From Alexander Lyakhovsky The Tragedy and Valor of Afghan GPI Iskon Moscow 1995 pp 109 112 Alexander General General Staff of the Russian Army During the war in Afghanistan served as assistant to Commander of Operative Group of the USSR Defense Ministry in Afghanistan General V I Varennikov On December 8 1979 a meeting was held in L l Brezhnev s private of ce which was attended by the narrow circle of the CC CPSU Politburo members Yu Andropov A Gromyko M Suslov and D Ustinov They took a long time discussing the present situation in Afghanistan and around it considered all the pros and contras of introducing the Soviet troops in the area Yu Andropov and D Ustinov cited the reasons justifying the necessity of such step such as the efforts undertaken by the CIA of the USA US resident in Ankara Paul Henze for creating a new Great Ottoman Empire which would have included the Southern republics of the the absence of a reliable air defense system in the South so that in the case of stationing of the American missiles of the Pershing type in Afghanistan they would threaten many vital Soviet objects including the space center Baikonur the danger that the Afghan uranium deposits could be used by Pakistan and Iraq for building nuclear weapons possible establishment of opposition regimes in the Northern areas of Afghanistan and annexation of that region by Pakistanthe meeting they have decided as a preliminary plan to develop two options 1 to remove H Arnin by the hands of KGB special agents and to put Babrak Karinal in his place 2 to send some number of Soviet troops on the territory of Afghanistan for the same purposes On December 10 1979 the Defense Minister of the USSR D F Ustinov summoned Chief of General Staff N V Ogarkov and informed him that the Politburo had reached a preliminary decision of a temporary introduction of the Soviet troops into Afghanistan and ordered him to prepare approximately 75 to 80 thousand people N V Ogarkov was surprised and outraged by such a decision and said that 75 thousand would not be able to stabilize the situation and that he was against the introduction of troops calling it reckless The Minister of Defense cut him off Are you going to teach the Politburo Your only duty is to carry out the orders On the same day Nikolai Vasilievich Ogarkov was summoned to L Brezhnev s office where the so-called small Politburo Yu Andropov A Gromyko and D Ustinov was in session The Chief of General Staff once again tried to convince those who were present that the Afghan problem should be decided by the political means instead of relying on using force He cited the traditions of the Afghan people who never tolerated foreigners on their soil warned them about the possible involvement of our troops in military operations but everything was in vain However in the end of the conversation they tentatively determined that for the time being they would not make the final decision on the immediate military assistance but in any case the troops should start preparing In the evening D Ustinov gathered the Ministry of Defense Collegium and informed the narrow circle of of cials from among the highest military leadership that possibly in the near future the decision would be made to use the Soviet troops in Afghanistan and that they had to start preparing the appropriate forces For this purpose Directive 312 12 00133 was sent to the troops Beginning from December 10 D F Ustinov started giving oral instructions to the Chief of General Staff regarding formation of a new Army in the Turkestan military district On the basis of these instructions selective mobilization of troops was carried out and airborne and other military units were transferred to the Turkestan military district All arrangements were carried out in secret and noted on the maps Apparently the nal step was made after they received the report from the KGB representative General-Lieutenant B Ivanov stationed in Kabul with his evaluation of the situation in Afghanistan This report was on the table of the Defense Minister at the moment when he was leaving for the CC CPSU Politburo meeting in the morning of December 12 General-Major V P Zaplatin who was at that time adviser to the Chief of Political Administration of the Afghan army testi ed about it The day before the USSR Defense Minister summoned him to Moscow to report on the situation as the man with the most thorough knowledge of the state of affairs in the army of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan since principal military adviser S Magornetov who had just arrived in Afghanistan did not fully grasp the Afghan situation yet However when the General expressed his disagreement with the assessments of the Afghan Army provided by our special services and presented his arguments to the effect that they had dramatized the situation developing in Afghanistan excessively D F Ustinov showed him a coded telegram signed by the KGB representative and said You cannot come to an agreement there but we need to make a decision here On December 12 at the session of the CC CPSU Politburo or rather its elite on the initiative of Yu V Andropov D F Ustinov and A A Gromyko the final decision was made introduce Soviet troops into Afghanistan although in the interest of secrecy it was called the measures The Soviet leaders believed that that step was intended to promote the interests of strengthening the state and pursued no other goals The protocol of that session handwritten by K U Chernenko which for a longtime was super secret was not shown to anybody not even those among the highest leadership and was kept in a special safe survived in a special folder of the CC CPSU This document to a large extent clari es who were the initiator and executor of the introduction of Soviet troops into Afghanistan The protocol was signed by all the CC CPSU Politburo members who were present at the session In those times nobody spoke against Every Politburo member knew how a disagreement with the Opinion of General Secretary would be received and therefore all proposals were received with unanimous approval The principle of collective cover-up ruled the day It is signi cant that A N Kosygin whose position on this issue was negative did not attend the session In the document the letter signi ed Afghanistan and the word measures signified the introduction of Soviet troops into that country Therefore all the false rumors and inconsistencies regarding who was responsible for making the decision to introduce troops into Afghanistan have been removed The coded telegrams coming from Afghanistan looked as if they provided con rmation that the steps undertaken by the USSR leadership in regards to Afghanistan were the right ones There was no Decree of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet on the issue of the introduction of troops All orders were given orally That was justi ed by the need to ensure secrecy and the need to confuse H Amin In those times such actions were possible as a result of the existing practice of making important political decisions in reality after their adoption by the CC CPSU Politburo the highest organ of the ruling party they were for the main part simply formally approved by the state organs and were announced to the people Therefore there is every reason to believe that if that issue was raised at the Supreme Soviet it would have been decided unanimously positively Because that was the era of uni ed thinking and the strict system of hierarchy created by the party nomenclature did not allow even one step outside the line determined by the CC CPSU Politburo the people who occupied the key posts in the government were under the total control of that system Translated by Svetlana Savranskaya The National Security Archive 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