"Yahya did manage to convince Kissinger that he was an idiot. “Yahya is no genius,” Kissinger later told Nixon, forsaking the president’s sentimental fondness for the man. Soon after his return to Washington, Kissinger said scornfully, “it is my impression that Yahya and his group would never win any prizes for high IQs or for the subtlety of their political comprehension. They are loyal, blunt soldiers, but I think they have a real intellectual problem in understanding why East Pakistan should not be part of West Pakistan.” He later recalled that “fundamentally he [Yahya] was oblivious to his perils and unprepared to face necessities. He and his colleagues did not feel that India was planning war; if so, they were convinced that they would win. When I asked as tactfully as I could about the Indian advantage in numbers and equipment, Yahya and his colleagues answered with bravado about the historic superiority of Moslem fighters.” At a dinner—where Kissinger started showily complaining of a stomachache—Yahya bellowed, “Everyone calls me a dictator.” He went around the table asking all the guests, Pakistanis and Americans, “Am I a dictator?” Everyone tactfully said that he was not, until he came to Kissinger. “I don’t know, Mr. President,” replied Kissinger, “except that for a dictator you run a lousy election.”"