WASHINGTON: Former US National Security Advisor and Secretary of State Henry Kissingerwho died on Thursday at 100, embodied the term realpolitik, an outlook based on practical rather than moral or ideological considerations.
Celebrated and reviled in equal measure, he was regarded as the architect — or Svengali — behind US foreign policy in the 1970s, and continued to exercise significant influence for decades beyond.In fact, even as he celebrated his centennial in May this year, he attended meetings in the White House, testified before a Senate committee, met Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visit to the US, and in July, made a surprise visit to Beijing to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Indeed, it was China that occupied much of his mind space in the 1970s when he oversaw Washington’s outreach to the communist regime with help from Pakistan, with disastrous consequence for US-India ties. Most famously, or notoriously, he was party to then President Richard Nixon‘s toxic unloading against New Delhi, as they teamed up to call Indians “repulsive” and “bastards” and India’s then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi a “bitch.”
In his 2013 book “The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger and a Forgotten Genocide,” which chronicles the disastrous US policy during the 1971 India-Pakistan war, Princeton University professor Gary Bass relates how the duo denigrated India.
In one Oval Office conversation between Nixon, Kissinger and White House chief of staff HR Haldeman Nixon says,
“Undoubtedly the most unattractive women in the world are the Indian women…The most sexless, nothing, these people. I mean, people say, what about the Black Africans? Well, you can see something, the vitality there, I mean they have a little animal-like charm, but God, those Indians, ack, pathetic. Uch.”
On another occasion on Nov. 4, 1971, during a private break from a contentious White House summit with Indira Gandhi, Nixon tells Kissinger. “To me, they turn me off. How the hell do they turn other people on, Henry? Tell me.” Kissinger’s response is inaudible as Nixon continues, “They turn me off. They are repulsive and it’s just easy to be tough with them.”
Bass says while Kissinger has portrayed himself as above the racism of the Nixon White House, the tapes he unearthed show him joining in the bigotry, though it cannot be determined whether he shared Nixon’s prejudices or was just pandering to him.
Kissinger later recanted and apologized for calling Indians and Indira Gandhi names. He went on to become a great votary of U.S-India ties in the aftermath of the 1998 nuclear tests. In a 2005 interview with this correspondent, he regretted his words and recalled going to Indira Gandhi’s memorial after her assassination to place a wreath.
”You have to see it in context. For us, it was the war in Vietnam and preserving the opening to China (through Pakistan, which facilitated his secret trips there) that were of concern. For New Delhi, it was to prevent the impact of East Bengal destabilizing India. Each side acted rationally but happened to have conflicting interests,” Kissinger explained in the interview published in this paper.
It’s the kind of moral ambivalence that riled the late Christopher Hitchens, the British commentator who authored a book called ”The Trial of Henry Kissinger” calling for trying Kissinger as a war criminal for his actions in Indo-China, Bangladesh, and Chile among other places.
But for Kissinger, the past was over and done. ”About the 1971 issues… in respect to the opening trajectory, it was probably not avoidable. But it could have been handled more tactfully later on. After 35 years it is very difficult to go back over all this,” he told ToI, saying he has not had a chance to review the declassified material.
In the interview, Kissinger explained that he had professed his admiration for Mrs Gandhi many times after the events of 1971.
Aside from the expletives though, did he find India a difficult country to deal with? In one transcript, he tells Indian officials ”The United States does not want a weak India, not that a strong India will be any joy to deal with.” At another place, asked by an Indian official if he thought there were differences between the two sides, Kissinger says, ”None, now that you have stopped giving us advice in public about how to handle Vietnam.”
Kissinger laughed at the recollection. ”You were not easy to deal with,” he admitted. ”Many Indian leaders gave the impression that you can deal with international affairs with assertions of moral principles.”
”But India had a strong sense of identity,” he concluded. ”It is an admirable quality.”
Celebrated and reviled in equal measure, he was regarded as the architect — or Svengali — behind US foreign policy in the 1970s, and continued to exercise significant influence for decades beyond.In fact, even as he celebrated his centennial in May this year, he attended meetings in the White House, testified before a Senate committee, met Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visit to the US, and in July, made a surprise visit to Beijing to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Indeed, it was China that occupied much of his mind space in the 1970s when he oversaw Washington’s outreach to the communist regime with help from Pakistan, with disastrous consequence for US-India ties. Most famously, or notoriously, he was party to then President Richard Nixon‘s toxic unloading against New Delhi, as they teamed up to call Indians “repulsive” and “bastards” and India’s then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi a “bitch.”
In his 2013 book “The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger and a Forgotten Genocide,” which chronicles the disastrous US policy during the 1971 India-Pakistan war, Princeton University professor Gary Bass relates how the duo denigrated India.
In one Oval Office conversation between Nixon, Kissinger and White House chief of staff HR Haldeman Nixon says,
“Undoubtedly the most unattractive women in the world are the Indian women…The most sexless, nothing, these people. I mean, people say, what about the Black Africans? Well, you can see something, the vitality there, I mean they have a little animal-like charm, but God, those Indians, ack, pathetic. Uch.”
On another occasion on Nov. 4, 1971, during a private break from a contentious White House summit with Indira Gandhi, Nixon tells Kissinger. “To me, they turn me off. How the hell do they turn other people on, Henry? Tell me.” Kissinger’s response is inaudible as Nixon continues, “They turn me off. They are repulsive and it’s just easy to be tough with them.”
Bass says while Kissinger has portrayed himself as above the racism of the Nixon White House, the tapes he unearthed show him joining in the bigotry, though it cannot be determined whether he shared Nixon’s prejudices or was just pandering to him.
Kissinger later recanted and apologized for calling Indians and Indira Gandhi names. He went on to become a great votary of U.S-India ties in the aftermath of the 1998 nuclear tests. In a 2005 interview with this correspondent, he regretted his words and recalled going to Indira Gandhi’s memorial after her assassination to place a wreath.
”You have to see it in context. For us, it was the war in Vietnam and preserving the opening to China (through Pakistan, which facilitated his secret trips there) that were of concern. For New Delhi, it was to prevent the impact of East Bengal destabilizing India. Each side acted rationally but happened to have conflicting interests,” Kissinger explained in the interview published in this paper.
It’s the kind of moral ambivalence that riled the late Christopher Hitchens, the British commentator who authored a book called ”The Trial of Henry Kissinger” calling for trying Kissinger as a war criminal for his actions in Indo-China, Bangladesh, and Chile among other places.
But for Kissinger, the past was over and done. ”About the 1971 issues… in respect to the opening trajectory, it was probably not avoidable. But it could have been handled more tactfully later on. After 35 years it is very difficult to go back over all this,” he told ToI, saying he has not had a chance to review the declassified material.
In the interview, Kissinger explained that he had professed his admiration for Mrs Gandhi many times after the events of 1971.
Aside from the expletives though, did he find India a difficult country to deal with? In one transcript, he tells Indian officials ”The United States does not want a weak India, not that a strong India will be any joy to deal with.” At another place, asked by an Indian official if he thought there were differences between the two sides, Kissinger says, ”None, now that you have stopped giving us advice in public about how to handle Vietnam.”
Kissinger laughed at the recollection. ”You were not easy to deal with,” he admitted. ”Many Indian leaders gave the impression that you can deal with international affairs with assertions of moral principles.”
”But India had a strong sense of identity,” he concluded. ”It is an admirable quality.”