Transcript of Telephone Conversation Between President Nixon and His Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger)/1/

 

Washington, July 27, 1971, 7:20 p.m.

 

/1/ Source: Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Kissinger Papers, Box 368, Telephone Conversations, Chronological File. No classification marking. The call was placed by the President to Kissinger in the White House.

 

P: Working late?

 

K: Yes, I am going over some papers.

 

P: Anything new?

 

K: Nothing of any consequence.

 

P: A lot of stuff to catch up on I guess.

 

K: There's a certain routine.

 

P: Terrific, I know.

 

K: It keeps piling up. There's still a lot of congratulatory mail/2/ coming in.

 

/2/ The mail was in response to Kissinger's trip to China.

 

P: Good, good. You know the one thing we want to do is to be fair-we will probably be getting a question on the India/Pakistan thing. We really want to-we sure don't want to hurt our friends.

 

K: No, we certainly don't. Being fed by the-.

 

P: I know, the Indians. Awful but they are getting some assistance from Keating, of course.

 

K: A lot of assistance; he is practically their mouthpiece.

 

P: I talked to Bill [Rogers] in California while I was waiting for you. He is down on Keating; he is a total mouthpiece for the Indians.

 

K: He has gone native. As I told you, I saw the Indians and listened to their complaints and Keating kept interrupting and saying but you forgot to mention this or that.

 

P: I think we ought to get moving on him; he is 71 years old.

 

K: Yes, but he would do us a lot of damage now. We should wait until things quiet down.

 

P: Two or 3 months and then I think we ought to do it.

 

K: I will make it clear with the Indians that there isn't going to be a war.

 

P: They had had this plan-covers planned [sic] long before this.

 

K: They have certainly been more respectful since this trip. I have asked Sisco to prepare a scenario of how we could handle this situation. I will talk to Farland tomorrow; and within this next week we will have a proposal for you. The problem-no military aid to Pakistan, they are not even getting economic aid. If anything will tempt the Indians to attack, it will be the complete helplessness of Pakistan.

 

P: After all they have done, we just aren't going to let that happen.

 

K: Right, right.

 

[Omitted here is discussion unrelated to South Asia.]