Gary Bass

Will Bachman  00:01

Welcome back to the 92 report conversations with members of the Harvard and Radcliffe class of 1992. I’m your host will Bachman. And I’m excited to be here today with Gary bass, who is a Pulitzer Prize finalist for his book, The blood Telegram, Nixon, Kissinger and forgotten genocide. Gary, welcome to the show. Hi, well, so I’ll admit I, I’ve been reading your book, and I was ignorant of this. I was, I had no idea about it. But you know, it’s apparently the most strongly worded expression of dissent in the history of the US Foreign Service. Tell us, for listeners who aren’t familiar with the blood Telegram, give us the overview, what it’s all about.

Gary Bass  00:46

So this is a this is a book about a terrible moment in South Asian history, and a moment in history that, you know, I think most most people living in the United States know almost nothing about. It’s something that people in India and Pakistan and Bangladesh know a lot about. It’s sort of the defining national trauma in Bangladesh, which is the eighth largest country in the world today. It has a population bigger than Russia or Japan. So this is the story of how Bangladesh was created, which is a very bloody story that involves terrible massacres by a military junta ruling in Pakistan, over Pakistan at the time, included, not just what we know, today is Pakistan, that was then West Pakistan, it also had what was known as East Pakistan, which is present day Bangladesh, about 1000 miles away with a largely with a Bengali speaking population being ruled on easily by these overlords. But this military junta operating from, you know, from 1000 miles away. Um, and in 1970, there’s a democratic election that doesn’t turn out the way that the ruling junta wants. And there’s a series of constitutional negotiations that go nowhere. And finally, the the military dictatorship, decides to basically shoot their way out. And they launch a extraordinarily brutal military crackdown. Midway through it, it starts in March of 1971. Midway through CIA and the State Department privately estimate that something like 200,000 people have been killed, many more died, including people among the 10 million refugees that flee out of what is then East Pakistan, into neighboring India. 10 million refugees is one of the largest refugee flows in human history. And the story is, so what’s the story about this terrible tragedy in South Asia, but it’s also a story about the United States. It’s a story about the diplomacy of the Nixon and Kissinger administration. At the time, Pakistan is a American ally, a formal ally, actually, it’s a double treaty ally. There are it’s in Pakistan, he’s in both sido and Santo. And these sort of cold, cold war alliances, and I think this sort of standard script that people have in their head about the US record on human rights is something terrible is happening overseas and watch should the United benevolent United States do to help? And sometimes, you know, there’s a story about whether the United States can do something useful. But I also think they’re often moments that are maybe more uncomfortable to talk about, where is the United States that’s standing on the side of the people who are doing the terrible things? And that’s exactly the case here. For the Nixon administration. Let me pause there. That’s a bunch.

Will Bachman  04:12

Yeah. So that’s so I’ll admit, like, I had not heard I mean, I vaguely kind of knew about the Pakistan and then it split and so forth. But I didn’t know about this, you know, genocide happening or the blood telegram. And I’m so ignorant that I admit, when I saw the title of book I thought blood telegram and probably a lot of people, my guess is are ignorant like me, that oh, it has something to do with like blood. Oh, there’s blood on the streets or something. But it was written by Archer blood. Tell us about this career diplomat who’s considered a real hero by many for being willing to risk his career to speak truth to power. Yeah,

