File photo of Richard Nixon
The tapes were recently declassified and released in May of this year after Princeton’s Gary J Bass filed a legal request for their declassification.
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New Delhi: A set of recently declassified White House tapes reveal the harsh hostility former US President Richard Nixon had towards India and Indians. Nixon referred to Indian women as the “sexiest” and “pathetic,” and called Indian women the “least attractive women in the world” during a meeting with senior officials in the Oval Office on June 17, 1971, say reports.
The tapes were recently declassified and released in batches until May of this year after Gary J Bass of Princeton University filed a legal request for their declassification. The tapes were reported by Bass in an op-ed in The New York Times published Friday.
Nixon’s antipathy towards Indians was also stoked by Henry Kissinger, the national security adviser during that time, who also determined US policy toward New Delhi in the early 1970s, Indian Express reported. Richard Nixon, a Republican, was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974.
Kissinger referred to the Indians as “magnificent sycophants” whose “great skill” was “to seduce people in key positions.” The conversation, which was part of a meeting held between 5:15 pm and 6:10 pm on June 17, 1971, was recorded by the Oval Office recording system and appears as Conversation 525-001 of the tapes of the White House.
Bass says the declassified White House tapes reveal a ‘surprising’ conversation between Nixon, Kissinger, and then-White House Chief of Staff HR Haldeman in the Oval Office in June 1971 in which Nixon states in a ‘ poisonous tone ‘that Indian women are’ undoubtedly the least attractive women in the world ‘. Nixon also calls Indians “sexiest”, “nothing” and “pathetic,” according to the tapes. “On November 4, 1971, during a private recess from a controversial White House summit with Prime Minister Indira Gandhi of India, a rare woman at the time, the president harangued Kissinger about his sexual dislike of Indians.” writes Bass.
The tapes reveal Nixon’s personal racism and prejudice towards Indians by reflecting his attitudes towards international events and actors. It also makes it clear how Nixon had hostility towards India, while having a soft corner for Pakistan which led him to look away from the atrocities of the Pakistani army against the Bengali people in eastern Pakistan (now Bangladesh).
During the meeting around the 50th minute of the 54 minute 42 second tape, Nixon goes on to say: “Without a doubt the least attractive women in the world are Indian women. Undoubtedly. “” The sexiest, nothing, these people. I mean, people say, what about black Africans? Well, you can see something, the vitality there, I mean they have a little animal charm, but God, Those Indians, ack, pathetic. Uch, “Nixon adds, followed by laughter from the audience, according to a report from the Indian Express.
“As Americans grapple with issues of racism and power, a recently declassified trove of White House tapes provides striking evidence of the bigotry expressed by President Richard M. Nixon and Henry Kissinger, his national security adviser,” Bass wrote in the op-ed titled ‘The Terrible Cost of Presidential Racism’.
Bass had filed a legal request for declassification review with the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in December 2012. The Nixon Library had released a few tapes without bleeding in May 2018 and July 2019, then 28 more in batches since October. from 2019 to May 2020.
Gary J Bass is professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University and authored a book in 2013, “The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide,” detailing the attitude and actions of the administration of Nixon. Nixon’s hostility toward India stems from the latter’s policy of nonalignment and “suspiciously good terms with the Soviet Union,” Bass said while speaking to Indian Express.
“Nixon’s anti-Indian leanings were reinforced when John F. Kennedy took a warmly pro-India line. On top of that, there was mutual contempt between Nixon and Indira Gandhi, “Bass wrote in his book. He also mentioned that finally the friendship existed between Nixon and the then President of Pakistan, General Agha Muhammad Yahya Khan, who acted like him. enter with China.
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