“Undoubtedly the least attractive women in the world are the Indians”, they are “pathetic”, “they turn me off”, the Indian women are “repulsive”. These are just a few of the tropes rehearsed by him, according to archival material unearthed by Princeton academic Gary Bass.
Bass, whose 2013 book, “The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger and a Forgotten Genocide,” chronicled disastrous American politics during the 1971 India-Pakistan war and revealed that Nixon called the then Indian prime minister a “bitch” and he widely referred to the Indians as “bastards”, accessed new material after many “disputes” following a legal request for mandatory declassification review with the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum.
Princeton academic Gary Bass unearthed what he described as “impressive” material from the recently declassified tapes of a conversation between Nixon, his then-national security adviser Henry Kissinger, and White House Chief of Staff HR Haldeman at the Oval Office in June 1971.
In that conversation, Nixon says, “Without a doubt, the least attractive women in the world are Indian women,” repeating “undoubtedly” in a poisonous tone. She continues: “The most asexual, nothing, these people. I mean, people say, what about black Africans? Well, you can see something, the vibrancy there, I mean they have a little animal charm, but God, those Indians, ack, pathetic. Uch “.
On another occasion, on November 4, 1971, during a private hiatus from a controversial White House summit with Indira Gandhi of India, Nixon makes disparaging remarks about the sexuality of Indians to Kissinger. “For me, they disconnect me. How the hell do they turn other people on, Henry? Tell me. “Kissinger’s response is inaudible as Nixon continues:” They tune me out. They are repulsive and easy to be harsh on them. ”
A few days later, on November 12, 1971, in the middle of a discussion about the tensions between India and Pakistan with Kissinger and Secretary of State William Rogers, after Rogers mentioned Indira Gandhi’s reprimand, Nixon says: “I don’t know how they reproduce! “The full content of these tapes reveals how US policy toward South Asia under Nixon was influenced by its hatred and sexual revulsion toward Indians, Bass notes.
Bass says that although Kissinger has presented himself above the racism of the Nixon White House, the tapes show him joining the bigotry, though the tapes cannot determine whether he shared the president’s biases or simply indulged him. Blaming the Indians for causing the refugee influx, apparently by their covert patronage of the Bengali insurgency and condemning the Indians as a whole, his voice oozes contempt, “They are a scavenger people.”
Although Kissinger has retracted and apologized for insulting the Indians and Indira Gandhi, and became a great devotee of US-Indian ties after the 1998 nuclear tests, in a 2005 interview with this correspondent, He apologized for his words and remembered going to the Indira Gandhi monument after her murder to place a wreath of flowers; scars remain. “These emotional displays of prejudice help explain a foreign policy debacle. The Nixon and Kissinger policies toward South Asia in 1971 were not just a moral disaster but a strategic fiasco on their own terms from the Cold War, ”Bass notes.
While Nixon and Kissinger had some reasons to favor Pakistan, an American ally who was secretly helping to achieve its historic openness to China, their prejudices and emotions contributed to their excessive support for Pakistan’s murderous dictatorship through its atrocities, writes.
Bass also suggests that there may be more material of this type, as there are still beeps left on a couple of the reviewed tapes, some of which is attractive. “For decades, Nixon and Kissinger have presented themselves as brilliant practitioners of realpolitik, directing a foreign policy that dispassionately served the interests of the United States. But these declassified White House tapes confirm an entirely different picture: racism and misogyny at the highest levels, cloaked for decades under ridiculous national security claims. A fair historical evaluation of Nixon and Kissinger must include the whole truth, without bleeding, “he concludes.
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