1971 Indo-Pak War and foreign involvement

[ashdoc]

Division of Pak in 1971---good thing or bad for India ??

Considering the fact that Bangladeshis are considered ungrateful by many here , was the creation of bangladesh a good thing or bad ?? I mean for India ??

Or should we have left Pakistan united ??

The benefits of victory are obvious----after all we , a nation forever inured to miliatry defeats in major battles over the millenia , finally got to crow about a real military triumph 8) ( the 1965 war was not a complete triumph )

The Pakistanis also realised the fallacy of their one-muslim-equal-to-4-hindus theory and have not engaged India in a major conventional war since then .

The world also woke up and realised India was a major power and her military could not be trifled with .

But the Bangladeshis soon began to dislike India , and our hopes of turning it into a friendly neighbour were dashed .

So was the war worth it ??

Or we should have left Pak alone ??

After all , if east Pakistan was left in Pakistan's hands , Pakistan would have been forever plagued by the east pakistan ulcer , and her energies would have been absorbed into holding the two parts of the nation together----thus leaving her with less time to promote seperatism in Kashmir and terrorism in India .

So was the division of Pak a good or bad thing ??

 

[LETHALFORCE]

The Hindu : Opinion / Op-Ed : Was there an Indian plot to break up Pakistan in 1971?

Was there an Indian plot to break up Pakistan in 1971?

Following the victory of the Awami League, India hoped relations with a new democratic Pakistan would improve. But the Pakistani army's brutal crackdown on March 25 changed everything.

The sweeping victory of Sheikh Mujib-ur-Rehman's Awami League in the 1970 Pakistani elections was warmly received in India. The Bengalis of East Pakistan had always favoured a more cooperative approach in relations with India. New Delhi hoped for a progressive improvement in bilateral relations with a new democratic Pakistan, in which the eastern wing had its rightful representation. However, some observers questioned the possibility of bridging the vast political divide between the two wings of Pakistan. They felt that the eastern wing was likely to secede.

SECESSION, OBJECTIVES

In December, High Commissioner B.K. Acharya expressed a view that was widely accepted in New Delhi. He recognised the possibility of secession but argued that majority control of the Central Pakistan Government by the East Pakistanis offered the only hope of achieving India's policy objectives towards Pakistan and overcoming the stonewall resistance of West Pakistan against better ties. Moreover, a secessionist East Bengal might demand integration with West Bengal and a United Bengal and might pass under the control of pro-Chinese Marxists. Such developments would further complicate India's defence and strategic problems. Foreign Secretary T.N. Kaul agreed that India should do nothing to encourage the separation of East Pakistan from West Pakistan but he added that it did not lie in India's hands to stop it. Much would depend on the rulers of Pakistan and the realisation by West Pakistan of the need to come to an equitable arrangement with East Pakistan.

Indian officials reviewed the situation in early January. MEA Secretary S.K. Banerjee and Acharya observed that the question of a secessionist movement would arise only if the eastern wing failed to secure its six-point autonomy demand through constitutional means. Acharya observed that Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, the leader of the Pakistan Peoples' Party, might accept the autonomy demand if he himself could be all-powerful in the western wing, or if each wing was allowed to go its own way. However, a basic point of disagreement was in regard to powers of taxation. The army would not accept an arrangement under which it would have to depend upon subventions from the provinces for its funding.

R.N. Kao, the head of India's Research & Analysis Wing (RAW), said that he had received information that Mujib himself considered secession to be a definite possibility and was preparing for such an eventuality. Kao's assessment was that Mujib's hands were tied. He would either have to adopt an unyielding stand on the six-point demand or be swept aside by popular opinion. He would go through the motions of seeking implementation of the demand through constitutional means but a secessionist movement was a definite possibility. In this case, India could expect appeals for assistance in a variety of fields, including arms, money and military training. He urged that India should position itself to offer the assistance that might be requested.