Gary Bass  04:51

I think he’s an extraordinary figure. And you’re absolutely right. Like I think most, you know, everybody’s heard of Nixon and Kissinger. Very few people have heard of Archer blood. So while this killing is unfolding, then the people in the US government who know the most about it are the consulate. It’s not an embassy yet, because this is no East Pakistan. So it’s not an independent country, so it doesn’t get an embassy, it gets a consulate general. And the it has a, it has a really impressive professional staff there. This was a, you know, it’s it’s a difficult posting within the Foreign Service, but it’s also the kind of posting where careers are made, especially for people who are interested in development work. So USA, ID has an exceptional mission there. There’s a lot of cutting edge development work that’s being done there, including ideas that are still kind of current today about micro finance and microcredit. Like, you know, when when we teach about development. In the public policy school at Princeton, we spent a lot of time talking about things that have roots going back to, to this period. But this this consular staff in Dhaka, in the capital of what is Danny’s Pakistan and is today Bangladesh, are witnessing these atrocities by the Pakistan army. You know, literally in front of their faces, right. I mean, they’re people that they know are being killed. They are aware that this is not sort of a run of the mill. What people in South Asia refer to sort of communist tensions, that this is sort of an Off The Charts thing. And they, the embassy staff are shocked and horrified and outraged. Many of them, including the USA, Id chief, a man named Eric are foul. They’re hiding Bengalis in their houses, Archer blood, his heart is hiding Bengalis in his house, which is very dangerous thing to do. And something where you could potentially get in trouble, not just with Pakistani government, but also with the US State Department, which might not be thrilled to find out that you’re doing that. But they’re also brave. About so they’re physically brave. I mean, they’re going out and, you know, trying to document what’s happening, which is a dangerous thing, right? Like, you never know, when some, you know, Pakistani soldier is gonna, you know, shoot you and say it was an accident later. But they’re also brave about standing up and saying that, you know, what’s happening we think is horrifying. And we think that, you know, the US government should not be supporting the military dictatorship in Pakistan, while it’s doing this to its own civilian population. Um, Archer blood is 48 years old at the time, he’s the same age as Henry Kissinger. And he can’t understand why the US government isn’t doing anything, that there’s a whole range of things that you can do, if you want to tell, you know, tell them before it starts, I think most of the, you know, the most crucial turning points are before the killing actually starts, but say, Look, if you do this, then we’re not sure we can continue to give you military aid. And if Pakistan loses American military aid, given that it’s in a terrible confrontation with India, they would be in, you know, significant trouble, or say, Look, you got to in some way, respect the results of this democratic election. Or you can say, well, if you’re going to shoot, you can’t use our weaponry. None of this happens, none of this American leverage is used. I mean, there are often cases where the United States is being asked to use its leverage over like Burma or Syria. And the United States has almost no leverage over Burma or Syria, or Syria. Those you know, there are other countries that have that might have leverage there, but the US Not particularly. But in case Pakistan, the US has a lot of leverage in the thing that Archer blood and Eric are foul and people in the consulate and DACA can’t figure out is, why isn’t any of this leverage being used by it? They’re doing it. So they decided that they’re gonna make their voices known. And the way they do that is through a formal dissent cable. This is something that’s brand new in the Foreign Service. It was introduced during the Vietnam War, to allow foreign service officers who oppose the war and imposed American policy in Vietnam, a way of speaking up rather than just resigning in protest and storming out. The dissent channel is still in operation. It’s still a part of the State Department. There are a lot of dissent. Dissent messages put forward by professionals. Foreign Service officers during the Trump administration, which got a lot of signatures, huge numbers of people signed on to these, but this is the first one that’s ever sent in. And they accuse the it’s a really powerful cable, it accuses the United States of moral bankruptcy, it uses the word genocide, which they know is a very powerful word. And they say, you know, we know that it’s an overused word, and people say it all the time. But we think it actually applies here. So it’s really, it’s an extraordinary thing to send in. And they know that, you know, they’re criticizing an American ally, they know that they’re doing something that’s actually good, it’s gonna be potentially very unpopular in Washington.

Will Bachman  10:44

And, you know, I’ll just quote from a little bit of it here it says, This telegram right says, Our government has failed to denounce the suppression of democracy, our government has failed to denounce atrocities, our government has failed to take forceful measures to protect its citizens, while at the same time bending over backwards to placate the West Pakistan dominated government. And this is our government as evidence what many will consider moral bankruptcy? So that takes take some courage to send a telegraph like that to the you know, your boss and the president? What, what was the conversation like? And, you know, be among the team there? When they drafted that and sent it? Were they all saying basically, well, this is the end of our career, but we got to do what’s right. I mean, what was that? That like for them?

