More on Archer Blood, last US Consul Gen. in Dhaka : He also penned 'The Cruel Birth of Bangladesh: Memoirs of an American Diplomat'

(first part of this blog piece was posted on April 4, 2021)

 Extract from the book : 

“The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide,” Gary J. Bass,

"For Pakistan, the crisis of 1971 is mourned as a supreme national trauma: not just the loss of one of the country’s two wings and the majority of its population, but a heightening of a truncated state’s dread of the much larger and stronger Indian enemy. 

Snap: Twitter SouthAsia71

And the bloodletting of 1971 marks an important chapter of a U.S. embrace of military dictators at their worst. Although American popular memory about Pakistan tends to start in September 2001, it was Nixon’s embrace of Yahya that helped to define a U.S. relationship with Pakistan based overwhelmingly on the military, even in its most repugnant hour. 

Nixon and Kissinger set the stage for an ongoing decimation of Pakistan’s democratic opposition, giving time and space to Islamicize the country more and more. This pattern of U.S. antidemocratic engagement— with origins going back far beyond Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s most recent U.S.-backed military dictator—has helped convince so many Pakistanis that the United States coldly pursues its own realpolitik interests and cares nothing for them".

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Born on March 20, 1923, Archer Kent Blood expired on September 3, 2004)

Although Blood was scheduled for another 18-month stint in Dhaka, his career was short lived. The US officials later in 1972 admitted that they didn't believe the magnitude of the killings, labeling the telegram alarmist. The diplomat's career was greatly marred by the telegram and it is a matter of fact both his missives and his career are now being studied in US academia and also in the media. Blood was posted to the State Department's personnel office and was never made an ambassador again.

Christopher Hitchens, in his book "The Trial of Henry Kissinger," (2001) described the cable as "the most public and the most strongly worded demarche, from State Department servants to the State Department, that has ever been recorded."

In their cable, Blood and his fellow signatories charged: "Our government has failed to denounce the suppression of democracy. 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. 

Our government has evidenced what many will consider moral bankruptcy, ironically at a time when the U.S.S.R. sent President Yahya Khan a message defending democracy. . . ."

In May 2005, Archer Blood was posthumously awarded the Outstanding Services Award by the Bangladeshi-American Foundation. His son, Peter Blood, accepted the award on behalf of the family. This was followed on December 13, 2005, by the dedication of the American Center Library, U.S. Embassy Dhaka, in the name of Archer K. Blood. Mrs. Margaret Blood and her children, Shireen Updegraff and Peter Blood also attended. 

Cable extracts:

The Blood Telegram (April 6, 1971), sent via the State Department's Dissent Channel, was seen as the most strongly worded expression of dissent in the history of the U.S. Foreign Service.[4][5] It was signed by 20 members of the diplomatic staff.[2] The telegram stated:

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 Pak[istan] dominated government and to lessen any deservedly negative international public relations impact against them. 

Our government has evidenced what many will consider moral bankruptcy,... 

But we have chosen not to intervene, even morally, on the grounds that the Awami conflict, in which unfortunately the overworked term genocide is applicable, is purely an internal matter of a sovereign state. Private Americans have expressed disgust. We, as professional civil servants, express our dissent with current policy and fervently hope that our true and lasting interests here can be defined and our policies redirected in order to salvage our nation's position as a moral leader of the free world.

— U.S. Consulate (Dacca) Cable, Dissent from U.S. Policy Toward East Pakistan, April 6, 1971, Confidential, 5 pp. Includes Signatures from the Department of State. Source: RG 59, SN 70-73 Pol and Def. From: Pol Pak-U.S. To: Pol 17-1 Pak-U.S. Box 2535[6]

In an earlier telegram (March 27, 1971), Archer Blood wrote about American observations at Dhaka under the subject heading "Selective genocide":

1. Here in Decca we are mute and horrified witnesses to a reign of terror by the Pak[istani] Military. Evidence continues to mount that the MLA authorities have list of AWAMI League supporters whom they are systematically eliminating by seeking them out in their homes and shooting them down

2. Among those marked for extinction in addition to the A.L. hierarchy are student leaders and university faculty. In this second category we have reports that Fazlur Rahman head of the philosophy department and a Hindu, M. Abedin, head of the department of history, have been killed. Razzak of the political science department is rumored dead. Also on the list are the bulk of MNA's elect and number of MPA's.

3. Moreover, with the support of the Pak[istani] Military. non-Bengali Muslims are systematically attacking poor people's quarters and murdering Bengalis and Hindus.

— U.S. Consulate (Dacca) Cable, Selective genocide, March 27, 1971[7]

(Wikipedia)