The US Consul General in Dhaka, Archer K Blood, sent a formal cable of dissent to Secretary of State William P Rogers with the signatures of 20 other US officials on April 6, 1971, lamenting the silence of his government over the genocide perpetrated in East Pakistan since March 25.
As he gave a low classification to this telegram deliberately to encourage broad circulation in Washington, it spread like wildfire, prompting President Richard Nixon to change his stance on Pakistan.
The following day, the US government appealed to West Pakistan “publicly” for a ceasefire.
Soon after learning about the telegram on the morning on April 6, Nixon phoned his Assistant for National Security Affairs Henry Kissinger.
Excerpts from the phone call
Nixon: I wanted to talk about that goddam message from our people in Dacca. Did you see it?
Kissinger: No.
Nixon: It's miserable. They bitched about our policy and have given it lots of distribution so it will probably leak. It's inexcusable.
Kissinger: And it will probably get to Ted Kennedy.
Nixon: I am sure it will.
Kissinger: Somebody gives him cables. I have had him call me about them.
Nixon: It's a terrible telegram. Couldn't be worse – says we failed to defend American lives and are morally bankrupt.
Kissinger: Blood did that?
Nixon: Quite a few of them signed it. You know we are doing everything we can about it. Trying to get the telegrams back as many as we can. We are going to get a message back to them.
Kissinger: I am going in these [next] two days to keep it from the President until he has given his speech.
[Reference is to the speech Nixon was set to deliver to the nation on April 7 on the situation in Southeast Asia]
Nixon: If you can keep it from him I will appreciate it. In the first place I think we have made a good choice.
Kissinger: The Chinese haven't said anything.
Nixon: They talk about condemning atrocities. There are pictures of the East Pakistanis murdering people.
Kissinger: Yes. There was one of an East Pakistani holding a head. Do you remember when they said there were 1,000 bodies and they had the graves and then we couldn't find 20?
Nixon: To me it is outrageous they would send this.
Kissinger: Unless it hits the wires I will hold it. I will not forward it.
Nixon: We should get our answers out at the same time the stories come out.
Kissinger: I will not pass it on.
[In his memoirs, Kissinger writes that the dissent cable from Dhaka pointed up a dilemma for the administration. "The United States could not condone a brutal military repression," and there was "no doubt about the strong-arm tactics of the Pakistani military." He explains the administration's decision not to react publicly to the military repression in East Pakistan as necessary to protect "our sole channel to China." As a result of the cable, President Nixon ordered Blood transferred from Dhaka. Kissinger conceded that "there was some merit to the charge of moral insensitivity."]