WHAT THE RECORDS SHOW

The records show that New Delhi had no prior intention of dismembering Pakistan. However, events moved rapidly in East Pakistan. At the end of January 1971, RAW confirmed that the Awami League leadership was not very optimistic about the outcome of the negotiations on a new constitution and was preparing to launch a mass movement for an independent Bangladesh if the talks proved abortive. In early March, Tajuddin Ahmad met secretly with Deputy High Commissioner K.C. Sen Gupta, on Mujib's instructions, to explore whether India would provide political asylum and other assistance in the event of a liberation war. After consulting Delhi, Sen Gupta gave a response that was insufficiently specific to satisfy Sheikh Mujib. In mid-March, the latter repeated his appeal for assistance at this critical hour for his country, which was left with no alternative but to fight for independence.

India was not taken by surprise by the Pakistani crackdown on the Bengalis on March 25. She was not prepared, however, for the savagery of the onslaught. This drew impassioned condemnation from all sections of the Indian public. It also resulted in a refugee influx on a totally unexpected and unprecedented scale.

Though border inhabitants offered unstinting hospitality to the victims of the barbaric crackdown, it became evident that economic and political stability in the border provinces would be in danger unless conditions were created for the return of the millions of refugees to their homeland.

THE PLAN

By the beginning of April, India's political aims had crystallised. New Delhi entertained deep apprehensions concerning a long-drawn guerrilla war in East Pakistan. It feared that a freedom struggle initially led by the moderate Awami League might eventually be taken over by pro-Chinese extremists if it dragged on for years. Thus the freedom fighters had to be assisted to bring the hostilities to the earliest possible conclusion and open military intervention might be required in the final stage.

Second, conditions had to be created to enable the return of the refugees to their homes as early as possible. In the absence of a political settlement between the Awami League leadership and Islamabad, the refugees would return only to an independent Bangladesh.

These cerebral reasons were powerfully reinforced by the moral outrage caused by Pakistan army atrocities and the strong public support for intervention on behalf of the victims. After March 25, Indian public opinion was unanimous in demanding that the government should extend full assistance to the Bangladesh freedom struggle.

At the beginning of the year, India had hoped for a united Pakistan in which the eastern wing exercised a degree of influence proportionate to its population. The prospect of secession was viewed with some misgiving. It soon became evident, however, that secession was a very real possibility as the dominant forces in Pakistan were not prepared to accept the six-point programme. The brutal crackdown of March 25 sealed the fate of a united Pakistan. The emergence of an independent Bangladesh was inevitable after the massacre. Public sympathy for the people of Bangladesh and India's national interests demanded that full cooperation be extended to the freedom struggle in order to ensure its speedy success.

(The writer is a retired diplomat and author of War and Diplomacy in Kashmir, 1947-48.)

 

[agentperry]

good people at work!!! its not a wrong sating that India received its best officers in nehru era

 

[JAISWAL]

1971 War: How Russia sank Nixon's gunboat diplomacy

Rakesh Krishnan Simha,
specially for RIR
Exactly 40 years ago, India won a
famous victory over Pakistan due
to its brilliant soldiers, an
unwavering political leadership,
and strong diplomatic support
from Moscow. Less well known is Russia's power play that prevented a joint British-American attack on India.
An Indian Army machine gunner fires at Pakistani positions in a village across an open field, 1,500 yards inside the East Pakistan border at Dongarpara
.
http://www.indrus.in/articles/2011/...ssia_sank_nixons_gunboat_diplomacy_14041.html
++

