The Road to Afghanistan - George Washington University

authority. They figured that the most likely figure behind Safronchuk was Andropovhimself. What was interesting was that Andropov’s actual envoy, B. S. Ivanov, remainedunrecognized as such by the Americans at the time.The message of the cables sent from the U.S. embassy in Kabul to Washington wasthat Safronchuk could become the “behind-the-curtain director” of the drama of regimechange, which “most probably would include the departure, or even better, the death, ofAmin.”It is important to mention that the Americans, although understaffed and under a lotof pressure from Afghan special services, were quite precise in their analyses of thesituation in the summer of 1979. In particular, they predicted the forthcoming rapidchanges in Afghan power structures.“The Russians are very concerned by the worsening of the situation in Afghanistan,knowing that the regime has very little support and is losing control over the situation inthe country,” one of the cables reported. “Amin, who is unilaterally in charge of thegovernment, is making miscalculations. Moscow thinks that a new, strong prime minister,who is not involved in current politics, is needed. According to the source, Safronchuk istasked to see to it that Amin is replaced. The source says that ‘now we witness theconcluding chapter of the activities of this government, and August is going to be hot. I donot have the weather in mind.’”According to some unconfirmed information, the “anonymous source” feedingAmericans fables about Safronchuk was the German Democratic Republic ambassador toKabul, Hermann Schweisau. It is also possible that a behind-the-scenes gambit of thespecial services was taking place. However, there is another possible scenario—the East424