Foreign Correspondence

[Amaunet]

Nixon on Mrs Gandhi: ‘We really slobbered over the old witch’

Right now we are courting India as a means to contain China or at least we were until India reads this.


See also:
US and India sign 10-year defence agreement
WASHINGTON: Defence ministers of the United States and India signed a 10-year agreement on Tuesday paving the way for joint weapons production, cooperation on missile defence and possible lifting of US export controls for sensitive military technologies.

“The United States and India have entered a new era,” a statement said after the signing by US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his Indian counterpart, Pranab Mukherjee, who is on a visit to Washington. “We are transforming our relationship to reflect our common principles and shared national interests,” it said of the so-called New framework for the US-India defence relationship” signed at the Pentagon.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_30-6-2005_pg7_12

-Am

Nixon on Mrs Gandhi: ‘We really slobbered over the old witch’

Right now we are courting India as a means to contain China or at least we were until India reads this.

-Am


ALLAN LAING June 30 2005

SHE was a respected world leader, the Iron Lady of India. But, to Richard Milhous Nixon, Indira Gandhi was less than graciously known as "the old witch".
Newly declassified transcripts of White House conversations between the US president and Henry Kissinger, his national security adviser, confirm there was little love lost between them and the Indian prime minister.
On November 5, 1971, months before the Watergate break-in that led to Nixon's impeachment and disgrace, he met Kissinger in the Oval Office to review a meeting they had had the previous day with Mrs Gandhi.
"We really slobbered over the old witch," declared Nixon. "The Indians are bastards anyway," Kissinger told his boss, adding that the president had got the better of her during their conversation.
"While she was a bitch, we got what we wanted too," the great diplomat said. "She will not be able to go home and say that the United States didn't give her a warm reception and therefore in despair she's got to go to war."
The meeting between the world leaders took place at the height of the political crisis in the Indian sub-continent, the subsequent war between India and Pakistan and the eventual creation of Bangladesh.
At a time when cold war paranoia was rife, Nixon and the US administration both disliked and distrusted Mrs Gandhi, fearing that she had sided her country towards the USSR. America, then, famously "tilted" towards Pakistan.
These latest transcripts of White House tapes, released as part of the State Department's compilation of significant documents involving US foreign policy, amount to Nixon and Kissinger (with the president's chief of staff Bob Haldeman also present) speculating on Mrs Gandhi's motives and India's intentions in the looming conflict with neighbouring Pakistan.
At one point, Nixon boasts to Haldeman about his performance. "You should have heard, Bob, the way we worked her round," he said. "I dropped stilettos all over her."
The tapes also allude to a further meeting over dinner the president was scheduled to have with the Indian premier that evening.
Presumably referring to the robust diplomatic style of LBJ, Nixon's predecessor, Kissinger says: "If you'd put on a Johnson performance, it would have been emotionally more satisfying but it would have hurt us. Because, I mean, if you had been rough with her .... " Nixon: "Yeah . . . ."
Kissinger: ". . . Then she'd have been crying, going back crying to India. So I think even though she's a bitch, I'd be a shade cooler today."
Ultimately, Mrs Gandhi's visit to Washington proved futile in terms of averting a conflict between the neighbouring states. Less than three weeks later India launched an offensive against East Pakistan.
The Nixon administration cut off economic aid to India and the president himself decided to "tilt" towards Pakistan, supporting it in the UN and pressuring the Soviets to discourage India with hints that US-USSR detente would be damaged if Moscow did not comply.
Nixon eventually ordered the US carrier Enterprise into the Bay of Bengal and instructed Kissinger to try to persuade China to offer military support to Pakistan.
Briefly, there were fears of a nuclear conflict but, in the end, neither Russia nor China entered the war and, in December, 1971, Pakistan surrendered and accepted India's ceasefire terms which led to the creation of Bangladesh.

Conversation pieces
Excerpts from conversation between Nixon, Kissinger, and Haldeman, November 5, 1971, 8.15-9am

Nixon: This is just the point when she is a bitch.
Kissinger: Well, the Indians are bastards anyway. They are starting a war there. It's – to them East Pakistan is no longer the issue. Now, I found it very interesting how she carried on to you yesterday about West Pakistan.
Nixon: I think I'll make the meeting today a rather brief – cool. [unclear] I don't mean by that cool in terms of not trying to bring up [unclear] I'll talk to her a little about Vietnam, and.... Kissinger: I'd let her talk a little more, maybe today ....
Nixon: Yeah?
Kissinger: .... to be a little less forthcoming. But basically, Mr President ....
Nixon: So I was trying to give her no excuses. Now I've talked to her, told her everything we're going to do. Now it's up to her.
Kissinger: While she was a bitch, we got what we wanted too. You very subtly – I mean, she will not be able to go home and say that the United States didn't give her a warm reception and therefore, in despair, she's got to go to war.
Nixon: Yeah.
Kissinger: So her objective – she has a right to be a little sore because you thwarted her objective. She would rather have had you give her a cool reception .... Nixon: That's right.
Kissinger: So that she could say that she was really put upon.
Nixon: We really slobbered over the old witch.
Kissinger: How you slobbered over her in things that did not matter, but in the things that did matter ....
Nixon: Yeah.
Kissinger: You didn't give her an inch. So that she's....
Nixon: She knows.
Kissinger: She knows she isn't coming out of here with any – she can't go home and say, "The president promised to do the following for me," and then when you don't do it ....


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