at least to be loyal to the United States. Among those Nixon insulted was Undersecretary
of State U. Alexis Johnson. But the leaks only increased.
December 10--Kissinger ordered the US navy to create Task Force 74, consisting of the
nuclear aircraft carrier Enterprise with escort and supply ships, and to have these ships
proceed from their post at Yankee Station in the Gulf of Tonkin off Vietnam to
Singapore. [fn 17]
In Dacca, East Pakistan, Major General Rao Farman Ali Khan, the commander of
Pakistani forces in Bengal asked the United Nations representative to help arrange a
cease-fire, followed by the transfer in of power in East Pakistan to the elected
representatives of the Awami League and the "repatriation with honor" of his forces back
to West Pakistan. At first it appeared that this de facto surrender had been approved by
Yahya Khan. But when Yahya Khan heard that the US fleet had been ordered into the
Indian Ocean, he was so encouraged that he junked the idea of a surrender and ordered
Gen. Ali Khan to resume fighting, which he did.
Colonel Melvin Holst, the US military attache in Katmandu, Nepal, a small country
sandwiched between India and China in the Himalayas, received a call from the Indian
military attache, who asked whether the American had any knowledge of a Chinese
military buildup in Tibet. "The Indian high command had some sort of information that
military action was increasing in Tibet," said Holst in his cable to Washington. The same
evening from the Soviet military attache, Loginov, who also asked about Chinese military
activity. Loginov said that he had spoken over the last day or two with the Chinese
military attache, Chao Kuang-chih "advising Chao that the PRC should not get too
serious about intervention because USSR would react, had many missles, etc." [fn 18] At
the moment the Himalaya mountain passes, the corridor for any Chinese troop
movement, were all open and free from snow. The CIA had noted "war preparations" in
Tibet over the months since the Bengal crisis had begun. Nikolai Pegov, the Soviet
Ambassador to New Dehli, had assured the Indian government that in the eventuality of a
Chinese attack on India, the Soviets would mount a "diversionary action in Sinkiang."
December 11- Kissinger had been in town the previous day, meeting the Chinese UN
delegate. Today Kissinger would meet with the Pakistani Deputy Prime Minister, Ali
Bhutto, in Bush's suit at the Waldorf- Astoria. Huang Hua, the Chinese delegate, made
remarks which Kissinger chose to interpret as meaning that the "Chinese might intervene
militarily even at this late stage."
December 12- Nixon, Kissinger, and Haig met in the Oval Office early Sunday morning
in a council of war. Kissinger later described this as a crucial meeting, where, as it turned
out, "the first decision to risk war in the triangular Soviet-Chinese-American" relation
was taken. [fn 19]
During Nixon's 1975 secret grand jury testimony to the Watergate Special Prosecution
Force, the former President insisted that the United States had come "close to nuclear
war" during the Indo- Pakistani conflict. According to one attorney who heard Nixon's