The Road to Afghanistan - George Washington University

This time, General Zaplatin headed the group of inspectors. His wife, seeing him off, was notparticularly emotional and only asked him to return by her birthday at the end of May. He gave hera kiss, told her not to worry, and went to the airport. Upon arrival in Potsdam, the commander ofthe division who was meeting the inspectors at the airport told him, “Comrade General, a memberof the Military Council of the Group of Soviet Forces asked you to get in touch with himimmediately.”Zaplatin called his colleague from the commander’s office.“What happened?” “Vasily Petrovich, do you have your personal belongings with you?”“Yes, I do,” responded Zaplatin.“Go back to the airport immediately. A plane is waiting to take you back to Moscow.”General Zaplatin, who knew better than to be surprised by such changes in plans,transferred leadership over the inspection to a colleague and flew back to Moscow. There he wastold, “Your task is to urgently visit Epishev at the main political directorate of the armed forces.”General Epishev headed the main political directorate of the Soviet Union’s armed forces.He handled the armed forces as a representative of the CPSU Central Committee in that position,and Zaplatin had rarely seen him before that day.Epishev asked him, “Did you know that a revolution happened in Afghanistan?” Withoutwaiting for a response, he continued: “People of the Democratic Party overthrew the formerregime and proclaimed a progressive course of development for the country. As you know, we doour best to support progressive forces. This is our international duty. The Afghans have requestedthat we send an adviser to the head of the political directorate of their armed forces. Certainly,they do not have a military-political directorate there. Everything must be built from scratch. I138