CIA Records Take Lid Off High Treason By Indira Cabinet Minister

[Neo]

CIA Records Take Lid Off High Treason By Indira Cabinet Minister

In 1971 India missed out a chance to annihilate Pakistan "so that it never attempts to challenge India in the future". Why? Because a CIA agent operating out of the Indira Gandhi's cabinet leaked out India's war objectives in the Bangladesh war. We know this thanks to the documents declassified by the United States Government. But what we do not know as yet is how much does our government know about the operative, whose existence must have been known to the intelligence agencies. Could RTI act be of any help here? I wonder even as I give my best shot. The 1971 CIA spy case is the first of such issue I'd try to probe using the RTI act.

A minister of Indira Gandhi's cabinet betrayed India's "war objectives" to the Central Intelligence Agency in December 1971, causing an abrupt end to the Bangladesh war under vicious US armtwisting.

This is the highlight of the book CIA's Eye on South Asia by journalist Anuj Dhar. Published by Delhi-based Manas Publications, which is facing government's ire for coming out with a book on the R&AW, the book compiles declassified CIA records on India and her neighbours. It specifically spotlights what arguably has been India's biggest spy scandal.

In the run up to the 1971 India Pakistan war over what was then East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), The New York Times first hinted at the presence of a CIA operative in the Indian government. By December The Washington Post had reported that US President Richard Nixon's South Asia policy was being guided by "reports from a source close to Mrs. Gandhi."

Records and telecons declassified recently - but not properly explained up till now - show that a dramatic turnaround came on December 6 when a CIA operative, whom Dhar pins down as a minister of the Indira Cabinet, leaked out India's "war objectives" to the agency. Prime Minister Gandhi told Union Cabinet that apart from liberating Bangladesh, India intended to take over a strategically important part of the Pakistan Occupied Kashmir and go for the total annihilation of Pakistan's armed forces so that Pakistan "never attempts to challenge India in the future."

When he came to know of the CIA report, a furious Nixon blurted out that "this woman [Indira Gandhi] suckered us," thinking that Mrs. Gandhi had promised him that India won't attack East Pakistan - not to speak of targeting West Pakistan and PoK. "But let me tell you, she's going to pay," he told his National Security Advisor Dr Henry Kissinger even as he tried to leak out the CIA report to give her bad press.

The CIA went on assess that fulfillment of India's "war objectives" might lead to "the emergence of centrifugal forces which could shatter West Pakistan into as many as three or four separate countries."

As a direct result of the operative's information, the Nixon administration went on an overdrive to save West Pakistan from a massive Indian assault. Because the President felt that "international morality will be finished - the United Nations will be finished - if you adopt the principle that because a country is democratic and big it can do what the hell it pleases."

Nixon personally threatened the USSR with a "major confrontation" between the superpowers should the Soviets failed to stop the Indians from going into West Pakistan. Kissinger secretly met Chinese Permanent Representative at the UN to apprise him of the CIA operative's report and rub in that what India was planning to do with Pakistan with the Soviet backing could turn out to be a "dress rehearsal" of what they might do to China.

Dhar quotes in the book the official records showing that USSR's First Deputy Foreign Minister Vasily Kuznetsov visited Delhi after Nixon's threat and told the "Indians to confine their objectives to East Pakistan" and "not to try and take any part of West Pakistan, including Azad Kashmir" as "Moscow was concerned about the possibility of a great power confrontation over the subcontinent." Kuznetsov also extracted a guarantee from Prime Minister Gandhi that India will not attack West Pakistan. This decision was promptly conveyed to Nixon. On 16 December 1971 when Nixon was told that India had declared a ceasefire, he exulted: "We have made it… it's the Russians working for us." Kissinger congratulated him for saving West Pakistan - India's main target, as per the operative's report to the CIA.

Dhar repudiates recent assertion by a former Indian Navy chief that showing up of America's biggest nuclear powered carrier into the Bay of Bengal during the war had something to do with the accidental destruction of a US plane in Dhaka during an Indian strafing. "Declassified records make it unambiguously clear that the month-long show of strength by the USS Enterprise and accompanying flotilla was a byproduct of the CIA operative's reports," he writes, reproducing chunks from official records detailing how Nixon ordered a naval task force towards the subcontinent to "scare off" India from attacking West Pakistan.

In subsequent years, former Prime Minister Morarji Desai, and two deputy PMs - Jagjivan Ram and Y B Chavan - were alleged to be the CIA operative active during the 1971 war. However, all such charges lacked any substantiation because there was no confirmation whether or not such an operative ever existed. As such no constructive discussion on the issue ever took off. This has changed now given the unassailable evidence in the form of US records making it clear that the CIA had a "reliable" agent operating out of the Indian cabinet in 1971.

