Washington: A set of newly declassified tapes from the White House dating back to June 17, 1971 shows the hostility presented by former US President Richard Nixon.
Nixon referred to Indians as “most sexless” and “pathetic”, and also called Indian women “most unattractive women in the world” during a meeting with senior officials at the Oval Office, the tapes reveal.
The tapes were recently declassified after Gary J Bass of Princeton University filed a legal request.
Nixon’s National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger also echoed similar feelings referring to Indians as “superb flatterers” whose “great skill” was to “suck up to people in key positions”.
“On Nov. 4, 1971, during a private break from a contentious White House summit with Prime Minister Indira Gandhi of India — a rare woman leader at the time — the president harangued Mr Kissinger about his sexual disgust at Indians,” Bass wrote in an opinion piece published in the New York Times.
Nixon’s prejudice was felt in his policies that had a soft corner for Pakistan. Bass also mentioned of Nixon’s friendship with Pakistan’s then President General Agha Muhammad Yahya Khan, who was acting as his go-between with China. India being on good terms with the Soviet Union reportedly didn’t gel well with the Republican President.
“The most sexless, nothing, these people. I mean, people say, what about the Black Africans? Well, you can see something, the vitality there, I mean they have a little animal-like charm, but God, those Indians, ack, pathetic. Uch,” Nixon said in the tape and this was followed by laughter from the attendees.
“Nixon’s anti-Indian leanings had been reinforced when John F Kennedy took a warmly pro-India line. On top of that, there was a mutual loathing between Nixon and Indira Gandhi,” Bass wrote.
