In short, our policy has been consistent. We have told the Indian Government all summer long that we want or favored political evolution leading toward autonomy; and secondly, that we were opposed to the use of military force, and we did this quite independent of what the Chinese views might be. We had no advance information of what position the Chinese would take at the United Nations, and we operated quite independently.
Secondly, speaking first about myself, the first time I visited the Indian subcontinent I was the subject, in 1962, as can easily be checked in newspaper files, to the most violent newspaper criticisms in Pakistan' for my allegedly Harvard produced preference for Indians, and so much so that I even suggested that I might cance] my visit to Pakistan.
There is no personal preference on my part for Pakistan, and the views that I expressed at the beginning, of the American position-that is, about the crucial importance of India as a country in the world and in the subcontinent-have always been strongly held by me, and I, therefore, enthusiastically support those as an expression of bipartisan American policy in the postwar period.
As for the President, I was not aware of his preference for Pakistan leaders over Indian leaders, and I, therefore, asked him this morning what this might be based on. He pointed out-as you know, I was not acquainted with the President before his present position-but he pointed out to me that on his trip in 1967, he was received very warmly by the Prime Minister and by the President of India; that the reports that he was snubbed at any point are without any foundation, and that in any event, the warmth of the reception that we extended to the Indian Prime Minister two weeks before the attacks on Pakistan started should make clear what enormous value we attach to Indian friendship.
While I can understand that there can be sincere differences of opinion about the wise course to take. I do not think we do ourselves any justice if we ascribe policies to the personal pique of individuals. Besides, the charge of aggression was not made in this building in the first place.
Q. Was there a failure of understanding between the President and the Prime Minister when she was here last month; a failure of understanding of what this country wanted and what she was planning to do?
Dr. KISSINGER. We explained to the Indian leaders, the President did and so did the Secretary of State, exactly what our position was. We pointed out the offers that had been made. We were not given any reply to the offers, and we were not given the slightest inkling that such a military operation was in any way imminent; indeed, in the interval between her departure and the beginning of military operations, we did three things:
One, we attempted to promote these negotiations between the government in Islamabad and Bangladesh representatives approved by Mujibur. We did not get the agreement of the government in Islamabad, at the time the war had broken out, to that procedure. I am just saying what we were trying to do.
Secondly, we urged very strenuously on the Pakistan Foreign Secretary when he was here that the greatest possible number of concessions that could be make were urgently
