Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume E–7, Documents on South Asia, 1969–1972

278. Telegram 4076 From the Embassy in Iran to the Department of State¹ ²

Tehran, July 7, 1972, 2120Z

Subj:

• Secretary Connally Travel: Memorandum of Private Conversation with Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi at Governor’s Residence, Simla on July 5, 1972: Part II of VII: Indo-Pakistani Summit

1. I then said that we also felt that her own summit meeting with President Bhutto had, in our judgment, been a very constructive beginning step towards the resolution of problems in the sub-continent. I would be particularly interested in hearing her reaction to this meeting so that I might relate to the President how she analyzed the situation and what the prospects were for the future.

2. Mrs. Gandhi responded that the situation had not been a good one in the relations between Pakistan and India, since India’s independence and that the situation had been aggravated by personal attacks against her in Pakistan. She felt that India had gone further than it should based upon equity in the conversations with President Bhutto. She was being charged by some newspapers and political opponents in India of giving away too much, but if giving up land and other things to which India was entitled was the price of peace, perhaps it was worth the sacrifice. She added that she understood President Bhutto’s problems. He had a very difficult situation and she recognized the fact, which he had stressed to her, that he would have difficult problems in selling his people on any kind of solution where Pakistan was giving up anything.

3. I asked her if President Bhutto had discussed with her the recognition of Bangladesh. She indicated that he had. She told me in the “strictist confidence” that Bhutto is prepared to recognize Bangladesh and she thought he would do so in August or September if he felt that it was palatable to his people. He had told her that on his recent Middle East trip in every country he visited he was urged to face reality and rev lpize [garble--recognize] Bangladesh. He felt that he had no real choice.

4. I asked her if she discussed with him the matter of permitting the Bengalis to go home and I followed by saying that I would in all confidence tell her of my conversation with Prime Minister Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. I told her that Mujib had made it very clear that there could not be any negotiations on any issue until Pakistan recognized Bangladesh and, next, that the most important issue, in my judgment, concerning Bangladesh was the return of the Bengalis from Pakistan.

5. Mrs. Gandhi agreed that this was indeed the most sensitive issue troubling the Bengalis today and that the 40,000 odd still in Pakistan, which included soldiers, businessmen, scholars, and civil servants were possessed of talents sorely needed in Bangladesh after the Pakistanis had barbarously eliminated so many of the trained, skilled people of Bangladesh. She said that she had mentioned the matter of the return of the Bengalis to President Bhutto, but he did not respond and she dropped the matter. She did not pursue it because she did not feel that she should unduly influence him. She went on to say that she had anticipated the need for trying to resolve this issue so she had questioned the Bengalis as to whether or not they would agree to return any of the civilian prisoners which India is now holding. But the Bengalis were unrelenting in their attitude and would not agree at all until the Pakistanis agreed to permit the Bengalis to return to Bangladesh.

6. She went on to say that she did not try to pressure Mujib. She felt it would not be productive. The Bengalis were very grateful for all the assistance they had received from the various countries, but as a new nation she knew how sensitive they would be to outside pressures and influence and felt that India, in spite of all its assistance, was not in a position to influence Bangladesh.

7. At that point I merely restated that I well understood her feelings—that we were thought to influence those countries we assisted but more often than not, the more assistance we gave, the less influence we had.

8. I submitted that in my visit with Mujib I was struck by the intensiveness and emotion with which he recounted the war crimes. She responded that she agreed and that he was an emotional man particularly on this subject. (I didn’t say that he was an emotional man—merely that he was emotional about this issue.)

9. I asked her if she felt that Bangladesh was committed to the trial of the alleged war criminals. She responded that it appeared that their position had hardened on this subject materially in the last couple of months and that they were now to the point that they would insist that some trials would be held. She had nonetheless suggested that they at least release the civilian prisoners as a gesture toward Pakistan. I responded that I had the same impression from talking with Mujib who had talked in terms of trying from 300 to 1000 Pakistanis.

10. Comment: I want to re-emphasize that Mrs. Gandhi told me in the greatest of confidence that she had taken the initiative on these matters. She is quite concerned about the security of this information and she did not mention that fact to President Bhutto because it had been vetoed by Bangladesh. End comment.

11. I again complimented her on the results of the Simla meetings with President Bhutto and expressed the opinion that she had shown high degree of statesmanship and expressed the hope that their continuing meetings could contribute to the political, economical and military stabilization of South Asia.

12. I told her that we were willing to help in any way we reasonably could, but we were rather at a loss because every time we attempted to do anything it appeared that our actions were misunderstood. I reiterated that I had been struck with with complete dismay by all of the stories now circulating in the Indian papers about our motives. I said I knew should [she could] not control what appeared in Indian newspapers anymore than we could in ours, but that I was disturbed that our relief aid to Bangladesh was being interpreted as a move on our part to separate India and Bangladesh. I said tht nothing could be further from the truth. We had given aid to Bangladesh out of a feeling of concern and compassion, just as we gave aid to India to assist them with their problems.

13. I again emphasized that we had given aid to many countries for the relief of such problems as famine, earthquakes, man-made and God-made disasters, and I hoped that if I didn’t have to tell her that our relief assistance to Bangladesh had no such divisive motives. She related that Bangladesh is grateful for U.S. assistance and needs all the help it can get. She did not indicate that she either believed or disbelieved what I had just told her about our motives she merely commented that Bangladesh needed assistance and was quite grateful for it.

14. I continued by saying that we wanted nothing from Bangladesh, nor from India, nor from Pakistan except their friendship and good will. We neither sought nor wanted any particular sphere of influence in any one of the countries on sub-continent where we had given aid. We hoped that other major powers were willing to assist in helping to establish stability in the region without seeking special advange or influence. We frankly were not going to, at this point, initiate any actions of our own to resolve problems here. These problems had to be solved by the countries involved. India could contribute to the solutions as she had started to do.

15. I wanted her to know that far from being aggressive the US was refraining from new initiatives. Sheikh Mujibur for instance, would like us to take the initiative to let Bangladesh into the UN and the Foreign Minister, Samad, had also pursued it. I told her we had assisted Bangladesh in getting into many international organizations such as WHO, IMF, etc. I didn’t see any reason we could not actively support their entry into the UN but we made no commitment to sponsor and push the Bangladesh case. So far from volunteering on these issues, we have been reluctant to assume initiatives in part out of a feeling our actions would be misunderstood.

Connally

1. Source: National Archives, RG 59, Central Files 1970–73, POL 7 US/Connally. Secret; Immediate; Nodis. Also designated as CONTO 255. Sent with instructions to pass to Islamabad, New Delhi, Dacca, the White House for Davis, and Treasury for Dixon.
2. Former Treasury Secretary Connally and Indian Prime Minister Gandhi discussed the Simla agreement. Connally raised the issue of U.S. assistance to India and Bangladesh and expressed concern that U.S. motives were being misconstrued.