1972-01-01
By Benjamin Welles
Page: 2
WASHINGTON, Dec. 31—The syndicated columnist Jack Anderson reported today that Henry A. Kissinger, Presidential, assistant for national security affairs, told senior Administration officials during the India Pakistani crisis that. President Nixon “does not want to be even‐handed.”
“We are not trying to be even‐handed,” Mr. Kissinger was reported as saying. “The President believes that India is the attacker.”
Mr. Kissinger was also re ported by the columnist to have told top Administration aides that “we cannot afford to ease India's state of mind.”
Warned that United States criticism might turn India toward the U.S.S.R., Mr. Kissinger is said to have replied that. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was “cold‐blooded and tough” and that her country “will not turn into a Soviet satellite merely because of pique.”
“We should not ease her mind,” he is reported to have said, adding that any aide who, objected to this approach could “take his case to the President.”
The views attributed to Mr. Kissinger were published in Mr. Anderson's column, which is syndicated to 700 newspapers, about 100 of them foreign. Mr. Anderson, a colleague, of Drew Pearson, took over the column on Mr. Pearson's death in September, 1969.
Throughout the India Pakistan war, Mr. Anderson has repeatedly asserted that his disclosure of top‐secret Government documents involved no threat to national security, but rather exposed the “activities and often the blunders of our leaders.”
The Kissinger comments reported today came from notes of “secret sensitive” strategy sessions at the White House on Dec. 6 and 8, according to Mr. Anderson. The India‐Pakistan war broke out Dec.3 and ended Dec. 17.
Mr. Anderson's report of Mr. Kissinger's views of the Pakistan‐India conflict was carried in his columns published in newspapers today. In tomorrow's column, continuing his reporting from secret meetings, he says that Mr. Kissinger exclaimed in one session over what he appeared to consider the futility of the United Nations in the situation on the subcontinent.
According to Mr. Anderson, Mr. Kissinger said, “If the United Nations can't operate in this kind of situation effectively, its utility has come to an end, and it is useless to think of United Nations guarantees in the Middle East.
Mr. Anderson charged that the American people “again were. misled by their leaders.”
Specifically, Mr. Anderson contended that the White House explanation of theC reasons for sending the nuclear, powered aircraft carrier Enterprise, plus escorting warships, from Vietnam to. the Bay of Bengal during the India‐Pakistani war was deceptive.