DON T SQUEEZE YAHYA AT THIS TIME: NIXON
In a memorandum sent to President Richard Nixon today, the US President s Assistant for National Security Affairs Henry Kissinger provided three policy options towards the East Pakistan crisis: 1) unqualified backing for West Pakistan, 2) neutrality which in effect leans toward East Pakistan, and 3) an effort to help Yahya achieve a negotiated settlement. Nixon approved the third option and added a handwritten note that reads: To all hands. Don t squeeze Yahya at this time. He underlined Don t three times.
In the assessment of the third option, Kissinger wrote: [It] would have the advantage of making the most of the relationship with Yahya while engaging in a serious effort to move the situation toward conditions less damaging to US and Pakistani interests. Its disadvantage is that it might lead to a situation in which progress toward a political settlement had broken down, the US had alienated itself from the 600 million people in Indi