Nixon's dislike of 'witch' Indira

BBC NEWS | South Asia: "Ex-US President Richard Nixon called Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi an "old witch", according to recently released documents from the 1970s. His national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, said "the Indians are bastards anyway" in the run-up to the India-Pakistan war of 1971. At the time, the US saw India as too close to the then Soviet Union.

The US state department has declassified many documents this month on US foreign policy of the time. One key conversation transcript comes from the meeting between President Nixon and Mr Kissinger in the White House on 5 November, 1971, shortly after a meeting with the visiting Indira Gandhi.

The Indo-Pakistan war took place between November and December 1971. It had its roots in demands in 1970 by East Pakistan, later Bangladesh, for independence. In March 1971, Pakistan's military acted to put down the secessionists there. Millions fled to India's West Bengal state. India supported an independent Bangladesh and ties with the US plummeted in August 1971 when Delhi signed a treaty with the Soviet Union that included mutual military assistance in case of war.

President Nixon, on the other hand, had developed a "special relationship" with Pakistan's then military dictator, General Yahya Khan. In a White House conversation with Mr Kissinger on 4 June, 1971, President Nixon berates his ambassador to India, Kenneth Keating, for wanting to, as Mr Kissinger puts it, "help India push the Pakistanis out".

President Nixon says: "I don't want him to come in with that kind of jackass thing with me... Keating, like every ambassador who goes over there, goes over there and gets sucked in."

Mr Kissinger then says: "Those sons-of-bitches, who never have lifted a finger for us, why should we get involved in the morass of East Pakistan? "If East Pakistan becomes independent, it is going to become a cesspool. It's going be 100 million people, they have the lowest standard of living in Asia."

President Nixon replies: "Yeah."

Mr Kissinger: "They're going to become a ripe field for communist infiltration."

President Nixon then openly courted China to try to turn the tide of the war Pakistan's way. With the Indian army and armed Bengali separatists winning, the US on 10 December 1971 urged Beijing to mobilise troops towards India, saying the US would back it if the Soviet Union became involved. China declined and on 16 December the war ended with the Indian army and Bengali separatists taking Dhaka.

Exiled leaders had declared Bangladesh independent on 26 March 1971 and, in 1972, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman returned to become the country's first prime minister. "