{"id":60345,"date":"2023-12-05T03:28:59","date_gmt":"2023-12-04T18:28:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2023\/dec\/04\/henry-kissinger-role-in-bengali-massacre"},"modified":"2023-12-05T03:28:59","modified_gmt":"2023-12-04T18:28:59","slug":"henry-kissingers-role-in-bengali-massacre-letter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=60345","title":{"rendered":"Henry Kissinger\u2019s role in Bengali massacre | Letter"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In 1971 he advised Nixon to side with Pakistan\u2019s military dictator in his war with Bangladesh, then East Pakistan, writes <strong>Robert Evans<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Jonathan Steele\u2019s obituary of Henry&nbsp;Kissinger (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/global\/2023\/nov\/29\/henry-kissinger-obituary\">29 November<\/a>) omits&nbsp;reference to his part in what the author Gary J Bass calls \u201cone of the worst moments of moral blindness in US foreign policy\u201d, when in 1971 he advised President Richard Nixon to side with Pakistan\u2019s military dictator, Gen Yahya Khan, in his war with Bangladesh, then East Pakistan.<\/p>\n<p>In his Pulitzer prize-finalist book on this \u201cforgotten genocide\u201d, The Blood Telegram, Bass describes how Kissinger and Nixon repeatedly ignored the pleas from the US consul general in Dhaka, Archer Blood, who was desperately cabling his superiors with reports of the massacre of thousands of civilians in the city. Pakistan was using US-made tanks, weapons and ammunition to&nbsp;crush the Bengalis.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2023\/dec\/04\/henry-kissinger-role-in-bengali-massacre\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 1971 he advised Nixon to side with Pakistan\u2019s military dictator in his war with Bangladesh, then East Pakistan, writes Robert EvansJonathan Steele\u2019s obituary of Henry&nbsp;Kissinger (29 November) omits&nbsp;reference to his part in what the author G&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":327,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[60,2545,61,47,631],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pakistan","category-richard-nixon","category-south-and-central-asia","category-us-news","category-us-politics"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/327"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=60345"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60345\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60346,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60345\/revisions\/60346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=60345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=60345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=60345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}