One of the highlights of the 1971 war was the US’s open and brazen support to Pakistan against India. Nixon and Kissinger did all they could to help their ally, but could not prevent the latter’s humiliation
The United Nations’ ceasefire of December 16, 1971, marked the end of the 14-day India-Pakistan war that led to the birth of Bangladesh, an epoch event which US President Richard Nixon claimed should never have happened. No discussion on what led to the 1971 war and the ceasefire will be complete without considering the various aspects of the US ‘tilt’, and then burying the ‘tilt’.
President Nixon admits in his memoirs that in the midst of the Watergate scandal, the most explosive event of 1971 occurred at the end of the year, and occurred half way around the world from America. This was the India-Pakistan war. Nixon takes credit for the ceasefire, and writes Indira Gandhi had designs on East Pakistan, as well as on West Pakistan — which he was hell- bent to stall. The arrival of Task Group 74 led by aircraft carrier USS Enterprise into the Bay of Bengal on December 11 and 12, 1971, Nixon claims, caused India to think twice because it was Nixon’s personal order.
In other words, the sending of US warship into the Bay may have been timely and useful, and papers released indicate that Nixon discussed the ‘threat use’ of nuclear weapons. Of his meeting with Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on November 4, 1971 in the Oval Office, he has written: “I later learned that even as we spoke Gandhi knew that her Generals and advisers were planning to intervene.” Which was true. A tentative D-Day of December 4 had been passed on to the Armed Forces to be prepared, and then leaked to Pakistan, which led to the pre-emptive attack on Indian airfields hastily ordered by President Yahya Khan on the evening of December 3.
It is now clear to observers that Indira Gandhi’s decision to call for a ceasefire in the west soon after the agreement by Pakistani General AAK Niazi on December 15 to surrender in the east was in no way dictated by TG 74’s arrival in the Bay or the US’s nuclear threat, if there was one. The leak by Pulitzer prize-winning columnist Jack Anderson of movements of the US task force from Malacca Straits into the Bay of Bengal in darkness, had warned Indian Navy which readied to deal with the US Navy ships in a cordial manner.
Indian Naval Commanders had requested for the rules of engagement (ROE battle rules) if an Indian Navy submarine came up with ships during the war. No specific guidelines were issued except the standard rules of positive enemy identification, which meant a submarine had to surface and visually identify the target, as enemy. This hampered the actions of the Indian Navy submarines in that war. Yet, in the ‘fog of war’ one could not put it past a naval submarine Captain to unleash a salvo of torpedoes, if the vulnerability and safety of his own submarine were threatened
Nixon’s secret order to send the US task force into the Bay of Bengal was a deliberate step, and he did it through Admiral Tom Morer, Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff, without specifying the aim, overriding Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, the then Chief of Naval Operations, who was against the move without clear cut rules of engagement. This, Zumwalt has elaborated in his book, On Watch, in a chapter entitled, ‘The Tilt’, and stated that he was not going to send his ships into ‘harm’s way’, a term coined after the Pearl Harbour debacle.
Henry Kissinger was National Security Adviser during this turbulent period and has devoted a chapter to the ‘Tilt’ in his White House Years, and given his version of the 1971 war. In the Washington Special Action Group meeting in the Situation Room of the White House on December 4 when the hostilities broke, he told the members, which included Under Secretary of State John N Irwin, Deputy Secretary of Defence Davis Packard and Director, Central Intelligence Agency Richard M Helms, “I am getting hell every half-hour from the President that we are not being tough on India. He has just called me again. He does not believe we are carrying out his wishes. He wants to tilt in favour of Pakistan.”
Jack Anderson, who often trained his guns on Mr Kissinger, leaked the entry of the US Task Force into the Bay. Admiral Zumwalt writes that whilst Anderson was on a visit to India, the US Navy Yeoman (Signals Department sailor) Charles Ratford stationed at the American Embassy in New Delhi was assigned Anderson’s liaison Officer. A friendship was struck between Anderson and Ratford, who had grown fond of India.
Ratford assiduously followed the events of 1971 war and to Anderson’s luck, Ratford was on the secretarial staff of the National Security Council in Washington, with access to the highest secrets and discussions.
(The writer is a retired Commodore of the Indian Navy and an expert in maritime strategies)