May 27, 2023 marks the 100th birthday of Henry Kissinger (full name Henry A. Kissinger), one of America’s most influential and famous foreign policy minds, although to every Bangladeshi citizen, he is known for his infamous comment terming our country as ‘bottomless basket case’. During the war of independence of Bangladesh, Henry Kissinger had collaborated with Pakistani occupation forces and made frantic bids in sabotaging the war and stopping Bangladesh from emerging as an independent nation. We shall never forget that the United States tried to send their Seventh Fleet onto the Bay of Bengal to give strategic advantage to Pakistani occupation forces, and their misdeeds in 1974 which had resulted in cruel famine in a newly-born country.
Though according to his supporters, being a refugee from Nazi Germany, “Henry Kissinger’s life and career embody a particularly American tradition: triumphing over adversity, working service to a new homeland, and relentless intellectual engagement with the challenges of one’s era. Rising from relative obscurity to the zenith of American power, his trajectory embodied the promise of the American Dream, even as his approach to international relations was grounded in a deeply pragmatic and realist worldview”, after 52 years of independence of Bangladesh, Henry Kissinger had publicly admitted stating US role in 1971 was a ‘a case history of political misjudgment’.
According to documents, Kissinger in his book titled ‘White House Years’ wrote: “The issue (Pakistan crisis) burst upon us while Pakistan was our only channel to China”.
Documents suggest in 1971, the Kissinger and President Nixon were frantically trying to build relations with Peking, now Beijing, to negate Soviet Union influence in that cold war era in a bipolar world taking the advantage of the Sino-Soviet conflict though both the countries were communist ones.
It appears the state department, which is the US foreign office, was sidelined or kept in the dark about the Nixon administration’s clandestine effort.
Pakistan’s support in the process visibly obligated the Nixon administration to take Islamabad’s side and even at the fag-end of Bangladesh’s Liberation War US sent its Seventh Fleets’ task force led by the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Enterprise to Bay of Bengal.
Kissinger, however, wrote the Seventh Fleet was sent to protect West Pakistan and “we have to prevent India from attacking West Pakistan; that’s the major thing”.
Yet, he commented, the US stance on Pakistan side “the outcome of an independent Bangladesh was foreordained” but added that the events related to Bangladesh’s Liberation War were “perhaps the most complex issue” for the Nixon’s term in office.
Henry Kissinger reiterated this view later as well in a conversation with Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman when he said Bangladesh’s independence was virtually inevitable but he wanted to see it in a different circumstance.
According to a declassified US state department document Nixon, Kissinger and US Attorney General Mitchell in a conversation among them on December 8, 1971 became sure that the Pakistani army was set to concede defeat and Bangladesh’s emergence was inevitable.
Yet the US sent the Seventh Fleet in the pretext of evacuating American citizens from the warzone but Kissinger wrote “in reality, (it was aimed) to give emphasis to our warnings against an attack on West Pakistan”.
The declassified documents including those of the CIA cables suggested the Seventh Fleet was aimed particularly to give a warning to Indian high ups not to invade West Pakistan after liberating Bangladesh.
A declassified CIA cable of December 6, 1971 leaked a briefing of the then Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi that revealed New Delhi had three war objectives.
Those were – quick liberation of Bangladesh, the incorporation into India of the southern part of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir for strategic rather than territorial reasons and to destroy Pakistani military striking power so that it never attempts to challenge India in the future.
The documents suggest the Nixon administration feared that Indira Gandhi would wage a full-scale military attack on West Pakistan soon after Bangladesh’s liberation.
This apprehension prompted the US to exert maximum political pressure through the UN along with military movement to safeguard its ally West Pakistan.
The declassified state department memo transcribed a conversation among President Nixon, Kissinger and Attorney General Mitchell in Washington DC on December 8, 1971, when Kissinger told President Nixon, “Well, then the Pakistanis are going to lose (in East Pakistan)”.
But, he said, “Even then we are not that directly, that much involved. The carrier (Seventh fleet) …”.
In reply Nixon said, “Well, my point is they’re going to lose anyway. At least we make an effort, and there is a chance to save it (West Pakistan)”.
Later, Henry Kissinger wrote in his book – “We were doing our part by moving a carrier task force near the Strait of Malacca … we have to prevent India from attacking west Pakistan; that’s the major thing”.
He recalled when the US fleet passed through the Strait of Malacca into Bay of Bengal that attracted much media attention.
“Were we threatening India? Were we seeking to defend East Pakistan? Had we lost our minds?”, he raised questions and gave the answer as well – “It was in fact sober calculation. We had some seventy-two hours to bring the war to a conclusion before West Pakistan would be swept into the maelstrom”.
Nixon’s “Tilt toward Pakistan” policy had not been supported by the state department or some senators including Kennedy as they would like to back a democratic India with 600 million people rather than a dictator like the then Pakistani president General Yahiya Khan.
As a consequence, Nixon had decided to order the aircraft carrier movement by keeping the state department in the dark.
“Keep as much of it under the hat as you can … What I mean is let’s do the carrier thing … and I would tell the people in the State Department not a goddamn thing they don’t need to know,” Nixon told Kissinger as per one of the declassified documents.
According to another declassified document on transcript of telephone conversation in Washington on December 16, 1971, the day Bangladesh was liberated, Kissinger informed Nixon – “The Indians have just declared a unilateral ceasefire in the West”.
“Congratulations, Mr. President. You saved W. Pakistan”, Kissinger told Nixon.
The US aircraft carrier did not enter the Bay of Bengal and it returned to Subic Bay in the Philippines on January 8 in 1971 as the Soviet Union as well sent warships as a counteraction visibly in line with its defense pact with India in 1971.
US foreign policy researcher Professor Garry Bass said General Yahiya Khan begged Nixon to send the seventh fleet to Pakistan’s shore to defend Karachi but Nixon, despite often sounding like he was on the verge of war with India, “had no intention of any naval combat”.
“The USS enterprise carrier group was an atomic-powered bluff, meant to spook the Indians and increase soviet pressure on India for a cease-fire, but nothing more”, he wrote in his book – The Blood Telegram.
Commenting on Henry Kissinger’s role, eminent journalist Syed Badrul Ahsan wrote in India Narratives:
In South Asia, Kissinger’s reputation remains in question, given the controversial role he played in relation to the Bangladesh liberation war of 1971. Every conversation in Bangladesh and India, though not necessarily in Pakistan, revolves around what is regarded as the dark manner in which he, along with President Richard Nixon, promoted the infamous pro-Pakistan tilt even as millions of Bengalis in what was then Pakistan’s eastern province were being subjected to a genocide by the Pakistan army.
Kissinger will likely term the entire episode — of American policy in South Asia in 1971 — as part of Washington’s emphasis on pragmatic foreign policy considerations by the Nixon administration. He has never been on record and neither has Nixon (as long as he lived) with any condemnation of the Yahya Khan junta’s repressive measures in occupied Bangladesh.
The focus of the Nixon-Kissinger policy was an opening to China, with Pakistan as a conduit in July of the year. There was no way the American administration would therefore have Yahya Khan acknowledge the tragedy his soldiers were wreaking in Bangladesh.
When Henry Kissinger celebrates his 100th birthday, shall we – the people of Bangladesh at all join the celebration of a person, who had made frantic bids in foiling our war of independence? Shall we forget the role of Nixon administration’s outrageous role in favor of Pakistani occupation forces?