Gary Bass  11:31

Yeah, it’s really so I had one of the things that was fabulous about writing this book was the ability to interview a lot of people who had been in the DACA consulate. Unfortunately, Archer blood had passed away by the time that I started to write this, so I didn’t get to talk to him, which is something that I’m really sorry about. But I didn’t get to talk to Henry Henry Kissinger either. I asked him multiple times, and he wouldn’t talk to me. But I definitely wanted to include his story. He just an idea. You know, I include tons of quotes from the White House Tapes. So I do get Kissinger’s side, but I would have been more than happy to talk to him, he just refused, repeatedly. Um, but they knew that this was something that was likely to be very, very bad for their careers. And there’s kind of a split within the consulate that peep there younger people like the police, you know, younger political officers, who think, you know, this is going to kill my career, but my career is young, and maybe I have time to recover, or I’m still young enough that I can go and do something else. There are other people like our kafele, who is the ID chief is senior who thought who I did get to interview is extraordinary person. He thought, yeah, this is going to be terrible for my career, and I just could not care less. Eric fell was a person of extraordinary personal integrity, and he just it sort of, it wasn’t how he thought he didn’t care. And for blood, it’s actually he wrestles with this right? That he has more to lose than anybody. He’s got, you know, he’s ambitious. He wants to make Ambassador he wants to go beyond that. He’s a very talented Foreign Service officer. And, you know, talented people sometimes have, you know, big ambitions and big talent, you know, sometimes go together. He’s definitely one of those. And yet, he decides, you know, I have to do the, you know, I have to do the professional thing. Um, Eric referrals, the way that our profile described it is, you know, he said, honor isn’t a word that I use lightly. But arch blood was a man of honor. And if he hadn’t done this, he would have felt that he had lost his honor. And that would be worse than having your career tanked. So he wanted so we went ahead and sent in this dissent telegram.

Will Bachman  14:12

There’s a new book out by Richard inania, not sure from getting that name, right. But on public choice theory in international relations, and the argument is that, you know, the US doesn’t really have this grand strategy. But it’s much more about, you know, politicians are selected based on learning to do what’s kind of popular and will get them votes. And they’re driven by incentives. And the main drivers are particularly concentrated interests, like the the military establishment, and arms manufacturers. And then sort of third would be like public sentiment. So they’re not so much driven immigrants. Reggie, what are your thoughts on that in relation to this? You know, this whole incident in East Pakistan and the blood telegram? What, what was driving Nixon and Kissinger? Not to? Not, you know, not to take those potential steps to intervene?

