Henry Kissinger leaves behind a troubling legacy for India
Henry Kissinger leaves behind a significant legacy in the United States, especially on how he crafted American foreign and security policy in the peak of the Cold War. From an Indian standpoint, however, his policy outlook was detrimental as it solemnised the China-Pakistan nexus which till date remains India's principal security threat.
Declassified papers convey a high degree of complicity between US and China under Kissinger's watch to aid Pakistan in the 1971 war.
Such were the trust levels that on December 10, 1971, as the Indo-Pak war was underway, Kissinger disclosed to Huang Hua, the then Chinese Permanent Representative in the United Nations, that US was short circuiting its own laws to ensure 22 fighters are supplied to Pakistan through Jordan, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
«We are barred by law from giving equipment to Pakistan in this situation...so we have worked out the following arrangements with a number of countries. We have told Jordan and Iran and Saudi Arabia, and we will tell Turkey...that if they decide that their national security requires shipment of American arms to Pakistan, we are obliged to protest but we will understand.
And we will make up to them in next year's budget whatever difficulties they have. On this basis, four planes are leaving Jordan today and 22 over the weekend.
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