1. How Nixon Began Relations With China: By Ignoring Bangladesh's Genocide
Adapted from an excerpt from Presidents' Body Counts: The Twelve Worst and Four Best
American Presidents Based on How Many Lived or Died Because of Their Actions available at
https://www.smashwords.com/....
Nixon and Kissinger have the most blood on their hands of any American President and Secretary
of State. Not only were they both guilty of genocide against the people of Cambodia, the two failed to
halt or even try to slow this genocide in Bangladesh and carried out actions leading to another
genocide, against the Kurds of Iraq. Kissinger also was complicit in failing to prevent and helping to
sanction yet one more genocide in East Timor.
Bangladesh is a country few Americans know much about, even where it is, and this lack of
understanding helped Nixon and Kissinger get away with their actions and is the greatest reason most
know little about this episode today. When the British were forced out of their empire in India, they
split the nation into India, mostly Hindu, and Pakistan, mostly Muslim. Pakistan at the time was two
regions, West Pakistan which is today simply called Pakistan, and East Pakistan which would become
Bangladesh.
The Bengalis of East Pakistan faced much discrimination and neglect from the national government.
Most political and military power was in the hands of West Pakistanis. Only the Urdu language of West
Pakistanis was an official language. The government spent little on East Pakistan, even though they
were slight over a majority of the population.
The final straw was the Bhola Cyclone in 1970, killing up to half a million Bengalis. The national
government response was poor, incompetent, and indifferent. East Pakistani parties won a majority in
elections. The military refused to allow them to take power. The government imposed martial law and a
crackdown began on East Pakistanis.
General Yaya Khan declared at a military meeting, “Kill three million of them and the rest will
be eating out of our hands.” Operation Searchlight began. Hindus, Biharis, university students,
teachers, reporters, and opposition leaders were all targeted. Hundreds of thousands of Bengali
women and girls were raped, with many kept as slaves in military brothels and often forced to
give birth to their rapists' children.
All of the actions of these atrocities were known to the American government almost
immediately, and specifically to Nixon and Kissinger. The American consulate in Dacca, East
Pakistan, reported the genocide in detail. The US Consul, Arthur Blood, sent what has become
known as the Blood Telegram, written by him and signed by 29 diplomats:
“Our government has failed to denounce the suppression of democracy. Our government has failed
to denounce atrocities. Our government has failed to take forceful measures to protect its citizens while
at the same time bending over backwards to placate the West Pak[istan] dominated government and to
lessen any deservedly negative international public relations impact against them....”
“But we have chosen not to intervene, even morally, on the grounds that the Awami conflict, in
which unfortunately the overworked term genocide is applicable, is purely an internal matter of a
sovereign state. Private Americans have expressed disgust. We, as professional civil servants, express
our dissent....”
An earlier Blood telegram described the explicit West Pakistani targeting of Bengalis. Kenneth
Keating, American Ambassador to India, also described the violence as genocide. Blood and Keating's
call for aid was not only ignored. Nixon and Kissinger referred to the diplomats derisively in
private as “fanatics” and even “traitors.” Though he had a year and half more left at his position,

2. Arthur Blood was recalled from his post by Nixon.
For to Nixon and Kissinger, their main concern was to use General Yaya Khan as a go between to try
and improve relations with Communist China. The opening to China has long been regarded as the
high point of Nixon's presidency. There is a long pattern of amnesia over how that opening happened,
not through diplomatic skill, but by pandering to a go between who committed outright genocide of the
most vicious kind.
Publicly Nixon and Kissinger claimed to be staying out of the massacres, neutral and disinterested.
In fact, they ordered the continued shipping of arms used in the genocide, knowing full well to what
purpose they were going to. Nixon also reassured General Yaya Khan of his support with
sympathetic words. “I understand the anguish you must have felt in making the difficult
decisions you have faced,” Nixon personally told him.
Transcripts of Nixon in private also showed his deep racist hatred of Indians. "Indians are
cunning, traitorous people," he said. “I don’t know why the hell anybody would reproduce in
that damn country, but they do.” As for Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, Nixon referred to her
as, “the old bitch.” Kissinger, while not showing bigotry, seemed very indifferent to the lives lost, very
much the pattern for his entire career. Even the death of a former student of his in genocide left him
unaffected.
Bengali leaders declared Bangladesh independence. As the repression continued, India offered arms
and diplomatic support. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi traveled extensively to win condemnation for
Pakistan's genocide and support for Bengali independence. Senator Edward Kennedy also called the
atrocities genocide and called for the cutoff of US aid.
