-r I I Nobel Symposium 95 The Intervention in Afghanistan and the Fall of D tente Lysebu September 17-20 1995 Transcribed by Svetlana Savranskaya Edited by David A Welch and Odd Ame Westad The Norwegian Nobel Institute Oslo 1996 SESSION I am sure that their actions would have been the same There would have been the same involvement the same invasion There would have been the same support for the regime especially taking into account the fact that we had treaties with that country-four treaties 1921 1931 1973 and 197 plus the insistent requests of the leadership of the country Therefore our involvement was a good thing in terms of providing assistance to the people and to the state This is all I wanted to add HESTAD Thank you very much Valentin I have one question for your side just to follow up on what you have been saying It is a very difficult question for you or for anyone from the Russian side to answer but I still think we need to get it on the table as early as possible In this early part of the Soviet involvement with Afghanistan after the Saur revolution after April 1973-what in your opinion was the prime factor behind that involvement ideology which we heard something about earlier on or strategy I know it is very hard to separate the two but just in order to get the discussion about motivations going I wanted to ask that question of the Russian side Anatoly DOBRYNIN Well this is a very difficult question but it is the central issue of course I cannot give you the definitive answer which would cover all of our involvement from the beginning to the end The answer would have to be very nuanced because much hinges upon the state of mind of the Soviet leadership I could judge this a little bit from behind the scenes but still it is a complex question What the General said is correct We had treaties so we had to help But mainly I think ideology was the key factor We did not 13 Sssmou1- SenEMsER1a Mosumo specifically mention it as the number one motivation we did not proclaim it But subconsciously still the driving factor was ideological Recall what Karen said Who handled this situation at cu end It was first of all the International Department of the Central Committee of the Party Who were the main advisers sent from Moscow half a year later They were mostly Party advisers and organizers We sent military and security people but to a lesser extent and mostly a1 a later stage In the beginning it was mostly the Party who gave them advice on how to handle the situation-not exactly on how to organize a party but on how to reduce the disagreements among them and to promote unity So without proclaiming that ideology was the priority we acted in a way that was consistent with that interpretation Mr Brezhnev came close to proclaiming this by the way He did say that our goal was to help the liberation movement and he said that our policy toward Afghanistan had nothing to do with d tente There was a clash between our view and the American View on this You said that our activities in Afghanistan contradicted d tente and Brezhnev insisted that they did not As a matter of fact he made this shortly after the coup d' tat He made a special statement again defending our thesis that liberation movements could always rely on the Soviet Union to support them and that this had nothing to do with d tente or our relations with the West Three or four months later President Carter made a statement insisting that we had to choose between cooperation and confrontation Zbig was saying exactly the same thing after the April coup He said Aha This is the beginning of the grand design of the Soviet Union to penetrate in the territory of the oil rich countries He immediately began looking for some sort of grand design As far as I could understand there was no design in 4 and un-u quid ulna Ul-d un-u huni u-uu bun h-nu inn Land Ln-u h uJ unu- SESSION BER 18 Moswmo Russia None at all There was a simple contradiction between our two points of view We considered it a local issue in which the United states had no concern you saw it in geostrategic terms This was my overwhelming impression when the intervention happened what was the reaction from your side Your president spoke with the Pakistanis and then zbig reported to the National Security Council that there was a threat to Iran and Pakistan from the Soviet Union Do you remember this He talked about the threat of an axis What axis did he have in mind On one side was the United States Saudi Arabia China Pakistan and I guess Iran too On the other side was a Soviet-Afghan Indian axis Nothing of the kind ever came to our minds My colleagues here from the Russian military intelligence and diplomatic services can attest to this Never in any papers or any discussions did we have any idea of such an axis I don't want to blame anyone I simply want to mention our differing understandings of events From the beginning-from the coup until the intervention our two governments had a completely different perspective on events We saw things in a completely different way In the beginning our chief idea was to help the revolution and the ideological motivation prevailed Of course we had strategic considerations in mind to some