After the Soviet Union vetoed two resolutions in the UN Security Council on December 5 in 1971, an enraged General AM Yahya Khan, wrote to the US president requesting all material support to prevent the separation of Pakistan.
"The military situation in East Pakistan has deteriorated rapidly in the last 24 hours. Our forces there are without adequate artillery and air support. They are also cut off from being supplied and reinforced. They are resisting bravely but they are at a heavy disadvantage,” Gen Yahya said in a text message sent on December 7.
He also slammed India for recognizing the “so-called government” of Bangladesh. “The Soviet Union has, during the same period, vetoed two resolutions in the Security Council,” he wrote, adding that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was “doing everything by political and military means to enable India to obtain a military decision to annex East Pakistan”.
Gen Yahya feared that if India succeeded in its objective, the loss of East Pakistan, with a population of 70 million people, would also be a threat to the security of South Asia. In that case, Assam, Myanmar, Thailand and Malaysia would be dominated by the USSR.
“The far-reaching consequences of such a development to the future of Asia need no comment,” he wrote to Nixon.
Terming the situation a critical hour for Pakistan, Gen Yahya requested the US president to do whatever he could to relieve the pressure from Pakistan's borders.
There is a need for urgent action to issue a “stern warning to Russia and India to stop aggression” against Pakistan. There is also an “urgent need for material assistance from the United States of America, directly or indirectly, as you may consider appropriate to meet the situation,” read the message.
In response, Nixon sent a message to Gen Yahya within a couple of hours, assuring him of all-out support “at this critical hour”.
He said that the US would continue its strong efforts to bring peace to the subcontinent, effect the withdrawal of Indian forces from Pakistan, restore the territorial integrity of Pakistan, and see to it that political, not military, solutions are found for regional problems.
The United States made a “series of strong démarches to India in New Delhi and Washington, including my recent meetings with Prime Minister Gandhi, which made clear that the American people and government would not understand a resort to war”.
Nixon added: “Since India began its incursions, we have taken the actions that we warned the Indian government would occur. Thus on December 1 and 3, we cut off all arms shipments to India.
“Since late November, we have used administrative techniques to delay economic assistance to New Delhi. On December 6, we suspended certain categories of economic assistance to India totaling $87.6 million. We are now reviewing all our remaining economic assistance programs for India.”
Since the outbreak of full hostilities, the White House and the State Department had issued a series of statements deploring Indian actions and fixing major responsibility on New Delhi for the present crisis, the message read.
On the day, Nixon said, Kissinger was holding a background session with the press to clarify US concerns and policies in South Asia and point out the dangerous implications of Indian and Soviet actions.
“We shall continue to underline to both New Delhi and Moscow that their current actions cannot but have a seriously harmful impact on our relations with them,” the US president told Gen Yahya.