.
on Dec. 7, 1971. Both sides have taken trenchlines position, in an attempt to prevent each other's moves. This picture was taken about 200-miles North East of Calcutta. Source: AP
.
.
Washington DC, December 3, 1971, 10:45am.
US President Richard Nixon is on the phone with Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, hours after Pakistan launched simultaneous attacks on six Indian airfields, a reckless act that prompted India to declare war.
.
Nixon:- So West Pakistan giving
trouble there.
.
Kissinger:- If they lose half of their country without fighting they will be destroyed. They may also be destroyed this way but they will go down fighting.
.
Nixon:- The Pakistan thing makes your heart sick. For them to be done so by the Indians and after we have warned the bitch (reference to Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi). Tell them that when India talks about West Pakistan attacking them it's like Russia claiming to be attacked be Finland.
.
Washington, December 10, 1971, 10:51am.
A week later the war is not going very well for Pakistan, as Indian armour scythes through East Pakistan and the Pakistan Air Force is blown out of the subcontinent's sky. Meanwhile, the Pakistani military in the west is demoralised and on the verge of collapse as the Indian Army and Air Force attack round the clock.
.
Nixon:- Our desire is to save West Pakistan.. That's all.
.
Kissinger:- That's right. That is exactly right.
.
Nixon:- All right. Keep those carriers moving now.
.
Kissinger:- The carriers--everything is moving. Four Jordanian planes have already moved to Pakistan, 22 more are coming. We're talking to the Saudis, the Turks we've now found are willing to give five. So we're going to keep that moving until there's a settlement.
.
Nixon:- Could you tell the Chinese it would be very helpful if they could move some forces or threaten to move some forces?
.
Kissinger:- Absolutely.
.
Nixon:- They've got to threaten or they've got to move, one of the two. You know what I mean?
.
Kissinger:- Yeah.
.
Nixon:- How about getting the French to sell some planes to the Paks?
.
Kissinger:- Yeah. They're already doing it.
.
Nixon:- This should have been done long ago. The Chinese have not warned the Indians.
.
Kissinger:- Oh, yeah.
.
Nixon:- All they've got to do is move something. Move a division. You know, move some trucks. Fly some planes. You know, some symbolic act. We're not doing a goddamn thing, Henry, you know that.
.
Kissinger:- Yeah.
.
Nixon: But these Indians are cowards. Right?
.
Kissinger: Right. But with Russian backing. You see, the Russians have sent notes to Iran, Turkey, to a lot of countries threatening them. The Russians have played a miserable game. If the two American leaders were calling Indians cowards, a few months earlier the Indians were a different breed altogether. This phone call is from May 1971.
.
Nixon:- The Indians need--what they need really is a—
.
Kissinger:- They're such
bastards.
.
Nixon:- A mass famine. But they aren't going to get that"¦But if they're not going to have a famine the last thing they need is another war. Let the goddamn Indians fight a war.
.
Kissinger:- They are the most aggressive goddamn people around there. The 1971 war is considered to be modern India's finest hour, in military terms. The clinical professionalism of the Indian army, navy and air force; a charismatic brass led by the legendary Sam Maneckshaw;
and ceaseless international lobbying by the political leadership worked brilliantly to set up a famous victory. After two weeks of vicious land, air and sea battles, nearly 100,000 Pakistani soldiers surrendered before India's rampaging army, the largest such capitulation since General Paulus' surrender at Stalingrad in 1943. However, it could all have come unstuck without help from veto-wielding Moscow, with which New Delhi had the foresight to sign a security treaty in 1970.
As Nixon's conversations with the wily Kissinger show, the forces arrayed against India were formidable. The Pakistani military was being bolstered by aircraft from Jordan, Iran, Turkey and France. Moral and military support was amply provided by the US, China and the UK.
Though not mentioned in the conversations here, the UAE sent in half a squadron of fighter aircraft and the Indonesians dispatched at least one naval vessel to fight alongside the
Pakistani Navy.

