WASHINGTON, Dec. 16 (AP) —Ronald L. Ziegler, the White House press secretary, had sharp immediate response when asked about a letter that Mrs. Gandhi sent Mr. Nixon contending that the war could have been avoided if the United States and other countries had used their influence to release Sheik Mujibur Rahman.

“The way you avoid war,” he said, “is by not starting up tanks and putting bullets into rifles.”

He said the United States had taken extensive diplomatic steps to avert the fighting and repeated: “The way you avoid war is not to deploy war equipment and war forces with the objective of military action and military confrontation.”