The Road to Afghanistan - George Washington University

deadly bites to each other.’” Speaking about Amin, Amstutz unexpectedly used aundiplomatic expression: “I consider his chances of dying in his own bed due to old ageequal to zero.”History would prove the American diplomat’s prediction correct.In late September, Amstutz notified Washington of some signals originating fromAmin’s entourage that suggested Amin’s desire, “to improve relations with the UnitedStates government.” Washington’s special services’ sources informed the capital of thesame.American analysts working for the CIA, as well as other major U.S. intelligenceagencies, prepared a secret memorandum in which they attempted to predict futuredevelopments in the Middle East and possible steps the Soviet Union might take. Despitethe memo’s cautious tone and some vagueness in the document’s wording, it indicateddirectly that, “Soviet military presence would increase in the very near future.” However,the next sentence of the same report somewhat contradicted that statement: “We don’t seeany signs that the Soviets are preparing ground forces for a large-scale intervention inAfghanistan.”Had Soviet generals intercepted the report, they would have been puzzled. On the onehand, it warned that the Soviets had already brought in a battalion of paratroopers andpositioned it at the Bagram Airbase, and authorized their military helicopter and tankcrews to participate in military actions. On the other hand, the document stated that, “Wedon’t believe that Moscow will use its troops to fight the rebels.” Then the documentassumed that the leaders of the USSR were, “very well aware of the endless military andpolitical complications that Afghanistan holds in store for them in case of a large-scale591