The Road to Afghanistan - George Washington University

about their sources of information and secrets from their own organizations. But whywould our intelligence operatives be so concerned about uncovering CIA secrets?Valery Samunin:Allow me to continue. Sometime later, one of the most highly respected Sovietpsychologists was asked to compile a political portrait of Amin. The scholar familiarizedhimself with the materials provided to him and concluded that Amin was not the person hepretended to be. This indicated to Soviet intelligence leaders that Amin was most probablyan American agent. Very thorough studies were conducted in the USSR and Bulgariainvolving Assadullah Sarwari and his friends, the runaway ministers. Not only foreignintelligence operatives, but also analysts, psychologists, medical researchers, linguists, andexperts—dozens of them—participated in that work. They scrupulously collected all theinformation known to Sarwari and the ministers about the configuration of forces withinthe PDPA. One theme appeared repeatedly—Amin was an agent of the CIA.However, I have one more, and perhaps the most compelling, argument. Thisinvolves a notebook that was taken from Hafizullah Amin. I leafed through it myself on theday after his murder. Then I was instructed to translate into Russian all of the notes thatthe notebook contained—names of different people, telephone numbers, and some otherthings. On one page I read a note written by Amin; it said “CIA,” and was followed by a U.S.telephone number.Vladimir Snegiryov:724