In declassified records the name of the operative has been censored because the CIA Director has "statutory obligations to protect from disclosure [the Agency's] intelligence sources." Dhar writes: "Naming the Indian operative even after so many years will adversely impact the Indo-US relations, and hit the Agency's prospects of recruiting new informants."

However, he suggests that Indian government may have known the identity of the operative. "R&AW under the most capable R. N. Kao could not have missed the reference to the 'source close to Mrs. Gandhi' and must have dug deeper," he writes, adding that in 1972 Mrs. Gandhi herself charged that "she had information that the CIA had become active in India".

More pertinently, Dhar quotes from the declassified record of a 5 October 1972 meeting between Indian Foreign Minister Swaran Singh and US Secretary of State William Rogers. During the meeting, Singh asserted that "CIA has been in contact with people in India in 'abnormal ways.'" and that India had information that "proceedings of Congress Working Committee were known to US officials within two hours of meetings".

End the secrecy: CIA Records Take Lid Off High Treason By Indira Cabinet Minister

[vinod2070]

So Pakistan should be grateful to the USA to save it in 1971.

Anyway, the wretched traitor is the cause of so much misery and terror in the region. All of it could have been avoided if the objectives were not leaked.

That is if the report is true in the first place.

[Neo]

I wish US would not have interfered and India had attacked us, I'm convinced Kashmir would have been liberated from occupation and would have acceeded to Pakistan. Unlike East Pakistan we did have logistic and demografic advantage.

So lucky for you that your master, the Sovjets told you to back off!
You get to keep IOC and avoided international condemnation of becomming an agressor. If IOC was liberated in 1971, it would have resulted in desintegration of India.

[vinod2070]

Originally Posted by Neo

I wish US would not have interfered and India had attacked us, I'm convinced Kashmir would have been liberated from occupation and would have acceeded to Pakistan. Unlike East Pakistan we did have logistic and demografic advantage.

If you could have liberated Kashmir, why wait for India to attack you?

I am not sure about Kashmir, but I am sure that NWFP and FATA would have acceeded back to their Afghan brothers by now. ;)

So lucky for you that your master, the Sovjets told you to back off!

You get to keep IOC and avoided international condemnation of becomming an agressor. If IOC was liberated in 1971, it would have resulted in desintegration of India.

Well, we had 90000 POWs in the East working on the Delhi-Meerut road. Even though their workmanship was pretty poor (I have driven on that road, I know!), we would have got three times that number on the West.

Your US master really saved you. That is what this article you posted also says.

Anyway, I hope Pakistan stops its terror on the Afghans and India and comes to terms with the reality. It is the Pusthuns who are paying the most price for the policy of terror with millions of them in IDP camps and the rest at the mercy of AQ/Taliban.

[Neo]

Originally Posted by vinod2070

If you could have liberated Kashmir, why wait for India to attack you?

I never understood that either. We had a good chance in 1965 and even a better one in 1971 as we were favored above Indians by far majority of Kashmiris. A Kargill kind of attack would have split IOC into half cutting off supplt route as far as Leh.

I am not sure about Kashmir, but I am sure that NWFP and FATA would have acceeded back to their Afghan brothers by now. ;)

Why would you say that?? FATA and NWFP supported US-Pak attempts to fight the Sovjets in Afghanistan and never tried to manipulate the situation to open a compaign against Islamabad. Many believe that we pathans see ourselves as afghans. Thats wrong! As a pathan I speak with authority when I say that Pakistani Pathans believe that they are idiologically lot different from their brothers accross the border. We see them as friends, not family!

[vinod2070]

Originally Posted by Neo

I never understood that either. We had a good chance in 1965 and even a better one in 1971 as we were favored above Indians by far majority of Kashmiris. A Kargill kind of attack would have split IOC into half cutting off supplt route as far as Leh.

In 1965, your operation Gibralter and Grandslam had failed and India went on to win the Haji Pir pass.

Pakistan went completely out of steam in a week with 85% of ammunition expended. In contrast India expended only 20% of it's ammunition.

PA realized in 1965 that it had no capacity to win Kashmir by force. That the formula of 1 convert = 10 non converts was bogus.

After that the balance has tilted more and more with every passing day. The "Kashmir issue" is kept alive only for domestic reasons now, to maintain the hegemony of PA within Pakistan. The only battles PA has won has been against Pakistani civilians.

Why would you say that?? FATA and NWFP supported US-Pak attempts to fight the Sovjets in Afghanistan and never tried to manipulate the situation to open a compaign against Islamabad. Many believe that we pathans see ourselves as afghans. Thats wrong! As a pathan I speak with authority when I say that Pakistani Pathans believe that they are idiologically lot different from their brothers accross the border. We see them as friends, not family!

Pakistan got pilitically weak afyer 9/11, but FATA and NWFP are still with us and sufferd mist due attacks in recent years. But they stayed with didn't they?