 

[JAISWAL]

PART--2
.
.
However, Russia's entry thwarted a scenario that could have led to multiple pincer movements against India.
.
.
On December 10, even as Nixon and Kissinger were frothing at the mouth, Indian intelligence intercepted an American message, indicating that the US Seventh Fleet was steaming into the war zone. The Seventh Fleet, which was then stationed in the Gulf of Tonkin, was led by the 75,000 ton nuclear powered aircraft carrier, the USS Enterprise. The world's largest warship, it carried more than 70 fighters and bombers. The Seventh Fleet also included the guided missile cruiser USS King, guided missile destroyers USS Decatur, Parsons and Tartar Sam, and a large amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli.
Standing between the Indian cities and the American ships was the Indian Navy's Eastern Fleet led by the 20,000-ton aircraft carrier, Vikrant, with barely 20 light fighter aircraft. When asked if India's Eastern Fleet would
take on the Seventh Fleet, the Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Vice Admiral N. Krishnan, said: "Just give us the orders." The Indian Air Force, having wiped out the Pakistani Air Force within the first week of the war, was reported to be on alert for any possible intervention by aircraft from the Enterprise.
Meanwhile, Soviet intelligence reported that a British naval group led by the aircraft carrier Eagle had moved closer to India's territorial waters. This was perhaps one of the most ironic
events in modern history where the Western world's two leading democracies were threatening the world's largest democracy in order to protect the perpetrators of the largest genocide since the Holocaust in Nazi Germany
However, India did not panic. It quietly sent Moscow a request to activate a secret provision of the Indo-Soviet security treaty, under which Russia was bound to defend India in case of any external aggression.
The British and the Americans had planned a coordinated pincer to intimidate India: while the British ships in the Arabian Sea would target India's western coast, the Americans would make a dash into the Bay of Bengal in the east where 100,000 Pakistani troops were caught between the advancing Indian troops and the sea.
To counter this two-pronged
British-American threat, Russia dispatched a nuclear-armed flotilla from Vladivostok on December 13 under the overall command of Admiral Vladimir Kruglyakov, the Commander of the 10th Operative Battle Group (Pacific Fleet). Though the Russian fleet comprised a good number of nuclear armed ships and atomic submarines, their missiles were of limited range (less than 300 km). Hence to effectively counter the British and American fleets the Russian commanders had to undertake the risk of encircling them to bring them within their target.
This they did with military precision.
In an interview to a Russian TV programme after his retirement, Admiral Kruglyakov, who commanded the Pacific Fleet from 1970 to 1975, recalled that Moscow ordered the Russian ships to prevent the Americans and British from getting closer to
" Indian military objects". The
genial Kruglyakov added: "The Chief Commander's order was
that our submarines should surface when the Americans appear. It was done to demonstrate to them that we had nuclear submarines in the Indian Ocean. So when our subs surfaced, they recognised us. In the way of the American Navy stood the Soviet cruisers, destroyers and atomic submarines equipped with anti-ship missiles. We encircled them and trained our missiles at the Enterprise. We blocked them and did not allow them to close in on Karachi, Chittagong or
Dhaka."
At this point, the Russians intercepted a communication from the commander of the British carrier battle group, Admiral Dimon Gordon, to the Seventh Fleet commander: "Sir, we are too late. There are the Russian atomic submarines here, and a big collection of battleships." The British ships fled towards Madagascar while the larger US task force stopped before entering the Bay of Bengal.
The Russian manoeuvres clearly helped prevent a direct clash between India and the US-UK combine. Newly declassified documents reveal that the Indian Prime Minister went ahead with her plan to liberate Bangladesh despite inputs that the Americans had kept three battalions of
Marines on standby to deter India, and that the American aircraft carrier USS Enterprise
had orders to target the Indian
Army, which had broken through the Pakistani Army's defences and was thundering down the highway to th gates of Lahore, West Pakistan's
second largest city. According to a six-page note prepared by India's foreign ministry, "The bomber force aboard the Enterprise had the US President's authority to undertake bombing of the Indian Army's communications, if necessary."

 

[Dovah]

The Pakistani military was being bolstered by aircraft from Jordan, Iran, Turkey and France. Moral and military support was amply provided by the US, China and the UK.

Just goes to show how pathetic the Pukes are...Martial race my a$$.

