Kissinger on India-Pakistan relations and Indira Gandhi

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You have to say it.

Well, I think you should have got the post across to her about the war.

Uh-huh.

The one thing that perhaps I wouldn't recommend that you could pull back a little bit from, you're not really committed to this, but if you don't, you're really going to get back.

I don't really think we can get much done about Mordred, and I'm not even sure we ought to try.

And if she goes back and says, you promised her something, and then it doesn't matter.

I do not believe that that's going to be so easily manageable.

This is one of those Cisco things.

That's the only reason I said it.

I know.

We misled you.

I know why you said it.

Yahya said he would consider... Oh, no.

You said exactly what was in these talking points.

So it's even further, it says, Yahya has even agreed to hold direct communications with cleared Olamide leaders... Olamide leaders.

Bangladesh leader from India, who is not guilty of major crime, and to consider letting Mushi, uh, decimate that division.

To consider?

Consider.

Well, that division.

Put that in your, put that in your, uh, uh, the memorandum you prepared for him, that he will consider it.

But what I will do is,

I'm seeing Huxer today.

All right, fine.

I'll just make that clear.

That's the only point in the conversation that is even in the slightest.

The rest was masterful because you gave her a lot of baloney.

She can't do anything.

She's never been talked to like this before.

But on the other hand, you have to seal there on all the major points.

Well, the point is, you've got to talk to her like a man, Mike.

and that goddamn key doesn't.

Nobody else can suck her arm and treat her like a woman.

But, uh, Hawks are here in arrest.

And boy, you know what I've done there?

I let out the Chinese crap.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, they didn't like the Soviet thing, and it didn't help to have all these articles in the Indian Press.

Oh, you got that right.

The goddamn State Department ought to be bitching about those articles.

Oh, you got that right.

I think it was an absolutely masterful performance with the one provider, which was also good.

There was nothing wrong with that.

To trust...

I'll see to it that we empathetically consider, rather than that she can say, we're going to do it.

But... Or put it in, that this is, that I can tell you, officer, that this is something that he's only going to consider, and it'll depend on what else develops.

That's right.

And if anything leaks on it, it'll all be out of the way.

Right.

This guy will report everything to the Russians right away.

Haksa will report everything to the Russians, which is fine, because...

I said you make your agreement with the Russians, and I second your argument that you need an agreement with us.

That was good.

You need an agreement with us.

That was good.

I would mention to her at some point that treaty with the Russians, why you understand that that creates a...

problem here because she shouldn't get off all the way with you remember i said that i said you just said that right at the beginning i said it's caused some concern among people here that wonder that it was not inhibited or somebody interfere with india's policy about alignment

But I thought it was... She's got a...

I don't think she's got any doubts about it.

Oh, no, I thought it was a massive...

I could put it to...

This woman is... We really stuck it to her heart.

I think it was a massive...

I want you to, without giving Bill all the things, just say, I want you to just prepare to say that my... that Huxley said it, and you did, and the teacher, the points, and then you...

Lean hard on... Not only withdraw, but lean hard on the...

But you noticed how I sucked her out in that withdrawal thing.

I knew that.

I said, well, I understand you're not getting her.

Because now you should offer something.

Then she gets up and comes and says, do you think we could get her?

She's never been taken like that before.

Oh, no.

And it gives her a hell of a problem.

Because if she says no, then she's rejected both mutual and unilateral programs.

If she says yes, she's almost under an obligation to do something.

You see, those classes about the refugees, for example, they train all together.

That was another thing you did massively when you said they've had a lot of technical training.

Yeah, I thought, well, I seconded her.

I said, you know, this is a very technical matter.

Oh, they were trained by the East, whether they have bullshit, she knows very well.

And I said, they've all done 60 years.

Yeah.

So if... She didn't see any softness.

There was no softness.

Yeah, but the bullshit that...

I mean, there was nothing she could do with it.

I mean, you were soft on all the things that didn't matter.

I mean, praising her on her election and showing great sympathy for the refugees.

That really neutralizes her.

While on the big stage, you know, it will be something.

Sometimes, if you ever write your books, you've got to point out that I know who he's got that pitch in.

I must say, that was done very skillfully today.

I think that pitch, right?

I would rate this among, with a cochesco interview.

Just have to put it right, George, the way that he's, uh...

I could lunch with Sabrina now.

Well, I...

Tomorrow I'm just going to come in and see what you think about this withdrawal.

I'd like to do some of the talking on that tomorrow.

She's obviously sitting there, you know, training and everything.

They're determined to go to war, but you've made it harder for her.

Well, do you want to get Bill to lean hard then on discouraging the course of the war?

Oh, yeah.

I'll send him some of the points that he had to over-emphasize the points where I discouraged them on the war.

And in this country, just that it would have a very devastating effect on our attempts to help.

Right.

I'll get that done.

And he wasn't here.

He wasn't in at the advisors' meeting because the important minister isn't here.

So he has no bad feeling about my being here.

I don't give a shit what he does or not.

It's Hawk Service here.

The Chinese thing, most kids, they're going to hang over the phone.

Oh, yeah.

And I don't know what the Chinese are doing.

I tell Hawk Service that we just can't be here.

I'm thinking about the surveillance.

I'll take you, I'll report to you about the prison as soon as it's...

It's not through the sea.

He has to see you.

You've got to see him.

He wanted to see me in the Middle East.

Oh, yeah.

I'm keeping him going.

I hope he'll be given a definitive answer by the time you go to Thanksgiving.

A way for Thanksgiving.

Then we should have some preliminary talk.

There's no sense attending it if we can't do it.

You know, incidentally, I want to say, too, in terms of the, we never get any goddamn credit for the press and the rest of it.

That little welcoming speech I made to you out there was a beautiful, was a... And she had asked us at the end of our time to do all this, and she cut all the paragraphs, which was probably, you know, she wanted to start a wax, I mean, in Pakistan.

But I thought that thing was one of the better ones.

No, you did not.

She can't...

I think it was a massive overcomer.

But I had that out there.

No, but it was tough.

Oh, I know this was tough.

But that had some real style to it, if I say so myself.

Well, I think it was...

Does that mean Kennedy would have said something that sounded eloquent or irrelevant?

You sort of set the mood.

You made it possible for her to use television to whack us.

That's really what she did.

So she had to say something friendly.

So afterwards, if she goes out, the sun's shining on our relationship.

He had me in the summer.

I thought it was anyway, it was fun.

But I thought you would, I could see you were enjoying this, and I kept sticking it to him.

I thought it was good.

It's not that I didn't feel that way.

But I saw my show a little more and I think the president was very restrained.

I don't have a problem with your choice.

I think they talked about it in the field, but what I can do is make it a little more specific.

Yeah.

I don't have to talk about it in the field, but I can just repeat it in a more, slightly more specific way.

Kissinger on India-Pakistan relations and Indira Gandhi

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on November 4, 1971

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