Yahya Khan

"Tikka Khan was a soldier doing a soldier’s job. He went to East Pakistan with precise orders and came back by precise orders. He did what he was ordered to do, though he wasn’t always in agree­ment, and I picked him because I know he’ll follow my orders with the same discipline. And he won’t try to stick his nose in politics. I can’t destroy the whole army, and anyway his bad reputation for the events in Dacca is exaggerated. There’s only one man really respon­sible for those events—Yahya Khan. Both he and his advisers were so drunk with power and corruption they’d even forgotten the honor of the army. They thought of nothing but acquiring beautiful cars, building beautiful homes, making friends with bankers, and sending money abroad. Yahya Khan wasn’t interested in the government of the country, he was interested in power for its own sake and nothing else. What can you say of a leader who starts drinking as soon as he wakes up and doesn’t stop until he goes to bed? You’ve no idea how painful it was to deal with him. He was really Jack the Ripper."

"Yahya Khan claimed to be a descendant of Nadir Shah . Robert Payne commented : “ That Nadir Shah was inhumanely cruel and rapacious , a looter and murderer on a prodigious scale , was not a matter which gave him much concern . ”"