Pakistan launched an air strike against India, hoping to prevent Indian intervention. The strike
largely failed, and India counterattacked, finally driving Pakistani forces out, capturing over 90,000
Pakistani troops. The United Nations tried to intervene. George Bush Sr., the US Ambassador to the
UN at the time, called for a ceasefire.
The Soviet Union, an ally to India, vetoed the ceasefire. Nixon sent the USS Enterprise, armed
with nuclear weapons, off the coast of India. Soviet warships with nuclear weapons followed. Nixon
had long followed a policy of brinksmanship (seeing how close one could come to nuclear war) and
madmanship (trying to convince your enemy you were insane.) Even for Nixon and Kissinger, this was
enormously risky, and so close to the edge as to leave little doubt of, yet again, their frequent
incompetence on foreign policy.
Nixon also encouraged China to deploy its forces along the border with India. China chose not to do
so, largely because eight divisions of Indian forces were already deployed and prepared to fight off
attacks.
In almost every way, Nixon and Kissinger's ploy failed utterly and exposed further their
incompetence. Pakistan lost half its territory and people and was condemned almost everywhere. The
Pakistani public's anger was so great over the losses and humiliating defeat by India that General Yaya
Khan was forced to step down and hand over power to a civilian president.
India's Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, derided as “the old bitch” by Nixon, came out of this matter
viewed as a strong leader, having fought off not just Pakistan but enormous pressure from China and
the US. Even the Soviet Union had been pressured by the US to pressure India. India's military had
beaten Pakistan and liberated Bangladesh, a new ally.
Kissinger's doctrine of realpolitik, (realism in politics) utterly failed. Designed to pursue stability
over morality, the vicious immorality of its aims became self-defeating. The region became far more

3. unstable. For Pakistan's government chose to pursue nuclear weapons and also supported jihadists in
Afghanistan to use against India.
The one sense in which Nixon and Kissinger's support of genocide could be called a success was in
eventually building ties leading to US recognition of Communist China. But even on that matter, their
legacy is controversial. For Nixon's strongest critics of that recognition, and the treaties that followed,
were from his own party. Many conservatives remain convinced that detente with China and later the
Soviets lengthened the Cold War, strengthened Communist dictatorships, and worsened lives for
dissidents in those countries.
Those worst off, of course, were the millions of Bengalis murdered, raped, or made refugees by this
genocide. There were no trials for this genocide except within Bangladesh. The UN treaty providing for
prosecution for genocide was not ratified until almost a decade and a half after the Bangladeshi
genocide.
Almost 200 Pakistani soldiers captured by the Indian Army and accused of war crimes were
pardoned and returned to Pakistan as part of a treaty agreement. Between 10,000 and 40,000 Bengalis
accused of being collaborators were imprisoned and facing war crimes trials until a 1973 pardon by the
Bangladesh government. The pardon was revoked two years later, but there were no other efforts to
prosecute war criminals.
If a different man had been president, would US condemnation have made any difference? No one
ever expected a US invasion or even bombings designed to punish Pakistan for genocide. The US
public would not support such while the US-Vietnam War was still failing so utterly that it was tearing
American society apart.
Nixon, even had he not been an anti-Indian racist and had he not been trying to get Pakistan as a go
between for relations with China, still would never have intervened. He was busy losing the war in
Indochina, and would soon accept peace terms from the North Vietnamese identical to those they first
offered when Nixon took office. Thus he continued the war for five years for nothing but his own
reelection. Nixon also had been occupied with carrying out his own genocide against Cambodia.
Would diplomatic isolation and halting arms shipments have halted the Bengali genocide? Almost
certainly not, but Nixon's fumbling and bigoted meddling certainly made matters far worse, turning an
ethnic and religious conflict into a Cold War standoff. Cutting off weapons and diplomatic isolation
would have slowed the genocide at best. But saving one tenth of the up to 3 million lives lost was
possible, and certainly a worthy goal.
Almost any other potential president at the time would not have made the decisions Nixon
made. Not Humphrey, certainly not Robert Kennedy nor McGovern, and not even Reagan would
have tried such duplicity for a remote and uncertain goal. Reagan only reluctantly recognized China
while running as candidate and then president, and strongly condemned Nixon's agreements with both
China and the Soviets. It is difficult to imagine any of the other possible presidents at that time sending
an American aircraft carrier armed with nuclear weapons. While Reagan and perhaps Humphrey may
continue shipping weapons, neither would do anything as reckless as risking the nuclear confrontation
that Nixon did.
Along with Cambodia and betraying the Kurds of Iraq, Nixon's support for Bengali genocide
deserves to be remembered as among the worst things he ever did, far more than covering up burglary
and spying during Watergate. That this tragedy is not better known in the US is due to parochialism, not
teaching about this region of the world. A growing South Asian population in the US will hopefully
change that.