The Road to Afghanistan - George Washington University

Vladimir Alexandrovich was accustomed to using those morning walks to thoroughly planhis workday, to identify the most important and urgent matters that he had to address first thingin the morning. That morning, his thoughts were far from the charm of spring in Moscow’ssuburbs. Afghanistan had burst into the thoughts of the chief of Foreign Intelligence. The coup thathad begun just two days ago was already being called a revolution. Those who came to power as aresult of the coup d’etat were labeled in KGB files as agents or “trusted contacts.” They wereleaders of the semi-underground People’s Democratic Party. They would receive money from aspecial account of the Central Committee of the CPSU that was allocated to support leftist forcesthroughout the world. Kryuchkov’s people met with them secretly at safe houses. They tried toconvince them against acting rashly or emotionally, and to avoid—at least for the moment—takingany actions against the legal authorities. Unfortunately, the revolutionaries hadn’t listened.President Daoud had been killed. His regime was overthrown. Now it was necessary to figure outhow to sort through the recent developments.There were many questions. What were the true goals of the revolutionaries who had sorapidly seized power in Kabul? Who were their supporters? Did they have a program of action,and what was it? What would be the reaction to Afghan events in the West? Would they suspectMoscow’s involvement in the coup? How should Moscow react to the murder of a lawful president,as well as his family and ministers, many of whom were friends to the Soviet Union? Finally, whatshould the KGB Residency in Kabul do in this new situation? How should it develop relations withpeople who, as of yesterday, were secret agents collaborating with Soviet operatives underpseudonyms and now found themselves occupying the highest positions in the state?It was obvious that Kryuchkov needed Andropov’s advice. Firstly, it was important tounderstand the Central Committee’s attitude toward what had transpired in Afghanistan. That108