When Pakistan's ruthless military dictator General Agha Muhammad Yahya Khan launched “Operation Searchlight” in the East to suppress the movement for the secession of Pakistan and eliminate the Bengalis, its key ally, the United States, decided to keep mum.
“The advantage of not involving ourselves at this stage is that we do not prematurely harm our relationship with West Pakistan. We can for a time yet claim with the Easterners that the situation is too unclear there to provide a basis for action,” President's Assistant for National Security Affairs Henry Kissinger said in a memorandum for Richard Nixon on March 26.
National Security Council Staff Samuel Hoskinson was worried over the reports of the massacre and stated that the latest developments would seem to raise new policy issues for the US.
In a memorandum to Kissinger on March 28, Hoskinson cited a telegram by Archer Blood, the Consul General in Dhaka, who the same day reported that the situation in East Pakistan had taken another turn for the worse.
“Having beaten down the initial surge of resistance, the army now appears to have embarked on a reign of terror aimed at eliminating the core of future resistance,” he said.
On March 29, in a telephone conversation with Kissinger, Nixon wanted to know whether there was anything of interest. Kissinger replied that there was nothing of any great consequence, but “apparently Yahya has got control of East Pakistan.”
Excerpts from the phone call
Nixon: Good. There're sometimes the use of power is …
Kissinger (completing Nixon's sentence): The use of power against seeming odds pays off. Cause all the experts were saying that 30,000 people (troops) can't get control of 75 million. Well, this may still turn out to be true but as of this moment it seems to be quiet.
Nixon: Look what the Spanish did when they came in and took the Incas and all the rest. Look what the British did when they took India…But anyway I wish him well.
Kissinger: People now say that the fellow Mujib in the East is really quite moderate and for a Bengali that's right. But that's an extremely unstable situation there and the radical groups are likely to gain increasing (sic) strength.
Nixon: This will be only one blip in the battle and then it will go on and on and on and it's like everything in the period we live in isn't it since World War II …The real question is whether anybody can run the Goddamn place.
Kissinger: Of course the Bengalis have been extremely difficult to govern throughout their history.
'Selective Genocide'
In his telegram sent to the State Department on March 28, Blood said they were mute and horrified witnesses to a reign of terror by the Pakistan military and recommended that the US express shock to the Pakistani authorities.
Titled “Selective Genocide,” Blood's telegram stated that the Pakistani authorities had a list of Awami League supporters whom they were systematically eliminated by seeking them out in their homes and shooting them down.
He said student leaders and Dhaka University faculty were among those marked for extinction and named several teachers. “Also on list are bulk of MNAs elect and number of MPAs.”
Blood stated that with the support of the Pak military, non-Bengali Muslims were systematically attacking poor people's quarters and murdering Bengalis and Hindus.
The streets of Dhaka were aflood with Hindus and others seeking to get out of the city. “Many Bengalis have sought refuge in homes of Americans, most of whom are extending shelter.”
He added that a curfew was imposed “to facilitate Pak military search and destroy operations” and that there was no resistance to the military.
Blood suggested that the US government express shock “at least privately” to the West Pakistanis “at this wave of terror directed against their own countrymen by Pak military.”
On March 29, he reported that the army was setting houses on fire and shooting people as they emerged from the burning houses. On March 30, he sent another telegram, saying the army had killed a large number of unarmed students at Dhaka University.
The US Embassy in Islamabad concurred in expressing its sense of horror and indignation at the "brutal, ruthless and excessive use of force by the Pak military,” but said that no matter how deplorable the events in East Pakistan had been, they shouldn't have been raised to the level of a contentious international political issue.
When President Nixon discussed the reports of atrocities in East Pakistan briefly with Kissinger in a telephone conversation on March 28, he agreed with the position taken by the Embassy in Islamabad: "I wouldn't put out a statement praising it, but we're not going to condemn it either."
