The Road to Afghanistan - George Washington University

in Kabul, Erik Nekrasov, who arrived there in the 1960s, took active measures to free thosewho remained alive. Some of the former agents returned home, but there were also thosewho remained in Afghanistan after being released from prison.In the 1960s, the Soviet Union started a large-scale cooperation with its southernneighbor. Americans, who were not willing to sacrifice their influence in Afghanistan to theSoviets, also offered a number of projects to Kabul. For example, they began building anexpensive irrigation complex in Helmand, but it soon became clear that a chunk of themoney that was made available for this project had been embezzled by Afghan bureaucrats.Americans who could have prevented the theft had received bribes. A scandalous trial tookplace, resulting in one of the Afghan bureaucrats being sentenced to capital punishment.Such a sentence—exceptional at the time—shocked the general public.The Soviet Union, during the same years, successfully completed the construction ofan agrarian complex in Jalalabad and built a hydroelectric power plant in Naglu. Sovietengineers built Kabul Polytechnic Institute, which was soon staffed by highly qualifiedfaculty and interpreters. At the same time, a number of less significant sites wereconstructed.A devastating drought occurred in Afghanistan in 1971. At the time, the SovietUnion, which had been importing grain from abroad, sent a substantial amount of wheat toAfghanistan. Then the Soviets learned that Afghan bureaucrats had sold that wheat insteadof distributing it to the population for free, as was initially stipulated in the agreement.Americans were smarter in this respect. They packaged their wheat in bags that werelabeled USAID and tasked their volunteers to hand out the grain.221