Gary Bass  15:19

Um, that that’s a great question. Um, so let me kind of like, let me give you the sort of macro like international relations theory, part of it. And then the, the sort of the, the policy part that a lot of why I find this interesting is because you see people behaving in a way that’s very human and psychologically rich, but isn’t really what they’re supposed to do in some political science models of how governments operate. Like, there are models where you have the State Department expressing a particular set of bureaucratic or parochial interest, their models where the United, you know, where major powers are pursuing their own, you know, their own version of national security. And part of why I found this story fascinating is that on all sides, you didn’t see governments really doing that, right. Like, they weren’t behaving the way that our political science models were telling us that they were supposed to. So for the, you know, the, the consul general in Dhaka, these people are being driven by, I think, a combination of their sense of morality. And, you know, they’re sort of as Eric Revelle said, Archer blood sense of honor, but also their sense of professionalism, that they, you know, they’re there to report accurately on what’s happening there. So if you’re a political officer, and they’re, you know, massacres going on outside your window, and you think this is going to be a disaster for American foreign policy, you have both a moral responsibility and professional responsibility to report, you know, report that up properly. And they feel that very strongly. And that’s something that I think is, you know, isn’t captured. In some not all I mean, there’s a there’s been a big turn within political science to, to thinking about norms to thinking about social psychology. So I think we’ve, you know, we’ve moved away from some of our our simpler models. So I mean, I don’t want to defend there plenty of things in political sciences, is weird about but, but I do think we’ve made some progress. So that’s sort of, you know, you see the folks in DACA behaving in ways that are, you know, that infuriate like the Secretary of State is furious Nixon and Kissinger are furious. They do try and destroy these guys careers. They do try and destroy bloodsucker fear, career and grow fells career, they’re incredibly punitive, which you’re not supposed to do, by the way, part of the point of a dissent channel is that there aren’t supposed to be repercussions for speaking up, whereas Nixon and Kissinger are vicious in punishing these quite principled folks and DACA. But I also I actually think that these some of these models don’t really explain this sort of realist models of international politics. Don’t explain Nixon and Kissinger either, right, like, there’s a part of this policy of unrestrained support for Pakistan, that it makes some, you know, some sense, which is that Pakistan is a Cold War ally, and you generally don’t want to abandon your allies. So there’s something to that, but it doesn’t mean you have to give them a blank check to do something that you know, is going to be incredibly destructive. There’s also you know, during the Cold War, Pakistan’s an ally, whereas India is formally non aligned, but in this period is leaning very heavily towards the Soviet Union, and that bugged all sorts American presidents, including Dwight Eisenhower, and including John Kennedy. So it wasn’t just Nixon, who had it, you know, who had a problem with that. There’s also the opening to China. And Pakistan is be making itself quite helpful in the opening to China so you can see why Pakistan would get some pay off for that. Although it’s not clear that it deserves an unlimited pay off and sort of a blank check to kill as many Bengalis as you want to. But then beyond that, there’s all sorts of motivations, that when you listen to the White House Tapes, you really see driving their diplomacy. The amazing thing about the White House Tapes is that you don’t have to sort of make theoretical guesses about what you think is driving policy in the White House. You can see it incredibly fine grained detail because their most intimate conversations where they’re really letting rip about what they really think, right? These are not sort of polite diplomatic memos. These are the sort of raging conversations that you get between both Nixon because you’re both highly emotional. Throughout a lot of this. It’s actually Kissinger, who’s more swept away with emotion than Nixon. But because of the tapes, this incredible resource, we get to see all of it. I spent years having fights about declassification. And recently, only recently after the book was, after the book was published, got some more recent stuff. But a lot of what drove Kissinger and this is in Nixon, and Kissinger and this is in the book is really a fury against India. They say things about India that are not just India’s not on our side in the Cold War, and that bothers us. Instead, Nixon says things like, Indian women are the most unattractive women in the world. Ah, disgusting. And that’s something that, you know, clearly they call Indira Gandhi, the, the Indian Prime Minister, but at the time, that line about Indian women being the most attractive women in the world is said, in the middle of a White House summit with Indira Gandhi, they come out of it. And then Nixon talks about how sickened he is by the Indians. Nixon says they’re just repulsive, and it’s easy to be tough on them. Kissinger says that Pakistanis are primitive. This sort of, you know, raw bigotry is clearly driving their decisions. I think that’s super interesting when you’re trying to understand foreign policy, right? That rather than thinking of is it this is this sort of cold bureaucratic process. It’s actually done by human beings who make all sorts of cognitive shortcuts, including racist cognitive shortcuts, in order to make sense of a complicated world. And I found that just totally fascinating, and attack, the task of recreating how these decisions really got made. was, you know, it was an amazing opportunity.

Will Bachman  22:20

Yeah, those those comments are so appalling. And it was surprising to me to read about how, you know, it seemed like Kissinger like the Pakistani general just personally, you know, thought as a tough guy and respected him, and that those kinds of, you know, personal relationships, were driving, you know, major strategic decisions. So it was surprising.

Gary Bass  22:46

Yeah, like Richard Nixon is, who’s a super smart guy. Something that, you know, definitely came away from listening to a lot of, you know, spending, like four years with Richard Nixon, and Henry Kissinger is the voice in your head is, Nixon was an exceptionally smart person. Kissinger gets all the credit. But I think that’s, you know, not deserved. The, but Richard Nixon, he’s an incredibly awkward human being, he has great difficulty in relating to his fellow human beings, he’s very good at needling them and sort of finding emotional weaknesses, which he does. But one of the few human beings in the world who just really really liked was Yaya Han is Pakistani general Nixon really, really, you know, was personally fond of him, and found it, you know, personally, emotionally painful to think of you have this guy falling. And, you know, you can’t take that human element out of the diplomacy. And I found that, you know, it’s fascinating to, to watch that.

Will Bachman  23:52

So you’ve also got a book an earlier book freedoms battle, the origins of humanitarian intervention. Tell us, how did you come like, just a brief snapshot of your journey since since Harvard? How did you end up, you know, writing these two books and kind of landing in your area of specialization.