 

[JineshJK]

Rakesh Krishnan Simha,
specially for RIR
Exactly 40 years ago, India won a
famous victory over Pakistan due
to its brilliant soldiers, an
unwavering political leadership,
and strong diplomatic support
from Moscow. Less well known is Russia's power play that prevented a joint British-American attack on India.
An Indian Army machine gunner fires at Pakistani positions in a village across an open field, 1,500 yards inside the East Pakistan border at Dongarpara
.
http://www.indrus.in/articles/2011/...ssia_sank_nixons_gunboat_diplomacy_14041.html
++

.
on Dec. 7, 1971. Both sides have taken trenchlines position, in an attempt to prevent each other's moves. This picture was taken about 200-miles North East of Calcutta. Source: AP
.
.
Washington DC, December 3, 1971, 10:45am.
US President Richard Nixon is on the phone with Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, hours after Pakistan launched simultaneous attacks on six Indian airfields, a reckless act that prompted India to declare war.
.
Nixon:- So West Pakistan giving
trouble there.
.
Kissinger:- If they lose half of their country without fighting they will be destroyed. They may also be destroyed this way but they will go down fighting.
.
Nixon:- The Pakistan thing makes your heart sick. For them to be done so by the Indians and after we have warned the bitch (reference to Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi). Tell them that when India talks about West Pakistan attacking them it's like Russia claiming to be attacked be Finland.
.
Washington, December 10, 1971, 10:51am.
A week later the war is not going very well for Pakistan, as Indian armour scythes through East Pakistan and the Pakistan Air Force is blown out of the subcontinent's sky. Meanwhile, the Pakistani military in the west is demoralised and on the verge of collapse as the Indian Army and Air Force attack round the clock.
.
Nixon:- Our desire is to save West Pakistan.. That's all.
.
Kissinger:- That's right. That is exactly right.
.
Nixon:- All right. Keep those carriers moving now.
.
Kissinger:- The carriers--everything is moving. Four Jordanian planes have already moved to Pakistan, 22 more are coming. We're talking to the Saudis, the Turks we've now found are willing to give five. So we're going to keep that moving until there's a settlement.
.
Nixon:- Could you tell the Chinese it would be very helpful if they could move some forces or threaten to move some forces?
.
Kissinger:- Absolutely.
.
Nixon:- They've got to threaten or they've got to move, one of the two. You know what I mean?
.
Kissinger:- Yeah.
.
Nixon:- How about getting the French to sell some planes to the Paks?
.
Kissinger:- Yeah. They're already doing it.
.
Nixon:- This should have been done long ago. The Chinese have not warned the Indians.
.
Kissinger:- Oh, yeah.
.
Nixon:- All they've got to do is move something. Move a division. You know, move some trucks. Fly some planes. You know, some symbolic act. We're not doing a goddamn thing, Henry, you know that.
.
Kissinger:- Yeah.
.
Nixon: But these Indians are cowards. Right?
.
Kissinger: Right. But with Russian backing. You see, the Russians have sent notes to Iran, Turkey, to a lot of countries threatening them. The Russians have played a miserable game. If the two American leaders were calling Indians cowards, a few months earlier the Indians were a different breed altogether. This phone call is from May 1971.
.
Nixon:- The Indians need--what they need really is a—
.
Kissinger:- They're such
bastards.
.
Nixon:- A mass famine. But they aren't going to get that"¦But if they're not going to have a famine the last thing they need is another war. Let the goddamn Indians fight a war.
.
Kissinger:- They are the most aggressive goddamn people around there. The 1971 war is considered to be modern India's finest hour, in military terms. The clinical professionalism of the Indian army, navy and air force; a charismatic brass led by the legendary Sam Maneckshaw;
and ceaseless international lobbying by the political leadership worked brilliantly to set up a famous victory. After two weeks of vicious land, air and sea battles, nearly 100,000 Pakistani soldiers surrendered before India's rampaging army, the largest such capitulation since General Paulus' surrender at Stalingrad in 1943. However, it could all have come unstuck without help from veto-wielding Moscow, with which New Delhi had the foresight to sign a security treaty in 1970.
As Nixon's conversations with the wily Kissinger show, the forces arrayed against India were formidable. The Pakistani military was being bolstered by aircraft from Jordan, Iran, Turkey and France. Moral and military support was amply provided by the US, China and the UK.
Though not mentioned in the conversations here, the UAE sent in half a squadron of fighter aircraft and the Indonesians dispatched at least one naval vessel to fight alongside the
Pakistani Navy.

