Over the weekend Bangladesh celebrated its 40th year of independence from Pakistan. The Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971 is an example of the often contradictory machinations that characterized the Cold War. The country formerly known as East Pakistan, less than the size of Iowa but with a population greater than, was the epicenter of a global crisis that few recall today.
The much redacted record in the State Departmentâ??s Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969-1976, Volume XI, South Asia Crisis, 1971, tells a fascinating tale of intrigue and the near start of a nuclear armed conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union. The United States and the world began to know of the conflict in East Pakistan through a set of public and private documents such as the Blood Telegram which described the atrocities that were being committed in Dhaka. The news article Genocide written by Pakistani reporter Anthony Mascarenhas in the Sunday Times alerted world leaders of the events and may well have inspired Indira Gandhi to begin â??a campaign of personal diplomacy in the European capitals and Moscow to prepare the ground for Indiaâ??s armed intervention."
Henry Kissinger, then National Security Adviser to President Nixon, however, saw India as a Soviet client state and its involvement as a potential threat to West Pakistani sovereignty and a blow to US interests. Pakistan was of key importance to the United States because then-President Yahya acted as a channel between the Peopleâ??s Republic of China and the United States. Kissinger saw the Chinese as a vital potential ally for the United States and as â??a decisive restraining influence on Indiaâ? and ultimately the Soviet Union.
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