Gary Bass  24:14

So I, I’m so Okay, so I mostly write about the kind of intersection of human rights and national security. And those are things that kind of pull in different directions that human rights offers certain principles where the lives of human beings everywhere matter. So the lives of Bengalis are important the lives of Bosnians or Rwandans are important. And then you have the imperative of national security states which think that the only lives to count are the lives of your own citizens. So the US government is primarily interested in looking After American citizens and not so interested in looking after, you know, people who are suffering in, you know, suffering weekers or suffering Bengalis. Um, so I got to this, in part, because I was taught about it in college, we were incredibly lucky to have this extraordinary education. And some of the classes that I took in the government department in the History Department at Harvard, talked a lot about, you know, there, there was a brilliant course by Stanley Hoffman called ethics and international relations, which talked about the ways in which political philosophy could be important in understanding how governments make their choices, themselves a wonderful course, which sort of got me interested in thinking about Asia, which was Roderick MacFarquhar is great class on the Cultural Revolution, which was just a nice growth kind of amazing spectacles brilliantly taught, I feel incredibly lucky to have the chance to sort of to learn from them. And I kind of deeply both of them have, since both Stanley Hoffman and rock mcfar curves have since passed away, and I deeply wish that I could take their classes again. I, after college, I went and worked as a reporter, I spent some time at the economist, which was amazing, just full, full of really brilliant, interesting people trying to figure out what was going on in the world, and also a place that cared a lot about writing. And that was very important. One of the things I learned spending time in DC was that it just seemed as though a lot of people were making policy decisions, and they did not know what they were talking about. And that was scary. It was also a little scary being in Washington journalism, where you could write things and so long as you sounded kind of confident and assured you could get away with things. So that made me think I’d better go and, you know, at least try and make sure that I know what I’m talking about, which was what made me go back to grad school and get a degree to get a PhD in Political Science. And as part of that graduate education. I learned more about these, you know, the sort of the push and pull between principle, visions of foreign policy and more real politic visions and foreign policy. And that sort of stuck with me in. In all of my books. My first my first book is about is about war crimes tribunals. The second one is about this very dangerous and you know, emergency dyers step, which I think in almost all cases is actually a terrible idea, which is humanitarian intervention, but might be you know, something worth discussing and extremely rare cases, such as genocide and mass atrocity. But as a normal thing, that’s something you don’t really want to deal with. And then this third book, just a cautionary book about American power. And also Indian power, which is a big part of the of the story in the blood telegram. And now I’m writing a book about Tokyo war crimes tribunal after World War Two, sort of Nuremberg for the war in the Pacific.

Will Bachman  28:28

It sounds like, there’s a bit of a great deal of continuity, you know, from you from, from what you’re studying, and you’re interested in college. What if anything, about what you’re doing today would surprise your college age self?

Gary Bass  28:46

being employed, I have, I mean, I, you know, as I I’m incredibly surprised to have a job like I definitely. I mean, it’s a job where they can’t, they can’t fire me, like, I’m amazed to have a job. I was, like, I knew what I wanted to write about, I knew that I wanted to write and I always kind of knew that that was, you know, there, like, there are safer ways to make a living, there are also much more risky ways of making a living. I mean, they’re sort of, you know, we went to college with, you know, creative people who chose, you know, who chose careers in the arts and people who are singers and actors and stuff. And that’s, you know, much riskier than, than getting a PhD. But, you know, I’m still like, I’m amazed, you know, and I feel like, really, really lucky to have a job where I get, you know, I get paid to write and I get paid to teach, both of which are real privileges, and I do I mean, I find that just startling, I’m always surprised by

Will Bachman  30:00

The Department of Culture section of the show, ask about any books, films, blogs, you know, anything newsletters, anything that you particularly find yourself often recommending to others.

