Book Review:
The Cruel Birth of Bangladesh: Memoirs of an American Diplomat,
by Archer K. Blood.
Dhaka: The University Press Limited, 2002, 373 pagesJ.E. Helmreich
Courtesy: Alleghany Magazine
http://www.allegheny.edu/magazine/archive/2003winter/books.php
Archer Blood served as Diplomat in Residence with the political science and international relations programs at Allegheny from 1982 to 1990. The events described in this fast-reading volume indirectly led to this good fortune for the College. Blood, for his questioning of U.S. policy and prediction of the outcome of the East Pakistan rebellion that led to the creation of Bangladesh, was nudged out of the promotion that was his due within the State Department.
Posted as United States consul general to Dhaka in March 1970, the experienced diplomat took charge of a consulate that was significant as the chief U.S. post in populous East Pakistan, separated by a thousand miles of India from the U.S. embassy in West Pakistan. That November he played a key role coordinating aid to the sections of the country devastated by storm and flood.
The events of 1971, when elections led to a political standoff with West Pakistan and imposition of martial law on the eastern part of the nation by the West Pakistan–controlled army, are the focus of the narrative. The selective genocide that followed and the refusal of Washington officials and especially national security adviser Henry Kissinger to accept the truth and import of messages sent by the Dhaka consulate are chronicled. Blood’s descriptions of Pakistani leaders, the moods and conditions in Bengal, and the occasionally inaccurate and influential role of the press are enlightening. The best adjective for what is revealed regarding the internal politics of the foreign policy establishment (and the possibility that this condition continues today) is “disturbing.”
Blood’s document-based account is in his own words “a hybrid, being both an intensely felt personal memoir and, from one perspective, a serious account of many aspects of the Bangladesh crisis … It portrays exactly what my staff and I were thinking and reporting during the Bangladesh crisis. In this ‘warts and all’ rendering our anger, mixed with alternating hope and despair, is all too evident.” The narrative is a personal one and does not attempt a definitive analysis of the rebellion from all viewpoints. It is well worth reading for what it tells about a cruelly bloody event, the workings of our foreign policy establishment (both excellent and unfortunate), and the mind of a man of exceptional integrity.
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Bangladesh 1971 Genocide Archer Blood telegram 1971 Genocide Liberation Bangladesh 1971 Genocide Liberation
Bangladesh 1971 Genocide Archer Blood telegram 1971 Genocide Liberation Bangladesh 1971 Genocide Liberation
Bangladesh 1971 Genocide Archer Blood telegram 1971 Genocide Liberation Bangladesh 1971 Genocide Liberation
Bangladesh 1971 Genocide Archer Blood telegram 1971 Genocide Liberation Bangladesh 1971 Genocide Liberation
Bangladesh 1971 Genocide Archer Blood telegram 1971 Genocide Liberation Bangladesh 1971 Genocide Liberation