Well done man. Its also very hard for American lovers. US never ever heleped us. They need conflicts around the world for their arm business. Real enemy..!!

 

[JAISWAL]

Just goes to show how pathetic the Pukes are...Martial race my a$$.

.
.
You said very right they are A$$

 

[agentperry]

now when americans are choked in afghanistan with economy, military and repute all going down. i realize there is a god who take revenge on behalf of us.
now i realize why f-16 and f-18 were rejected.
now i realize why air force think its better to fly lesser aircraft but not one with ge engine.

i recall pakistani commenting at the time of indo-us nuke deal that its better to have america as enemy than a friend.

moreover, our leadership should be good and able to thwart any irregularity in international arena, foreign countries are there to play their due role

 

[JAISWAL]

PART--2.5
.
.
China in the box-
Despite Kissinger's goading and desperate Pakistani calls for help, the Chinese did nothing. US diplomatic documents reveal that
Indira Gandhi knew the Soviets had factored in the possibility of Chinese intervention. According to a cable referring to an Indian cabinet meeting held on December 10, "If the Chinese were to become directly involved in the conflict, Indira Gandhi
said, the Chinese know that the Soviet Union would act in the Sinkiang region. Soviet air support may be made available to India at that time." Interestingly, while the cable is declassified, the source and extensive details of the Indian Prime Minister's briefing remain classified. "He is a reliable source" is all that the document says. There was very clearly a cabinet level mole the Americans were getting their information from.
Intolerable hatred On December 14, General A.A.K. Niazi, Pakistan's military commander in East Pakistan, told the American consul-general in Dhaka that he was willing to surrender. The message was relayed to Washington, but it took the US 19 hours to relay it to New Delhi. Files suggest senior Indian diplomats suspected the delay was because Washington was possibly contemplating military action against India. Kissinger went so far as to call the crisis "our Rhineland" a reference to Hitler's militarisation of German Rhineland at the outset of World War II. This kind of powerful imagery indicates how strongly Kissinger and Nixon came to see Indians as a threat.
.
.
PART--3
.
Cold Warriors Another telephone conversation between the scheming duo
.
............
reveals a lot about the mindset of those at the highest echelons of American decision making:
.
Kissinger:- And the point you made yesterday, we have to continue to squeeze the Indians even when this thing is settled.
.
Nixon:- We've got to for rehabilitation. I mean, Jesus Christ, they've bombed—I want all the war damage; I want to help Pakistan on the war damage in Karachi and other areas, see?
.
Kissinger:- Yeah
.
Nixon:- I don't want the Indians to be happy. I want a public relations programme developed to piss on the Indians.
.
Kissinger:- Yeah.
.
Nixon:- I want to piss on them for their responsibility. Get a white paper out. Put down, White paper. White paper. Understand that?
.
Kissinger:- Oh, yeah.
.
Nixon:- I don't mean for just your reading. But a white paper on this.
.
Kissinger:- No, no. I know.
.
Nixon:- I want the Indians blamed for this, you know what I mean? We can't let these goddamn, sanctimonious Indians get away with this. They've pissed on us on Vietnam for 5 years, Henry.
.
Kissinger:- Yeah.
.
(The epic quote)Nixon:- Aren't the Indians killing a lot of these people?
.
Kissinger:- Well, we don't know the facts yet. But I'm sure they're not as stupid as the West Pakistanis—they don't let the press in. The idiot Paks have the press all over their place.

 

[W.G.Ewald]

Nixon: So West Pakistan giving trouble there.

Kissinger: If they lose half of their country without fighting they will be destroyed. They may also be destroyed this way but they will go down fighting.