Gary Bass  30:19

Oh, I’m so in, like, blogs and newsletters and things like that, and substack and books. Yeah, I’m sort of antediluvian about that I’m also in the middle of trying to finish up writing books. So I’m like, kind of unplugged. But the, you know, a book that I love, and that I recommend a lot to my undergrads. It’s a beautifully written book, and it was assigned to me, in that ethics and International Relations course by Stanley Hoffman, is a book by Michael Walter called Just and Unjust Wars. He’s a political theorist. He lives right here in Princeton. He’s not part of the University. He’s at the Institute for Advanced Study, which is a really fancy institution in Princeton. He, and it’s a beautifully written study of how to think clearly about the problem of, you know, when political violence could ever be justifiable, how you can bring morality to bear on what is otherwise, you know, this sort of unbelievably immoral activity of warfare. And I think it’s reasonable for people to say you can’t, there’s no such thing as morality and warfare. Walter makes the case that there is, but I certainly respect the position that says, there isn’t. And that, you know, in fact, by trying to put limits on it, you may actually be facilitating to it, I respect that position a lot. I think that’s a powerful argument. But Walter, I think does a great job of, you know, regardless of where you come down on it, of laying out a way of thinking about justice, in international politics, that I think is really valuable. I think it’s much better than looking at international politics and saying, it’s all real politic, it’s all violence, you’re never going to be able to put limits on. And Walter, I think really sort of takes on that kind of kissing, Jerian. critique, very strongly. So it’s a great book.

Will Bachman  32:38

Last section of the show here, asked about diplomacy on purpose, Professor now, or how you’ve been shaped by your training, and that that scenario, where I’m particularly interested, as a management consultant for 20 years, by the way, I just perceive the world is through that lens. For you, as a historian and political scientist, how has your training affected the way you perceive either news stories or just perceive the world as you’re going through it? I’m guessing that there might be something like when you read a news story, that you have a different level of perception into what might be going on behind the scenes than your average, say, New York Times reader, but what are what are some ways that your training has changed the way you think, than for the than, say, an ordinary, you know, that another educated person, right?

Gary Bass  33:41

I probably have ways of, you know, misunderstanding that New York Times story more, like much more than So, the, you know, political scientists are trained to think in terms of theory. And sometimes that can be a strength, maybe, but I’m also aware of the ways in which it can be a weakness. I definitely, I mean, when we’re, you know, when I’m teaching graduate students, they’re, you know, there’s a sense that you’re being professionalized, and you sort of some of the time graduate education, it has to walk that line between a graduate education in politics and in graduate education in the literature about politics. And for, you know, you do want to learn both, but there are ways in which, you know, when you’re learning the literature, of, you know, this is what other political scientists and other historians have written. There’s a way in which that can be restricting, that you tend it can make you interpret events through particular theoretical prisms. It can make you shoehorn things in a way that maybe they shouldn’t be You know, generally I do, I like theory, I think that it’s helpful. And it’s a way in which you know, that you, you know, given all the sort of blooming, buzzing confusion out there in the world, to sort of try and make sense of it. And also, I think it’s potentially useful, not just to be surprised over and over again, by events. But some of the danger of that is that by turning to theory, you don’t understand the complexity of regions, you don’t understand the complexity of the particular time and place where something is happening. So in my books, I try very hard to immerse myself in whatever region I’m writing about. So for the blood Telegram, I was reading a lot about South Asia. And, you know, you gotta, you know, it’s actually I mean, for me, it’s a lot of the fun of it, but you go to India, and you talk to Indian generals, and Indian politicians, and, you know, ordinary Indians and try and figure out how they see these things. And I really want to make sure that when I’m writing about Asia, that like, it’s the Asian voices that are speaking loudly. So I do that kind of intentionally trying to push back against that sort of professional deformation.

Will Bachman  36:23

So Gary, if listeners want to follow up and find out more about what you’re writing, what you have going on, including your, your articles, where would you point them online?

Gary Bass  36:36

Uh, most of what most of what I write is in the New York Times. And the books are, are available through your, through your local independent bookseller. There we go. All right. Yeah. Not Amazon.

Will Bachman  36:55

Okay. Well, no. Well, and we’ll include a link to your to your Princeton bio. In the show notes. People want to find out more about you. Gary, thank you so much for joining. This was a fascinating discussion.

Gary Bass  37:08

Thank you. Well,

Will Bachman  37:09

I appreciate it. And listeners, if you want to check out more episodes, go to 92 report.com. It’s 90 report.com. We got all our listeners, all our episodes there along with transcripts, and all the links. And of course, you can subscribe on all of your favorite podcast apps. Gary, thanks for joining. Thank you Well