Nixon, Khan & Kissinger on India-Pakistan Conflict and US-Pakistan Relations

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Well, how are you?

We're delighted to have you here.

We can do more.

We have a...

Sit down.

Let me say this.

Our sentiments, I expressed to your previous ambassador before he left, to the fireman, and we talked very directly to Mrs. Coffey, believe me, publicly we did all of this, but very directly.

And I speak straight from the shoulder, and just as you're having to tell you what I said, and I think you have, I do not.

And so did Rogers.

Rogers was very tough on us.

Now, Rogers told me he saw you once, and now the thing that we do is,

What we are trying desperately to do is not to allow this terrible tragedy, the agony, that you're going through, be a pretext to start a war, which is not a long time, if we can help it.

We're also talking with our Soviet friends, and I close out at my suggestion to them, and we've done that.

Now, every morning, I tell you, I'm on the moment, and Sunday, I was on the moment.

I was, you know, every morning I worry about these things.

But what we can do from here needs to be seen.

There was one unfortunate thing that announced to the effect of the arms and gave the impression because she was here.

It had nothing to do with that at all.

Mr. President, can I show you this president?

He knows that.

He knows the footage.

You know, I was the one who put it back in.

But I didn't want you to be embarrassed by it.

Mr. President, Mr. President, as you mentioned, this is possibly the result of some bureaucratic language somewhere.

He fully appreciates that it would not have been your intention to embarrass him in any way, and he just took it in his tight end and showed it.

And he has asked me, he has asked me to convey his very sincere decision.

He knows the concern you have, sir, for the Pakistanis.

Why, I have to say, the President has a good friend in me, Mr. President Kishkin.

I believe you quite candidly.

As I told you, Mr.

Ambassador, as the President knows, there's a huge public relations campaign here.

Many of our friends in the other party, and including, I must say, some of the nuts in our own party, saw this and jumped on it and completely bought the Indian mind.

And India has a very big propaganda line.

And if you read our press, I mean, you get the whole impression that India is completely right.

That's not, that's not.

Now, that's just a delusion.

India may have overplayed its hand, and I'm talking with great candor with you, and this is just for your ears and the President's.

The important thing is we know, I know, that

that this is one of those terrible problems that, frankly, must be solved by a political solution.

It must not be solved by force.

And we simply want to play a role that will be helpful and unharming.

We will try to restrain, to the extent that we have any influence, the Indians.

We will do everything we can to try to help you and your companies.

That's where we stand here.

What we could do, of course, is limited by the circumstances.

I mean, we don't control the Indians in China.

Is there any more?

I'd like to give you more encouragement, but I'd like to be totally honest.

We realize that Indians are not eminent, to be honest, but whatever is conveyed with your authority and prestige,

We should not be disregarded like human Indians, and I'm grateful you anticipated our desire to consult with the Russians on this, because if you can carry the Russians with you on the need for maintaining peace in the subcontinent, it might just turn the tide.

I hope so.

Well, the Russians should have something to do with it.

What reaction do you have to Mark Glover?

Well, he doesn't know.

He claims that they're not sending much military equipment.

that they're warning the Indians against precipitate action.

And I'm seeing him again later this week.

And I think this will be one of the high items on my agenda.

But we are, to what effect it has, the Indians are aware that this bust-off and the war, they call us up.

You see what I mean?

That's the way it is.

I've also told the foreign secretary that there are contacts with the Chinese.

they can emphasize to them that they're prepared to discuss foreign tactics with them in the U.S., for example.

Yes, yes, yes.

The U.S. is very... We can, of course.

I don't want to be hard-skinned when people talk to me in Chinese at the U.S. at this point.

That should be your job.

Right?

Now, on the other hand, we should do the same thing as I would see it.

is if you get it in the U.S., and you don't want to go there, but the other end, if you get it, you don't want to get it in there, and then get that General Assembly, you just don't know how the whole thing's going to come out.

Now, of course, the Chinese are in Security Council.

So it's a point we've got to do.

I'm prepared to learn.

It doesn't impress me as being a very good show.

We consulted them on this, and they've completed the petition on the system.

You're right after this, sir.

Yes.

And after the U.S. vote.

After the U.S. vote, and immediately after that.

You said it was good, and I appreciate it.

In fact, we talked about Dr. Persinger in a very friendly way, and I told you about Kim Il-sung's picture being there, and being embarrassed, and so on.

About Kim, they said that the Security Council, they said, if you bring up this question, you can put it out on us.

But at the same time, they said, Mr. Kim is going to tell us to use more procurates.

But we want you to know that this will not mean that our support to you will be diluted in any way.

They're very clever.

Put it this way.

They said, for example, we'll say that we regret the dispute between India and Pakistan.

A peaceful solution must be found.

But then they said, at the same time, we will openly accuse India of infiltrating the Pakistan Central University, that we will go to that extent.

But we were left, I have been left with a feeling that, as their friends and they were very good to us, we must also calculate very carefully whether, right from their start, in the security council, we should contact them to use their veto when it comes to that on our behalf.

They could also fail.

And they would come to us.

I, of course, have known the President, President Eisenhower, is a great friend of Pakistan.

Since President Eisenhower left, there's been off and on, and so forth and so on, and there was a break in the commitment, I believe, that was, again, April 1st, the announcement of the agreement, and so forth and so on.

But the one thing you should understand is that you have in this office at the present time, one who's been to your country, he's been to India, I respect both,

But you can be very sure that I am appreciative of your friendship.

I'm appreciative of our treaty arrangements.

I regret the fact that we've had these problems that would not have happened if I had been here.

I believe that we make a deal, we keep the deal.

You know that thing with the promise that was made to Johnson and Johnson earlier.

I'm not saying it's critical of my predecessors, but as I think Dr. Kissinger will tell you,

Pakistan India has been a hot subject in our high councils many times.

Which side are we on?

You have to take them off a little.

These are the complex of the seal present.

Only the board secretary should have it.

Nixon, Khan & Kissinger on India-Pakistan Conflict and US-Pakistan Relations

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on November 12, 1971

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