calculated desire to harm Pakistan. Indeed, for Bass, India’s conduct was hypocritical given its own record at the time of clamping down on ethno-national movements within its own borders.

By December 1971, once it had become clear that Pakistan would not be able to prevent Bangladesh from declaring independence, it was the belief that India would destroy Pakistan that led Nixon and Kissinger to engage in ever more frantic efforts to prop up their ally. For example, despite the illegality of doing so, Nixon and Kissinger authorised the transfer of American fighter jets to Pakistan from Jordan. At one point, having pressed the Chinese to mobilise troops along their border with India as a show of solidarity with Pakistan, and after moving an American aircraft carrier into the Bay of Bengal, Nixon and Kissinger seriously contemplated the possibility of engaging in a war involving China, India, and the Soviet Union, all to prevent India from dismantling West Pakistan. Fortunately for the world at large, saner heads prevailed. Despite some enthusiasm in India for a longer campaign against Pakistan, elements within the Indian military establishment convinced the government to not undertake such a course of action. Soviet diplomatic pressure on India also helped to de-escalate the conflict, allowing Nixon and Kissinger to finally reconcile themselves to the new reality that existed in South Asia; while East Pakistan had been able to successfully secede to become Bangladesh, West Pakistan remained intact and in a position to continue pursuing American strategic interests in the region. As Bass points out at the end of his book, it was therefore ironic that the newly installed Bhutto regime took an anti-US foreign policy stance upon coming to power, believing that the US had not done enough to prevent the secession of East Pakistan. Having not been privy to the confidential and secret discussions between Nixon and Kissinger, the new Pakistani government had no way of knowing just how much the United States had supported the country throughout 1971.

The Blood Telegram makes extensive use of recently declassified US documents and archives to provide evidence for the claims that it makes. As an exploration of the American role in the events of 1971, the book is peerless in the sheer quality and quantity of sources it uses to support its arguments. However, the book suffers from a corresponding lack of attention to internal debates within India; even though Bass cites documents from The National Archives of India and makes use of Indian interviews, it would have been interesting to see a more comprehensive analysis of decision-making within India during 1971. Similarly, there is an almost complete and total lack of reference to Pakistani sources. While this does not necessarily have any bearing on Bass’ main argument, given his emphasis on the United States and India, an exploration of the Pakistani response to America’s policy decisions could have potentially provided for a more nuanced and complete understanding of the decisions that led Pakistan to unleash the violence that it did in 1971.

Historical accounts of the events of 1971 have inevitably tended to parrot the nationalist myths and tropes of the three main South Asian parties involved. Over the past two decades, however, independent historians, political scientists, and other experts have been able to establish a consensus over several key facts: East Pakistan had legitimate grievances against West Pakistan that led to the nationalist movement; the Pakistani army did engage in mass violence and repression resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Bengalis; and India did exploit the conflict to its own advantage. The Blood Telegram contributes to this expanded understanding of the events of 1971 by providing an unmatched account of US cynicism and hypocrisy in its support of the Yahya Khan regime and its actions in East Pakistan. It is a timely reminder of the regrettable fact that in the world of global realpolitik, principles are secondary to political expediency. Given a choice between 300,000 deaths and the chance to develop a relationship with China, it is the latter that usually wins out.

The reviewer is Assistant Professor of Political Science at LUMS

The Blood Telegram: India’s Secret War in East Pakistan

(History)

By Gary J. Bass

Random House, India

ISBN 978-81-8400-370-3

499pp.