extent because all of this took place on our southern border We must see this against the background of Soviet-American relations They were bad There was a lull when we were preparing for the summit meeting but then after the summit came the Cuban brigade and so forth l do not want to enumerate the conflicts but relations were very bad In the Soviet Union we felt that the situation inside Afghanistan was very difficult It was unstable We became frustrated i5 SESSION I with the struggle between Taraki and Amin and we tried to do our best to bring them together Nothing that we did helped We began to think more and more about what we oculd do to stabilize the situation We were not prepared to be involved militarily but gradually we began to think about whether that might be necessary This is the most importamt point I would like to make When we discuss this later I would like to make sure that it very clear Yes we would help with the Afghan military yes we would help with sanitation yes we would give economic assistance yes we would provide armaments but no we woul not send troops We did not begin to think seriously about that until much later It was not our intention early on We made a very clear and deliberate choice at that time we did not want to repeat our experience in Czechoslovakia or the American experience in Vietnam We did not speak in terms of those events specifically but nevertheless that was the idea From the spring until December we sent more and mo I 1'1 military assistance but still we were not prepared to intervene militarily Only in December did we entertain that option But I think we will have time to discuss this in detail later i WESTAD We will come back to that last point Anatoly certainly That was very useful Among the many points that you made and it is one i that you make in your newly-published book the one that stood out in my mind is how well Soviet policy in Afghanistan fit into the concept that some Americans had-Dr Brzezinski in particular-of Soviet strategic aims When the Saur reVolution came along in early 1978 it fit into a preconceived pattern of Soviet intentions in the region that shaped i American thinking Bill 16 SESSION must take into account the link between strategic and ideological factors That is all Thank you very much Valentin Anatoly before you take over could I redirect part of my first question to you my question about the Herat events and the changes that took place Were you involved in this at all in Washington DOBRYNIN In what NESTED In the discussions about Soviet-Afghan relations in the spring of 1979 when discussion began about introducing Soviet troops DOBRYNIN I will answer your question But let me say first that I was a little bit surprised by Bill's statement We are not here to repeat doqmas of the Cold War from your side and ours I know them quite well you know them I am sure But I am trying to tell you how we really thought There was no discussion in the Kremlin about any grand design None There was no such discussion in the pressnwell the press did not matter-nor in the Politburo the Foreign Ministry or the Central Committee I do not know about the military but I am sure they did not discuss it either There was no such discussion anywhere I spoke privately with Brezhnev Gromyko and Andropov and there was never a single word about it On the contrary even in one of the meetings of the Politburo Brezhnev asked me innatoly where is the Arc of Crisis ' I read somewhere about this in something from TASS Brzezinski was talking about it What is this all about at the very beginning during the coup not a single person in our government was 22 SESSION thinking about any grand design In fact we had no plan of any kind until the very end But we will deal with that later In March 1979 when there was the decisive discussion Taraki and Amin asked us to send troops What happened in that discussion Everyone agreed that it was important not to lose Afghanistan but not a single person mentioned introducing troops No one spoke of any grand design to capture the Middle East Why not One of the reasons was no one wanted to spoil relations with the United States But there were many other things Nobody was thinking in terms of Lenin s theory or Carter's theory or Brzezinski's theory there was unanimous agreement that we should not send troops Please accept this as a fact WESTAD Ilya Gaiduk please ILYA GAIDUK Thank you I have a question for Karen Nersesovich He said that Moscow had not immediately extend recognition to the new regime after the April revolution and that there was hesitation a lack of information On the American side we constantly hear this idea of a grand design of a master plan to increase Soviet influence in the world Maybe my question somewhat violates the chronological scheme of our discussion but I am interested in knowing what were the origins of the inter-party relationship between the PDPA and Moscow How did Moscow see role before it came to power Was there any discussion about the relationship in case the PDPA or one of its factions came to power Thank you Ilya Karen is already on my list a little further down so we will get to that point in a moment But first Mark 23 