Nixon: The Pakistan thing makes your heart sick. For them to be done so by the Indians and after we have warned the bitch (reference to Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi). Tell them that when India talks about West Pakistan attacking them it's like Russia claiming to be attacked by Finland.

emphasis added

This dialogue is incredible! The article does not substantiate the transcripts of these alleged conversations (please correct me if I am wrong), Whatever the actual events, this article is a clumsy farce.

One commenter writes

Amazing insight of old days war Never knew how bad americans are.
I wish indo-russian friendship reach apex stage in world.

Exactly the intended effect.

P.S. Did those 24 planes from Jordan have Russian pilots, does anyone suppose?

 

[pmaitra]

emphasis added

This dialogue is incredible! The article does not substantiate the transcripts of these alleged conversations (please correct me if I am wrong), Whatever the actual events, this article is a clumsy farce.

One commenter writes Exactly the intended effect.

Even I think a lot of this conversation is reconstructed. The primary points are not false, such as Indira Gandhi being called a 'b!tch' or Indians keeping their areas of operation press-sanitised. However, the conversation probably is made up from bits of facts. So this article is a fiction IMHO.

P.S. Did those 24 planes from Jordan have Russian pilots, does anyone suppose?

I doubt if those would have had Russian pilots. It is true that in the Armenian-Azerbaijani War, there were Russian mercenary pilots on both the sides, that would have been unlikely during the times of the Soviet Union.

 

[Ray]

WGE

Farce or not, it is good to have people confused by so called declassified stuff which can always be reconstructed to suit the flavour of the season,

 

[Param]

Just goes to show how pathetic the Pukes are...Martial race my a$$.

They are martial below the waist.

 

[W.G.Ewald]

WGE

Farce or not, it is good to have people confused by so called declassified stuff which can always be reconstructed to suit the flavour of the season,

I have no doubt Nixon called Indira Gandhi a bitch.

 

[civfanatic]

I thought Nixon called Indira a witch, and not a bitch? Or perhaps he called her both a witch and a bitch? A witch bitch?

Indira was India's best PM and Nixon was possibly America's worst president. It's ironic that they ruled their respective countries at the same time.

 

[W.G.Ewald]

I thought Nixon called Indira a witch, and not a bitch? Or perhaps he called her both a witch and a bitch? A witch bitch?

Indira was India's best PM and Nixon was possibly America's worst president. It's ironic that they ruled their respective countries at the same time.

Most of Nixon's unguarded remarks would be automatically filtered if posted on DFI.

I'm not getting drawn into a rating of USA's worst presidents

 

[pmaitra]

I thought Nixon called Indira a witch, and not a bitch? Or perhaps he called her both a witch and a bitch? A witch bitch?

How about BWITCH?

Indira was India's best PM and Nixon was possibly America's worst president. It's ironic that they ruled their respective countries at the same time.

The US has had the misfortune of having quite a few bad Presidents. Apropos 1971-72, did Nixon secure a declaration of war from the US Congress? No. So what the hell was the US 7th fleet doing close to India ("The bomber force aboard the Enterprise had the US President's authority to undertake bombing of the Indian Army's communications, if necessary." [sic.])? In fact, the US Congress was highly critical of what Pakistan was doing in East Pakistan.

P.S.: There is a 90 day grace period, I forgot about that.

 

[The Messiah]

Anyone who has a decent grasp of history and geopolitics would know the treachery and hypocrisy of the democracy and freedom loving west.

India should always be suspicious of them and keep them at a distance.

 

[Anonymouse]

emphasis added

This dialogue is incredible! The article does not substantiate the transcripts of these alleged conversations (please correct me if I am wrong), Whatever the actual events, this article is a clumsy farce.

One commenter writes Exactly the intended effect.

P.S. Did those 24 planes from Jordan have Russian pilots, does anyone suppose?

Truth is almost always stranger than fiction. Here is the official transcript from state dept. for above conversation

Office of the Historian - Historical Documents - Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume E–7, Documents on South Asia, 1969–1972 - Document 172