With Indian forces moving forward, crushing Pakistani military in the East and West by mid-December 1971, US President Richard Nixon wanted to augment public relations campaign to brand India as an aggressor.
Nixon's Assistant for National Security Affairs Henry Kissinger discussed the developments in South Asia in the Oval Office of the White House on the morning of December 12.
The conversation, which lasted nearly an hour, dealt at some length with Nixon's conviction to show the Chinese, the Soviets, and the Indians that the “man in the White House” was tough.
Nixon and Kissinger spent some time discussing the hotline message to be sent later that morning to the Soviets. Nixon said: "Basically, all we're doing is asking for a reply. We're not letting the Russians diddle us along.”
Kissinger replied: "It's a typical Nixon plan. I mean it's bold. You're putting your chips into the pot again. But my view is that if we do nothing, there is a certainty of disaster. This way there is a high possibility of one, but at least we're coming off like men. And that helps us with the Chinese."
Nixon said: "That's right. And if it goes down the tube now we'll have done the best we can." Kissinger concurred: "If it goes down the tube [it will be] because we can't get anyone to support us. By tomorrow our fleet will be in the Indian Ocean."
After a discussion of Southeast Asia, Nixon returned to South Asia and expressed the conviction that the Chinese, the Soviets, and the Indians needed to be shown that the "man in the White House" was tough. He added that he had asked China to move its army to the Indian border to “scare these bastards”.
The conversation focused heavily on China and what the Chinese Government could be expected to do as the crisis unfolded.
Kissinger said: "I called Bhutto yesterday evening after we talked just for the record, and I said I don't want to hear one more word from the Chinese. We are the ones who have been operating against our public opinion, against our bureaucracy, at the very edge of legality… And if they want to talk, they should move some troops. And until they have done so we don't want to hear one more word."
Kissinger said: "I think the Soviets will back off if we face them."
Nixon replied: "Well that's the point. The reason that I suggested that the Chinese move is that they talked about the Soviet divisions on their border and all that sort of thing. You know that the Soviets at this point aren't about to go ripping into that damn mess, having in mind the fact that they're gaining from the Indian thing."
Kissinger said: "Well we've got to trigger this quickly, so that we are positioned, and not at the tail of the Chinese. Otherwise, we have no moral authority whatsoever for supporting the Chinese."
He added: “If Pakistan is swallowed by India, China is destroyed, defeated, humiliated by the Soviet Union, it will be a change in the world balance of power of such magnitude that the security of the United States for, maybe forever, certainly for decades-we will have a ghastly war in the Middle East."
Nixon interjected: "Now we really get into the numbers game. You've got the Soviet Union with 800 million Chinese, 600 million Indians, the balance of Southeast Asia terrorized, the Japanese immobile, the Europeans of course will suck after them, and the United States the only one, we have maybe parts of Latin America and who knows."
Kissinger said: "You'll be alone."
Nixon responded: "We've been alone before."
Nixon continued: "The point is, the fact of the matter is when I put it in more Armageddon terms than reserves, when I say the Chinese move and the Soviets threaten and we start lobbing nuclear weapons, that isn't what happens. That isn't what happens. What happens is that we then do have a hot line to the Soviets, and we finally just say now what goes on here?"
Kissinger said: "We don't have to lob nuclear weapons. We have to go on alert." Nixon agreed.
Kissinger continued: "We have to put forces in. We may have to give them bombing assistance."
Nixon added: "One thing we can do which you forgot. We clean up Vietnam at about that point."
Kissinger concurred: "We clean up Vietnam. I mean at that point we give an ultimatum to Hanoi, blockade Haiphong… Now that will hurt China too but we can't worry about that at that point."
Nixon said: "Suppose the Chinese move and the Soviets threaten, then what do we do?"
Kissinger's aide Haig counseled that the Soviets should be warned that "a war would be unacceptable”.
Kissinger concurred: "As soon as the Chinese move, we have to tell them that. We can't tell them before the Chinese move, because it would look like collusion."