SesszoN 1 high command was in fact meeting And they were in fact in bunkers as shells were firing over their heads they were not feeling very feisty They were not looking for a fight at all Not only that but what they were relating back to Mr Brzezinski in the course of that meeting was that the military was in total collapse People were defecting left and right and there was no way of pulling together a counter-coup That was the most dramatic single moment that I am aware of in the thing But he was clearly willing and interested in pursuing that it simply turned out not to be possible Again we had not made the kind of preparations that would have been essential to do that The Huyser mission was ambiguous from the very beginning in terms of what he was supposed to do and how he was supposed to do it He certainly was not there to lay the groundwork for a coup Some people wished that he WOuld do that but those were not his instructions NESTED Anatoly I am sorry for holding you so long DOBRYNIN Two brief remarks First about Islamic fundamentalism I would like to testify that in Soviet foreign policy during that period this issue did not really exist an the practical level nobody discussed the issue not in the Politburo and not in the Collegium of the Foreign Ministry later on at that time we really did not think it was a big problem At least I do not remember any single document or a statement or discussion in government circles about fundamentalism Second I would like very briefly to mention for your information two or three events in diplomatic relations between the United States and the Soviet Union on Iran In 1978 of course the Soviet Union was alarmed by the armament which you sent the generals you sent the other 54 SESSION 18 Monmns military personnel you sentmajor buildup Moscow began to worry about what the United States was up to At that time you supporting the Shah but in our minds we were concerned that you were not only supporting the Shah but possibly also engaged in more intriguing things having to do with Afghanistan or our southern borders We did not know exactly but we were a little bit worried That is why Brezhnev wrote a personal letter to Carter which I personally delivered He specifically expressed the worry of the Soviet government about these new developments and asked for an explanation or at least some assurances The next day we received an official response from Cy these were not published communications of course-in which he said that he was authorized by the President to say that there was no specific reason for us to worry and that the United States would reassure us that it was not going to interfere in Iranian domestic affairs Shortly after this your Embassy was seized by the mob and angry demands were heard all over the United States to do something We were thinking that you were really quite right to be upset because your Embassy was seized We expected you would do something But at the same time we were a little bit worried that you would use the situation to intervene militarily I was instructed again to go to Brzezinski quietly and to explain our worries I said that we understood your emotional connection with your hostages and by the way in the Security Council we supported your demand that they should be released It was rather rare case of our making coordinated statements But to Brzezinski I mentioned that we were a little bit worried He reassured me that there was no planning for military intervention One of the reasons why he said was because if there were military intervention 55 SESSION 1 B Mosmno almost certainly all of the hostages would be killed This is one of the reasons why we will not do it he said Of course we continue to study many others options but a large-scale military intervention is out The picture changed in 1980 with Afghanistan I came to Washington from Moscow on January 20 and I had a private meeting with Cy It was off the record we would do this from time to time talk off the record without any mutual obligation We discussed Iran a little bit and we discussed Afghanistan Then he said I Well may I ask you a personal but frank question I said okay go ahead Are you going to interfere with your military troops in Iran or Pakistan I said no He said May I personally he sure that you will not introduce your troops in Iran or in Pakistan Before leaving Moscow I had had a discussion in the Politburo on the situation in Afghanistan-not preparing for these questions because we really did not expect them and nobody even thought about Pakistan or Iran They were completely out of the picture So I said Cy I can tell you that as of two days ago in Moscow there was no intention to intervene militarily in Iran or Pakistan You can relate this information to the President This is my word Thus it is sometimes how the situation changes within the span of two years first we were afraid then you were afraid This is how it goes Thank you very much Anatoly Carol CAROL SAIVETZ I would like to ask our Russian colleagues how much attention they actually gava to Iran given the simultaneity of the disintegration of the situation in Afghanistan and the overthrow of the 55 SESSION really and seriously