Well, the reality is that the Pathans on both sides of Durand are the same. The border is just in name.

I am sure we will help the Pakistani Pathans unite with their fellow Afghans and away from the Indian subcontinent.

The people of the subcontinent are very different from the Central Asian Afghans. They would better live separately, Afghans need to live with their Tajik/Kazhak/Uzbek/Kyrgyz cousins and the people East of Sindhu need to find their own destiny.

[Qasim57]

In 1965 India was the one to run to the international community to arrange a cease-fire, not Pakistan. The military offensives at Lahore and Sialkot were launched in the dead of the night - our history with the Indians repeatedly shows that they prefer treachery as opposed to a straight fight, despite their being five times bigger than us - the Indos bragged that their operations would be so successful that by 11AM they would have captured Lahore. After nearly three weeks, their all their claims of being such a fighting force were proven to be a laughable exaggeration.

The PAF had achieved air-superiority over a much larger airforce, operating with impunity on the Indian side of the border, even to the extent of shooting down many IAF combat aircraft around their home bases, which is an embarrassing prospect for any pilot. The Indians stung by the public failure of their airforce and heavy losses again went into propaganda mode, to the extent of claiming that they too had shot hundreds of aircraft(even claimed 200 PAF aircraft shot down). This was laughable given that the PAF operated 143 aircraft at the time, and Pakistan responded to the propaganda by conducting a huge airforce display on Pakistan Day parade in 1966, showed most of the F-86 Sabre fleet(close to 100 aircraft) was intact, and a total of around twenty aircraft had been lost. USAF veteran Chuck Yeager was given tours of the battlefield line by Pakistan at the end of the war, with wrecks of over a hundred aircraft shot down still visible. Chuck Yeager, in his writings, has alluded to this multiple times.

In 1971 the Indians funded and trained Mukthi Bahini. Mujeeb-ur-Rehman was even discovered inside India at Agartala, where training camps operated. And after the utter failure of India's military adventure in 1965, Indians had begged the USSR to provide support. Yuri Bezmenov, a high-level KGB spy, defected to the USA due to the 1971 war, saying this was the last straw and talks about how he was disgusted at the propaganda campaign the USSR helped India wage there, resulting in a tremendous human cost paid, in human lives. He's publically talked about containers upon containers shipped from the USSR to East Pakistan through India, officially said to contain "books", but filled with arms and ammunition to arm Mukthi Bahini. A mass propaganda campaign was stepped up with some elements of the society, especially including the press being bought. Despite all that propaganda, there were 45,000 West-Pakistani soldiers stationed in Bengal, and at the time of surrender, 92,000 people surrendered - the rest were supporters from the local populace. People interested in the facts should look up ex-KGB operative Yuri Bezmenov.

The Israeli ambassador to India made a famous public speech in 2008, where he said Israel had proven it's friendship to India at Kargil where it helped the indos turn around a loosing war. Indians were in a desperate situation with "stingers on every peak" as a general described it(a number of IAF aircraft were shot down, especially many MiG-27s) Israel provided chemical weapons to the Indians to help get the Mujahideen and Pakistani Armymen out of well-entrenched mountaneous positions. The boundary at Kashmir is not an International Border, it is a line-of-control. In international diplomacy, after the UN mandates a truce, each side maintains control of areas it already has. Kargil has changed hands a number of times, for example. And at Kargil, strategic points like Tiger Hill 5353 are still in Pakistani control. Fighting didn't stop there until 2003, where the Indians accepted a truce after four years of futile campaigns proved fruitless. The former Indian defence minister George Fernandes was caught lying to the Indian parliament that Pakistan had made no territorial gains during the Kargil campaign, and he had some underling take all the blame when Tiger hill 5353 was brought up which was a new mountain peak that Pakistan had gained. This is a strategically important hill, because India's main supply route to Kashmir runs through a nearby highway which, in the event of war, is vulnerable from peak 5353. Kargil was just a skirmish with a smaller Pakistani contingent facing a much larger Indian army - with the Indians having artillery and aircraft support, and despite that, Pakistan held it's own. Heroes like Lalak Jan Shaheed should be remembered.

So despite your talk of Indian might, history has repeatedly seen all this prove futile repeatedly. Pakistan is the world's 36th biggest country, at around 0.8 million square km of territory. In 1971 you managed to divide 0.1 million which strategically speaking is not much at all. And India commits terrible attrocities in it's seven sister-states where a maoist insurgency has been going on for a very long time, and then there's Kashmir. The premise India used in 1971, can be used there as well. It is facinating how, because we are a target of American "friendship" the Indians get so excited and edgy. They have a decent economy and are financially wealthier than Pakistan, good for them - I hope it's benefits reach the millions living in poverty. Because their economy is doing well, they laugh at Pakistan "living on aid". Pakistan has had better days than the Indians plenty of times, but we nor were nor are petty like them. We were buying squadrons of F-16s with our own money in the 80's when India had to barter and make payments with mangoes to compete. And in the 60's Pakistan was considered the leading economy in Asia, with Koreans copying Pakistan's 5-year-plan system and Nobel prize winner Dean Munter(author of "Asian Miracle") talking about how Pakistan appeared to be well on it's way to becomming the California of Asia(California's the richest state in the US).

