Top Secret Special File To the CC CPSU The situation in Afghanistan following the events of September 13-16 of this year as the result of which Taraki was removed from power and then physically destroyed remains extremely complicated In the e orts to strengthen Amin in power along with such super cial gestures like the beginning of the reworking of the draft of the constitution and the liberation of some of the people who had been arrested earlier in fact the scale of repressions in the Party army state apparat and civic organizations has According to infonnation which we have at the present time the execution of a group of Politburo members Zerai Misak who are subject to ctitious accusations of anti Party and counter revolutionary activity is planned At the plenum of the CC PDPA which took place recently Amin introduced into the ruling organs of the Party people who are more devoted to him including a number of his Recently there have been noted signs of the fact that the new leadership of Afghanistan intends to conduct a more balanced policy in relation to the Western powers It is blown in particular that representatives of the USA on the basis of their contacts with the Afghans are coming to a conclusion about the possibility of a change In the political line of Afghanistan In a direction which IS pleasing to Washington Taking account of this and starting from the necessity of doing everything possible not to allow the victory of counter-revolution in Afghanistan or the political reorientation of H Amin towards the West it is considered expedient to how to the following line 1 Continue to work actively with Amin and overall with the current leadership of the the PDPA and the BRA not giving Amin grounds to believe that we don t trust him and don t wish to deal with him Use the contacts with Amin to assert appropriate in uence and simultaneously to further expose his true Upon the availability of facts bearing witness to the beginning of a turn by H Amin in an anti-Soviet direction introduce supplemental proposals about measures from our side A Gromyko Iu Andropov D Ustinov B Ponomarev October 29 1979 As cited in Liokhovs i AA The Tragedy and Velour ofthe Afghani Moscow GPI Iskon 1995 p I02 This document is from the holdings of The National Security Archive Suite 701 Gelman Library The George Washington University 2130 H Street NW Washington D C 20037 Phone 202 994-7000 Fax 202 994-7005 nsarchiv@gwu edu