The 1971 Bangladesh War – Part 3: A Man Named Blood

Conflicted: A History Podcast

Zach Cornwell

Society & Culture, Education, History

4.8 • 610 Ratings

🗓️ 23 September 2024

⏱️ 104 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On March 25th, 1971, President Yahya Khan launches Operation Searchlight in East Pakistan, a brutal military crackdown intended to snuff out Bengali separatism and restore West Pakistani authority. Meanwhile, an American diplomat in Dacca named Archer Blood begins reporting and documenting the slaughter, hoping to convince his government to step in and restrain Yahya. In Washington, D.C., President Richard Nixon and his national security advisor Henry Kissinger weigh the political costs of intervening in the atrocities, while secretly planning a groundbreaking outreach to Communist China. SOURCES: Bass, Gary K. The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide. 2013. Bennet-Jones, Own. The Bhutto Dynasty. 2020. Carney, Scott. Miklian, Jason. The Vortex: A True Story of History’s Deadliest Storm, an Unspeakable War, and Liberation. 2022. Chang, Jung. Halliday, Jon. Mao: The Unknown Story. 2005. Frank, Katherine. Indira: The Life of Indira Nehru Gandhi. 2001. Gewen, Barry. The Inevitability of Tragedy: Henry Kissinger and his World. 2020. Hiro, Dilip. The Longest August: The Unflinching Rivalry Between India and Pakistan. 2015. Hitchens, Christopher. The Trial of Henry Kissinger. 2001. Hoodbhoy, Pervez. Pakistan: Origins, Identity and Future. 2023. Jalal, Ayesha. The Struggle for Pakistan. 2014. James, Lawrence. Raj: The Making and Unmaking of British India. 1997. Jayakar, Pupul. Indira Gandhi: A Biography. 1975. Khosa, Faisal. The Making of Martyrs in India, Pakistan & Bangladesh. 2021. K.S. Nair. December In Dacca. 2022. Keay, John. India: A History. 2000. Mookherjee, Nayanika. The Spectral Wound. 2015. Raghavan, Srinath. 1971: A Global History of the Creation of Bangladesh. 2013. Rose, Leo. Sisson, Richard. War and Secession. Pakistan, India, and the Creation of Bangladesh. 1990. Saikia, Yasmin. Women, War, and the Making of Bangladesh. 2011. Schendel, Willem van. A History of Bangladesh. 2009. Schwartz, Thomas Alan. Henry Kissinger and American Power. 2020. Sengupta, Nitish. Land of Two Rivers: A History of Bengal. 2011. Tudda, Chris. A Cold War Turning Point: Nixon and China, 1969-1972. 2012. Walsh, Declan. The Nine Lives of Pakistan. 2020. Zakaria, Anam. 1971: A People’s History from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and India. 2019. Secure your privacy with Surfshark! Enter coupon code CONFLICTED for 4 months EXTRA at https://surfshark.com/conflicted Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:30.2	Hello and welcome to Conflicted, the history podcast where we talk about the struggles that
0:34.9	shaped us, the tough questions that they pose, and why we
0:37.6	should care about any of it. Conflicted is a member of the Evergreen Podcast Network, and as always,
0:43.2	I'm your host, Zach Cornwell. You are listening to Part 3 of a multi-part series on the 1971
0:49.3	Bangladesh War. Now, we have a lot of ground to cover today, but before we get started, I want to issue
0:54.7	a small correction for the previous episode.
0:56.9	Last time, in part two, I referred to John F. Kennedy as the youngest man to ever hold
1:02.5	the office of U.S. President.
1:04.3	What I should have said is that he was the youngest man to ever be elected to the office of
1:08.3	president.
1:09.3	The former superlative actually belongs to Teddy Roosevelt,
1:12.1	who became president at the age of 42, succeeding to the office after the assassination of President
1:16.9	William McKinley. So anyway, it's just a small thing, but as they say, the devil is in the details,
1:21.9	and I wanted to get that corrected. But we are not here to talk about Teddy Roosevelt or JFK.
1:26.9	We are here to talk about Bangladesh.
1:29.2	This is one of those topics where the deeper you go, the more complicated it gets.
1:33.8	There are so many overlapping interests, so much backstory, and so many figures involved,
	...

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