We don't want a conflict with India, but if they keep meddling, and taking advantage of every opportunity they get to act petty and cause us harm, it will become a neccessity to have to deal with them decisively. Pakistan developed Nasr MRLS with tactical nukes to counter the Indian army's "cold-start" doctrine(of rapid invasion), and any rapid invading force shall be met with tactical-level nukes(lower yield, contained damage) raining down on them. With our nuclear arsenals we are capable of completely destroying each other. But as Gen. Zia-ul Haq told Rajiv Gandhi, after Pakistan's destruction, Islam - our ideology and identity, would still remain. However, after India's destruction, Hinduism would remain no more. We want peace, but they need to stop stabbing us in the back every chance they get. Back in 2001 when there was severe pressure on Pakistan from America after 9/11 and India was itching to help the US against Pakistan, they staged some attack on their parliament and used that as a pretext to deploy on the border, putting our army under pressure. Again in 2008 when we faced(and still face) difficulties from abroad, India stages this "Mumbai attack" where the Indian forces can't deal with half a dozen people for nearly a week. Half a dozen people CANNOT hold a 300-room hotel, the Indian forces could have secured most of the hotel without the terrorists even finding out - and yet, for almost a week their agencies let this operation go on. They have a history of staging false-flag terrorist attacks that let them play the victim and hurt Pakistan right when Pakistan is under alot of international strain.

[vinod2070]

^^ Yawn. I have seen that any newly minted Madressa grad from our neighboring country can rattle this off without thinking.

You may miss a roza or a namaz, you can't miss these rants.

Whatever..........

[Qasim57]

I've seen that the Indians in general seem to be the most insecure, petty little people on the planet. They meddle in the internal affairs of all their neighbors, bullying the littler ones into line - fighting wars with the bigger ones, never missing an opportunity to act petty.

They flame up arguments with half-baked notions of Indian grandeur and talk of them oppressing other people - even in forums of other people's countries. When facts don't support these illusions of grandeur and might, the best they can come up with is a lame "whatever" paired with a personal attack on the other person's religion and faith. This behavior is considered rude and uncivilized by most people, but not by most Indians - hence my impression of pettiness.

The fact is that despite the Indians spending billions propping up their military, Pakistan still manages to present a pretty credible threat - enough to discourage any further adventuristic indo plans. They spend 10 billion on an "MRCA" deal(and talk it up alot, typical indo style, calling it a "deal of the century" like it's the biggest aircraft deal of the century - and then the Saudis come and do 90 billion dollar defence deals, with much less fanfare and insecurity-riddled publicity stunts) and import some "indigenous" SU-30's(different story on how the Russians have recently raised the price of these "indigenous" SU-30s), but when for example, these SU-30s try to cross our border in 2008, they still get intercepted by F-16s, with jamming pods of some sort that the indos weren't expecting, that prevents the SU-30s with their much-vaunted radar to even pick up the F-16s until it's too late and the SU-30s are locked on. And have to make a run for it, back across the border with their tails tucked between their legs.

They spend billions of dollars on this Arjun tank which's supposed to be better than our Al-Khalid MBT on paper, but on-ground our Al-Khalid still out-performs it. The "indigenous" Tejas project(indos ridiculed that our stuff wasn't "indigenous") that was supposed to be much better than our JF-17 Thunders, and it turns out the Thunders have already been inducted for years now, Tejas has yet to reach Initial Operational Capability(IOC), and the "indigenous" French-assisted Kaveri engine project failed and even the Indians had to throw in the towel after two decades of development.

My point is, that practically, we Pakistanis have performed remarkably well, despite better-funded Indian projects. Indians have crossed our International Borders many times - they always start the aggression, we don't. And after repeated attempts, we have proven that despite being smaller, we have what it takes to hold our own.

And "madrassas", a madrassa is a religious school, like a convent. India has many madrassas and convents, some of which the Indian terrorists keep burning every few years. From the Babur Mosque, to the Sikh Golden Temple, to the churches with *people* burnt alive in it - The RSS/fanatic hindu terrorists put al-qaeda, Irish IRA and any other modern terrorist groups to shame. Don't criticize seminaries and institutions of other religions, when you haven't sorted your own house yet.

[vinod2070]

I know you converts have to try extra hard to prove yourself.

Still the Arabs and others who converted you have only contempt for you, treating you like slaves.

Na ghar ka...........