The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide – Deckle Edge Author: Gary J. Bass | Language: English | ISBN:
0307700208 | Format: EPUB
The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide – Deckle Edge Description
From Booklist
*Starred Review* In Freedom’s Battle: The Origins of Humanitarian Intervention (2008), Princeton international-affairs scholar Bass asked why powerful nations sometimes intervene to stop mass atrocities but sometimes do not. Here, he examines how two powerful democracies—India and the U.S.—responded to genocidal violence in what is now Bangladesh in 1971. The systematic atrocities committed by Pakistanis against Bengalis, and the major refugee crisis that accompanied it, would eventually drive India to war against Pakistan. The U.S. not only did not intervene; in fact, it supported the Pakistani regime in what Bass identifies as “one of the worst moments of moral blindness in U.S. foreign policy.” This was not, argues Bass, mere passivity. Rather, it was a series of deliberate choices made by Nixon and Kissinger: to ignore the hundreds of thousands killed; to downplay the emerging humanitarian crisis; to continue to supply Pakistan with U.S. weapons and military supplies despite evidence that they were being used against Bengali civilians; to disregard warnings from their own legal advisors. Nixon and Kissinger’s rationale, suggests Bass, was partly coldly strategic; Pakistan was a Cold War ally and was secretly facilitating their much-coveted opening to China. But, as made clear in comments captured on White House tapes, ugly anti-Indian bigotry played a role as well. Bass presents his evidence with devastating clarity and does not pull his punches: though India’s motives may have been mixed, the U.S. had Bengali blood on its hands. Reexamining a largely overlooked genocide (and dovetailing nicely with Christopher Hitchens’ The Trial of Henry Kissinger, 2001), this book also serves as a reminder of the complicated costs paid for Nixon’s lauded trip to China. st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } --Brendan Driscoll
From Bookforum
In this impressively researched book about the South Asian crisis that culminated in the birth of Bangladesh in 1971, Gary J. Bass argues the major responsibility for “forgotten genocide” falls on two men—Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger. Bass offers his book as an indictment of the shortsighted decision making that abetted the genocidal murder of hundreds of thousands of Hindus in the final days of East Pakistan. —Lloyd Gardner
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- Hardcover: 528 pages
- Publisher: Knopf (September 24, 2013)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0307700208
- ISBN-13: 978-0307700209
- Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.6 x 1.7 inches
- Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
This book brings back vivid memories for me as I lived through the 1970-71 East Pakistan crisis as a young man in India. The author shows us a picture of the events leading to the creation of an independent Bangladesh from the vantage points of the US consulate in Dacca and the White House. To a lesser extent, there is also the view from New Delhi, both from the Indian govt and the US embassy. To say the least, I was shocked to read about the visceral hatred that Kissinger, Nixon and Zhou-en-Lai had for India and Indians and the impunity with which Nixon flouted US law in conducting foreign policy. In fact, one can see that Watergate, which happened some 12 months later, was only a matter of time because Nixon had such disregard for the law of his own land.
One is used to foreign policy being conducted by most nations in a dispassionate manner, with their own nations' interests being the prime focus. But here, we see emotions and prejudice and sheer hatred dominating the thinking of both Nixon and Kissinger. Their private oval office conversations border on the extreme with Nixon saying in one place that what India needs is a mass famine and asking why India does not shoot the refugees if they find the millions an unbearable burden. The book says that Nixon was inclined to like the Pak military men because he was treated effusively when he visited them whereas Indian leaders were aloof and proud during his meetings with them in the 1950s. It seems a feudal mindset to make foreign policy decisions based on such flimsy reasons. For his part, Henry Kissinger also comes off as reckless and maniacal as he tries to goad China into threatening India, thereby risking a widening of the conflict into a direct clash between the USSR and the US.
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