The cataract of news and pontification about Henry Kissinger's death reminds me of an email I sent out nine years ago with some notes on a book that chillingly documented — mostly from Kissinger's own words — a piece of his record that should be getting a lot more attention. What follows is an edited and updated version of that 2014 email.
The book was "The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide" by Gary J. Bass, a former reporter turned Princeton professor. Its subject is Richard Nixon and Kissinger's pro-Pakistan "tilt" in the 1971 India-Pakistan war and their astonishing indifference to the slaughter of Bengali civilians in what was then called East Pakistan (and is now Bangladesh) carried out by troops sent by their great friend Yahya Khan, then Pakistan's president and commander in chief of its army.
