The Road to Afghanistan - George Washington University

The American intelligence operatives in Kabul kept a very low profile after therevolution. Certainly the CIA had its agents, possibly all the way up to the PDPA leadership.However, the CIA operatives were very restrained when dealing with the Soviets, beingfully aware of the potential hazards of recruiting Soviet citizens.Starostin remembered only one case of American recruitment of a Soviet, registeredseveral years ago, during his tenure at the Center. At that time, a very disturbed andfrightened young Azeri interpreter working with a group of Soviet military specialists cameto the consular section of the Soviet Embassy in Kabul. He claimed that CIA agents had triedto recruit him. At that time, Yuri Surnin, the acting deputy chief of Soviet intelligence inAfghanistan, listened to the interpreter’s claims attentively and concluded that the man’sperceptions were adequate and he presented a realistic assessment of the situation. Heunderstood that the Americans really intended to recruit a Soviet officer who could proveuseful to them in the future. He anticipated that the American agents would soon make anoffer to the interpreter. Sensing a valuable opportunity, Surnin had a particularly cordialconversation with the young man and secured his agreement to cooperate with Sovietintelligence.In the 1970s, CIA operatives made frequent attempts to recruit Soviet citizens livingabroad. As a result, Kabul’s KGB group developed operation “Kukish.” * The goal of theoperation was to embarrass their American counterparts and to demonstrate thesuperiority of their intelligence services. The approach included planting undercoveragents to act like recruitment prospects in order to later expose CIA advances.* Word for a distinctly Russian gesture of contempt, generally accompanying refusal to comply with a request,consisting of extending clenched fist with thumb placed between index and middle fingers225