Nixon Presidential Materials

New Delhi, July 6, 1971.

SUBJECT: Description of Kissinger–Haksar Talk

Dr. Kissinger met alone with Prime Minister Gandhi’s personal secretary, P.N. Haksar, at 6:00 p.m. July 6 in New Delhi. The following represents Dr. Kissinger’s brief description of the conversation after he returned to the Ashoka Hotel.
Dr. Kissinger said he had calmed Haksar down. Haksar had started critical comments of the US policy on arms assistance to Pakistan. Dr. Kissinger said he had told Haksar that if India were going into a paroxysm over this there was no way in which the US could respond. If the Indians could quiet down, the US would try to work quietly over the next few months to encourage a settlement of the refugee problem. Dr. Kissinger said that Haksar conceded that the US could not respond to a public furor. Haksar said that the government of India had a problem: It did not want to go to war but it did not know how not to go to war.
Later, Dr. Kissinger recalled that he had told Haksar that he thought the Indians were just making a lot of noise in order to set up an invasion of East Pakistan. He said that he had suggested that he and Haksar talk about “ways not to have a war.”
After further conversation with Haksar and Foreign Secretary Kaul, at dinner, Dr. Kissinger said his assumption is that they are playing power politics with cold calculations. This is quite different from the embassy’s assumption that this is a genuine Indian feeling against our arms aid to Pakistan. He said that he had told Haksar that “we are men of the world.” Haksar knows that aid does not make the difference. Even if the US shipped all $29 million worth of military equipment, it would not make any difference in the situation. So let’s stop yelling about something that does not make a difference and talk might.