The transcripts reveal among other things the extent to which Washington went to prevent the complete decimation of Pakistan; the American use of India as a whipping boy to ingratiate itself to Beijing with whom it was just beginning to establish formal ties: and the Chinese use of the bogey of an India-USSR axis to push Washington closer to Pakistan.

The transcripts of the secret talks, which were only recently declassified against Kissinger's wishes, have been gathered in a just-published book by William Burr, a Senior Analyst at the National Security Archives. Although the volume offers glimpses of Kissinger's interaction with Chinese leaders Mao-Tse Tungand Zhou En Lai, some of the most revealing conversations which offer a startling insight into Washington's diabolical role in the region are with Huang Hua, the then Chinese envoy to the UN who acted as a conduit with the leadership in Beijing.

In one meeting with Huang at a CIA safehouse in New York at the height of the Indo-Pak war of 1971, Kissinger updates him about the imminent Pakistani rout, lamenting that the Pakistani army in the East has been destroyed and the Pakistani army in the West will run out of POL (petroleum, oil and lubricants) in another two or three weeks (because the Indians had destroyed storage tanks in Karachi.)

``We think the immediate objective must be to prevent an attack on the West Pakistan army by India. We are afraid that if nothing is done to stop it, East Pakistan will become a Bhutan and West Pakistan will become a Nepal. And India with Soviet help would be free to turn its energies elsewhere,'' Kissinger tells Huang.

``So it seems to us that through a combinationof pressure and political moves it is important to keep India from attacking the West, to gain time to get more arms into Pakistan and to restore the situation,'' Kissinger adds.

And what are these pressures and political moves? In a series of disingenuous gambits, Kissinger appears to suggest that the US will counter the Soviets if the Chinese want to bail out the Pakistanis. He tells Huang that the US is sending an aircraft carrier to intimidate India. The Soviet naval force in the region is no match for the US armada, he says. He then offers the Chinese US satellite intelligence about the disposition of Soviet forces, before virtually inviting Beijing to attack India.

``The President wants you to know that it's, of course, up to the People's Republic to decide its own course of action in this situation, but if the People's Republic were to consider the situation in the Indian sub-continent a threat to its security, and it took measures to protect its security, the US would oppose efforts of others tointerfere with the People's Republic,'' Kissinger tells Huang.

Just how perverse, cynical, and totally against the public and Congressional sentiment the US stand was during the 1971 war is revealed repeatedly in several exchanges. Kissinger goes to great lengths to pin the blame for the war on India.

Kissinger says: ``You read the New York Times every day, and you will see that the movement of supplies and the movement of our fleet will not have the universal admiration of the media to put it mildly. And it will have the total opposition of our political opponents.''

As it turned out, it wasn't just the political opponents, but even the then Secretary of State William Rogers who opposed the tilt towards Pakistan. Burr, in his commentary, says Rogers was furious about the White House policy, forcing Nixon and Kissinger to make key decisions in secret.

The horrendous Nixon-Kissinger folly and its domestic repercussions are also revealed elsewhere in the transcript of a conversation betweenKissinger and then Prime Minister Zhou-En-Lai, as the Chinese leader urges Washington to rebuild and rearm Pakistan.

Prime Minister Zhou: ...we will be in great favour of your assisting Pakistan and building a naval port in Pakistan. Of course, that would take time but it would also be a significant step. And as you told us, and as Prime Minister Bhutto and other Pakistani friends have mentioned, you are also considering how to assist them in military ways.

Kissinger: We have a tough time with our Congress on Pakistan -- and their attitude is ridiculous. You should talk to Senator Mansfield when he comes. Zhou: They (the Congress) are probably favourable towards India.

Kissinger: Yes.

Zhou: Perhaps it is the national character of the Americans to be taken in by those who seem kind and mild.

India's pacific outlook also invites disdain from the Chinese leadership on another occasion. In a separate dialogue, Kissinger and Chairman Mao-Tse Tung are discussing Indian history and philosophy, aconversation which reveals Mao's famous contempt for India.

Kissinger: There is a sentimental love affair between Western intellectuals and India based on a complete misreading of the Indian philosophy of life. Indian philosophy was never meant to have a practical application.Mao: It's just a bunch of empty words.

Kissinger: For Ghandi (sic), non-violence wasn't a philosophical principle, but because he thought the British were too moralistic and sentimental to use violence against. They are nonsentimental people. For Ghandi it was a revolutionary tactic, not an ethical principle.

Mao: And he himself would spin his own wool and drink goat's milk.

Kissinger: But it was essentially a tactical device for him.

Mao: And the influence of Ghandi's doctrine on the Indian people was to induce them into nonresistance.

Kissinger: Partly, but also given the character and diversity of the English people, it was only a way to conduct the struggle against the British. So I think Ghandi deserves credit for havingwon independence against the British.

Mao: India did not win independence. If it did not attach itself to the Britain, it attaches itself to the Soviet Union. And more than one-half of their economy depends on you.

Burr's introduction to the 500-page book also suggests the United States used India as a pawn to ingratiate itself to China. ``Nixon and Kissinger kept pressure on the Soviets during December 1971 through the South Asian war when they weighed in the side of China's ally Pakistan, against India, whom they regarded as a Soviet proxy. With these threatening signals to Moscow and New Delhi, Nixon and Kissinger sought to demonstrate their reliability to the Chinese as a prelude to Nixon's talks with Zhou and Mao,'' Burr writes.

The transcripts reveal Kissinger was exactly what many Indians thought him to be -- a brilliant, but completely amoral and artful diplomat who did great damage to Indo-US ties along with his mercurial president. Despite the widespread perception in the US and elsewhere inthe western world that India was forced into the war because of the Pakistani reign of terror in then East Pakistan, Kissinger gratuitously pins the blame on India to please China.

In one conversation, he tells Huang: ``What is happening in the Indian sub-continent is a threat to all people. It's a more immediate threat to China, but its a threat to all people. We have no agreement with the British to do anything. In fact we are talking with you to come to a common position. We know that Pakistan is being punished because it is a friend of China and because it is a friend of the United States.''

Yet, in many conversations it is evident that domestic sentiment is totally against Pakistan. In a later chat with Deng Xiao Ping, Kissinger talks about plans to resume arms sales to Pakistan and remarks (in reference to the domestic opposition): ``I will probably have to shoot half of Mr Lord's staff before we can execute this.''

According to Burr, during the South Asia crisis, Kissinger was deeply upset withpress criticism, and livid over Secretary of State Rogers' opposition to his India policy. At one point, even Nixon had stopped taking his calls and (according to some) wondered of Kissinger needed ``psychiatric care''. Kissinger thought of resigning in January 1972, but the situation changed as Nixon's trip to Beijing and Moscow approached and the President found it useful to speak to him again.

Footnote: Henry Kissinger remains one of the foremost supporters of China and his firm Kissinger Inc has business interests in China. He also advocates close US-India ties.