1971 tapes: US refused to condemn Pakistan despite ‘genocide’ warnings

Declassified transcripts reveal Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger refused to condemn Pakistan’s 1971 crackdown in East Pakistan despite genocide warnings from Archer Blood, exposing US reluctance to criticise an ally during the crisis

Washington: Secret transcripts of a 1971 conversation between President Richard Nixon and his National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger show the United States refusing to condemn Pakistan’s military crackdown in East Pakistan, despite warnings from its own diplomat of possible “genocide.”

The exchange, recorded on March 28, 1971, captures Kissinger informing Nixon about a dissent cable from US Consul Archer Blood in Dacca, who had reported large-scale killings of civilians.

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“We’ve had a bleeding [bleating] cable from our Consul in Dacca who wants us to put out a statement condemning what the West Pakistanis are doing. But of course we won’t consider it,” Kissinger said, according to the transcript.

Nixon responded bluntly: “Oh for Christ’s sake.” Kissinger then dismissed the diplomat, saying, “Well, he’s just one of these pansies.” When Nixon asked, “And he says ‘condemning them?’” Kissinger replied: “Yeah, for genocide.”

Nixon then ordered action against the consul. “Well, now remove him. I want him out of the job,” he said. The conversation further shows a clear decision not to publicly criticise Pakistan’s actions.

“I wouldn’t put out a statement praising it, but we’re not going to condemn it either,” Nixon said later in the call. Kissinger warned that taking a public stand could trigger backlash. “If we do that we’re going to have anti-American riots in West Pakistan,” he said.

The transcripts are part of The Kissinger Tapes, a newly published book by historian Tom Wells, released in March, based on hundreds of secretly recorded telephone conversations from Kissinger’s tenure during the Nixon administration between 1969 and 1974.

The book draws on thousands of pages of “telcons” that were recovered and declassified after a prolonged legal effort led by the National Security Archive. More than 15,000 pages of transcripts were eventually released in 2004.

Wells writes that the material offers “a panoramic view of his tenure in power” and sheds light on key decisions and controversies of the era, including US responses to human rights abuses committed by allied regimes.

The 1971 dissent by Archer Blood, later known as the “Blood telegram,” remains one of the most significant protests by US diplomats against official policy. Blood had urged Washington to take a moral stand against the killings in East Pakistan. The events in East Pakistan in 1971 led to a humanitarian crisis and eventually to the creation of Bangladesh after India intervened militarily later that year.

Estimates suggest that hundreds of thousands, and possibly millions, of civilians were killed during the conflict.