Kissinger “lied” when he said Nixon was not anti-India
From J. K. BANERJI, NEW YORK, Jan. 4.-Jack Anderson, the noted syndicated columnist, delivered a blow at the trustworthiness of the US Administration yesterday morning as he wrote “the Pakistan’s brain trust Dr. Henry Kissinger, lied to reporters when he told them the Nixon Administration was not anti-India.”
The long quotations from talks between Dr. Kissinger, the CIA boss, Mr. Helms and other high-ranking officials clearly indicate that the Government’s uncompromisingly anti-India stand during the two-week war dubbing India “aggressor” and cutting of all dollar loans, etc. was the direct result of Mr. Nixon’s order that it should be so.
Significantly, there is not a word from the White House denying the authenticity of Mr. Anderson’s sources.
There is only frantic search for the source of the lack.
Dr. Kissinger, said yesterday Mr. Anderson took “out of context” remarks indicating the Administration was against India in its recent war with Pakistan, adds UPI.
But Dr. Kissinger refused to elaborate further on the series of columns which Mr. Anderson claims are based on minutes of the Washington Special Action Group, a top-level committee which met frequently to discuss the India-Pakistan fighting.
According to the columnist, President Nixon not only ordered a proPakistani policy “but became furious with his subordinates for not taking a strong stand against India.”
“I am getting hell every half hour from the President that we are not being tough enough on India. Dr. Kissinger complained at a December 3 strategy session, according to Mr. Anderson, UPI further adds.
“Three days later’, Mr. Anderson wrote, “Dr. Kissinger directed that henceforth we show a certain coolness to the Indians. The Indian Ambassador is not to be treated at too a high level.”
Mr. Anderson said Dr. Kissinger ordered that punitive US steps taken against India should be concealed as to their origin. Mr. Anderson quoted the minutes as stating: “Dr. Kissinger stated that current orders are not to put anything in the (AID) budget for india. It was also not to be leaked that AID had put money in the budget for India only to have the ‘wicked’ White House take it out.”
Mr. Helms opened a meeting of the “Washington Special Action Group”, held on December 4, with the remark that the Indians were currently engaged in a “no holds barred attack on East Pakistan” and that they had “crossed the border on all sides,” Mr. Anderson said.
According to Mr. Anderson, Mr. Helms said although not decreeing a formal declaration of war, President Yahya Khan has stated that “the final war with India is upon us.”
Dr. Kissinger remarked that if the Indians had announced full-scale invasion, this fact must be reflected in the UN statement by the USA.
Mr. Helms: “We do not know who started the current action.”
Dr. Kissinger requested that by Monday (December 4 was a Saturday) the CIA prepare an account of who did what, to whom and when.
The Assistant Secretary of State. Mr. Depalma, suggested, according to Mr. Anderson, that if “we refer to the Indian declaration in our discussion in the UN we almost certainly will have to refer to remarks by Yahya.”
Dr. Kissinger replied that he was under specific instructions from the President either someone in the bureaucracy would have to prepare this statement along the lines indicated or that it would be done in the White House.
Mr. Helms replied that the terminology was “no holds barred.
” Dr. Kissinger asked: What Pakistan has said.
Mr. Helms: The terminology was “final war with India.”
Dr. Kissinger suggested: This was not objectionable terms. It did not seem outrageous for the Paks to say that they were trying to defend themselves.
Later, at the meeting, Dr. Kissinger instructed: “On aid matters the President wants to proceed against India only.”
Mr. Anderson said, Dr. Kissinger made it clear at a subsequent meeting that the President had said that further foreign exchange (surplus) commodities or development “loans could be assigned to India without the approval of the White House.”
PTI adds: Mr. Anderson has announced his intention to make public further documentary evidence to show that President Nixon had misled the American public that he was following an even-handed policy between India and Pakistan.
“Uncle Sam’s word is no longer trusted abroad” commented a television announcer while reading excerpts from Anderson’s column.
The TV announcer said that official spokesman of the Administration were responsible for the removal of this trust.
While the New York Post demanded a probe into the origins of the US policy on the sub-continent, the New York Times columnist Mr. Tem Wicker, said the Anderson disclosures provided a valuable glimpse into the making of policy “In this case a policy that to many Americans seems disastrous.”
In an interview Anderson is quoted as saying that by the publication of the secret minutes he was trying to show that “everything Dr. Kissinger does, even the toilet paper that he uses, is being stamped secret. That is not in the public interest in a democracy.”
In his comment in the New York Times, Mr. wicker said, “More than anything else, the Anderson papers suggest the extent to which the Government can, and does, mislead the public in the pursuit of what the President and his advisers may decide is the national interest. They show again the abundant use of security classification to keep the public in ignorance. And they demonstrate that publication is one of the few remaining checks on the foreign policy powers of the imperial presidency.”
Mr. Wicker said that the Anderson papers make one thing perfectly clear “that President Nixon, with the aid of Dr. Kissinger, set out deliberately to put the USA into a position of support for Pakistan at whatever cost.
Mr. Wicker said that the brutal excesses of Pakistani repression of the Bengalis was overlooked to the point where all aid to India was to be suspended while clandestine means of arming Pakistan were sought “is simply repugnant to the American conscience-or ought to be.”
“Besides, nobody in Washington bothered to make clear to the public that Washington was not being even handed. Thus its condemnation of India sounded more like a considered, fair analysis than a deliberate, purposeful policy: and that is the kind of swampy ground in which credibility gaps are dug.”
Referring to the Anderson leak about the Administration’s objectives in sending the American naval task force to the Bay of Bengal. Mr. Wicker comments. “If, for instance, the task force actually was there to stop India from overrunning West Pakistan, too, as Administration heads now suggest, nothing in India’s actual behaviour towards West Pakistan seems to have warranted such action.”
Mr. Wicker asks: “If, as other articles have suggested, Mr. Nixon’s intent really was to solidify an American alignment with China, also a supporter of Pakistan, against the Soviet Union, the curious results are that the Soviet power in the sub-continent is vastly extended, as a result, and American influence in India is at the lowest ebb. If we are now closer to China than we were, what suggestion was there in their acrimonious history that Peking and Moscow were likely to be soon reconciled? In order to gain face in China, did we really need to lose our shirts in India.
Reference: Hindustan Standard 05.01.1972