Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume XI, South Asia Crisis, 1971
Document 283
283. Editorial Note
President
Nixon
met again with
Henry Kissinger
on December 12, 1971, in the Oval Office of the White House to discuss the message just received from the Soviet leadership (
Document 284
). The White House tapes document log prepared by the
Nixon
Presidential Materials Project indicates that the conversation began at 10:27 a.m. A note on the message indicates it was conveyed by
Vorontsov
to
Haig
at 10:45 a.m., but
Vorontsov
called
Kissinger
at 10:05 a.m. and read the text of the message. (Library of Congress, Manuscript Division,
Kissinger
Papers, Box 370, Telephone Conversations, Chronological File)
Kissinger
began the conversation by reporting: “I got the answer from the Russians. They are giving us a full reply later. The interim reply is that they have an assurance from Mrs.
Gandhi
that she will not attack West Pakistan. And that they will work out—they are working with her now

to work out a cease-fire.”
Nixon
commented: “We must not be in a position where the Russians and we settle the son-of-a-bitch and leave the Chinese out.”
Turning to the decision made earlier in the morning to confront the Soviet Union with military force if necessary in support of China,
Kissinger
said: “What you did this morning Mr. President was a heroic act.”
Nixon
responded: “I had to do it.” He ruminated that the prevailing instinct in the government was to avoid difficult choices: “Itʼs the whole attitude, the whole government, the whole American establishment would say, well donʼt borrow trouble. Itʼs all going to work out. Nothing ever works out unless you do something about it. Thatʼs the trouble with the world.” He harkened back to the appeasement of Hitler before World War II and ascribed the war to the “pusillanimous” conduct of the Western allies when confronted with Hitlerʼs challenge.
Kissinger
pointed to the contrastingly strong stand
Nixon
had taken in the present crisis: “When I showed
Vorontsov
the
Kennedy
treaty they knew they were looking down the gun barrel.”
Nixon
asked: “Did he react?”
Kissinger
replied: “Oh yeah.”
Kissinger
suggested that it was time “to turn the screw another half turn.” In his view, if the United States was to ease up on the pressure on India and the Soviet Union “weʼve had it.” “Therefore,” he added, “my strong recommendation is that we trigger this
UN
thing as quickly as we possibly can because it is the only way we can go on record now of condemning India.”
Nixon
concurred: “Thatʼs right.”
Kissinger
felt that it was “essential” that the condemnation be leveled initially in a White House statement.
Kissinger
put forward a draft of such a statement and
Nixon
approved it.
Kissinger
was confident that events were moving in the right direction: “Weʼve got them. But the big problem now is, Mr. President, not to give the—is to—if we play this thing well weʼll come out ahead with both the Chinese and the Russians.” He went on: “We are doing this Mr. President with no cards whatsoever.”
Nixon
felt he had one card: “The Russians want something from us.”
The optimism engendered by the Soviet response was tempered, near the end of the conversation, by the fact that the crisis still could take a dangerous turn.
Kissinger
said: “The Chinese may come anyway and weʼll have to face the Russians down anyway.”
Nixon
responded: “Yeah, but if the Russians and the Chinese come now they will come” [largely unclear, apparently
Nixon
did not feel that a military confrontation with the Soviet Union was as likely as it seemed earlier]. “The Russians want to settle it with us. If this means anything [the Soviet response] this means something. Now there is one great problem. As I said, I may be wrong, but Communists generally use negotiations for the purpose of screwing, not for the purpose of settling.”

Kissinger
felt that the Soviets were “too scared” to play a devious game with the negotiations. He referred again to the
Kennedy
commitment to Pakistan as convincing
Vorontsov
that the United States “meant business.”
Kissinger
felt that the Soviet Union was not ready for a military confrontation with the United States. “In 73–74 they may have you. Theyʼre not ready yet.” He added: “We must tell the Chinese what the message is. We must inform them.”
Nixon
asked: “The Russian message?”
Kissinger
responded: “Yeah.”
Nixon
said: “That the Russians are—that as a result of the Presidentʼs ultimatum, Iʼd put it that way, the Russians have now”
Kissinger
interjected: “I showed them the message, to tell you the truth.” It remained,
Kissinger
felt, “to see what they [the Chinese] want.” (National Archives,
Nixon
Presidential Materials, White House Tapes, Recording of conversation between
Nixon
and
Kissinger
, December 12, 1971, 10:27–10:37 a.m., Oval Office, Conversation No. 637–6)
At 11:06 a.m.,
Nixon
and
Kissinger
began the process of drafting a response to the message just received from the Soviet Union. They continued to work in the Oval Office on what was sent subsequently as a hot line response.
Kissinger
concluded from the Soviet message that “there wonʼt be military action.” He was referring to further Indian military action against West Pakistan. He went on: “Itʼs just a question of how to wrap it up now.”
Kissinger
then read a draft hot line message to
Brezhnev
. He and
Nixon
discussed and revised it according to
Nixon
ʼs instructions.
Nixon
stressed that the message should emphasize that “time is of the essence to avoid frightening consequences neither of us want.”
Nixon
reverted to the public statement the White House would issue condemning India and observed that in issuing the statement the United States would be “putting it to the Indians.” “The argument against putting it to the Indians,” he said, “is, as you know, that well if we put it to the Indians then they will stiffen their backs and say screw you.”
Kissinger
interjected: “They wonʼt.”
Nixon
continued: “But my view is that … they seem to be affected by world opinion. To the extent that they are goddamn it weʼre going to get it across that world opinion is against them.” (Ibid., Recording of conversation between
Nixon
and
Kissinger
, December 12, 1971, 11:06–11:14 a.m., Oval Office, Conversation No. 637–11) The editors transcribed the portions of the tape recordings printed here specifically for this volume. Transcripts of both conversations are published in
Foreign Relations
, 1969–1976, volume E–7, Documents on South Asia, 1969–1972, Documents 178
and
179
.
Contents
Preface
Sources
Abbreviations