Summary

Drawing on unheard White House tapes and declassified documents, Gary Bass uncovers the first full account of Nixon and Kissinger’s secret support for Pakistan as it committed shocking atrocities in Bangladesh. This led to war between India and Pakistan and had major strategic consequences for Asia—as well as implications for today’s debates about the role of human rights in international relations.

Short Bio

Gary Bass, a professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton, is the author of The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide (Knopf); Freedom's Battle: The Origins of Humanitarian Intervention (Knopf); and Stay the Hand of Vengeance: The Politics of War Crimes Tribunals (Princeton University Press). The Blood Telegram was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in general nonfiction and won the Arthur Ross Book Award from the Council on Foreign Relations, the Bernard Schwartz Book Award from the Asia Society, the Lionel Gelber Prize, the Cundill Prize in Historical Literature, and the Robert H. Ferrell Book Prize from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations. It was a New York Times and Washington Post notable book of the year and a best book of the year in The Economist, Financial Times, and The New Republic.