opposed to it I do not think that the KGB played any outstanding role in this affair WESTAD Before turning to the American side and asking a little bit about what you observed I would like to clear up any remaining questions on the planning and the decision making Specifically I want to turn to Karen and to Anatoly to address the political decisions that were made We heard a great deal now and in great detail for which we are very grateful about how the planning was done stage by stage But what is difficult for an outsider such as myself to understand are the reasons behind the final decision I want to ask both of you your opinion about the most important reason why after all these problematic preliminary decisions that had been made over almost two years in the end the leadership not unanimously but still with such force came down on December 10th it seems now to the decision to invade Anatoly you want to go first DOBRYNIN Well I do not want to make a long analysis probably I will just quote several documents which were not published before but I think I could give you now On September 20th Brezhnev stated rather bluntly in his report to the Politburo end it is a Russian text so I will not translate but will let the translator do it I will speak in Russianr Events moved so fast that we had little opportunity to decide how we could get involved in those events from Moscow Now cur task is to decide what we can do from now on in order to secure our position in Afghanistan and to strengthen our influence in that country It is reasonable to believe that Soviet-Afghan relations will not change significantly as a result 33 SESSION of the recent changes in the situation and will develop in the present direction hmin will be pressured to do this by the current situation and by the difficulties he faces now and will face for quite a long time That notwithstanding we will need to monitor his actions while working with him The work will be extensive and quite complex and sensitive Here is one more interesting telegram in connection with an order our ambassador received to meet with Taraki and Amin and to try to persuade them by any means to show a sense of responsibility for the revolution In the name of saving the revolutionW-this is from the letter to theurlyou must unite and act in accord from a united position That was our Politburo's appeal to them If they refuse to talk with each other then our ambassador was instructed After consulting with Taraki meet with Amin separately and give him the same information I have one more interesting telegram It is a response to another telegram which unfortunately I have not seen and I do not know where it came from This telegram gives instructions It is addressed to Puzanov Pavlosky Ivanov and Gorelov to four leading officials in Kabul It says We cannot work on the assumption that Amin would be arrested by our battalion in Kabul because it would be regarded as a direct interference in the internal affairs of Afghanistan with long-term serious consequences HESTAD Excuse me Anatoly what is the date on that one DOBRYNIN September 13 or 15 I think it is on the 13th 39 SESSION BRUTENTS Is that a response to something else DOBRYNIN Yes it is a response to someIOther request This is the response that was sent 1 did not see the incoming telegram this is the outgoing one Now let us go on Here is one very interesting memo I think it sheds some light on many of our questions here It was written by Andropov and addressed to Brezhnev It exists only in one copy was sent only to him and was hand-written There is no date on that It seems like it was in the beginning of December judging by the text I thought I might just read it to you it is approximately half a page long He is writing to Brezhnev After the coup and the murder of Taraki in September of this year the developments in Afghanistan assumed a character unfavorable for us The situation in the government the army and in the state apparatus is aggravated They are practically disorganized as a result of mass repressions carried out by Amin At the same time we have been receiving information about Amin's behind-the scenes activities which might mean his political reorientation to the West He keeps his contacts with the American charge d'affaires secret from us He promised tribal leaders to distance himself from the Soviet Union and to pursue a neutral policy In closed meetings he attacks Soviet policy and actions of our specialists Our ambassador was practically expelled from Kabul As a result of that there are rumors about disagreements between Amin and Moscow and about a possibility of his anti-Soviet steps in the diplomatic corps in Kabul Those developments had created on the one hand a danger of losing the achievements of the April revolution inside the country and on the other hand a threat to our positions in 9D SESSION Afghanistan Now there is no guarantee that Amin in order to secure his personal power would not turn over to the West An increase of anti-Soviet feelings among the Afghan population has been reported This is a characteristic of the situation that developed by the beginning of December 1979 Then in the second paragraph he writes Recently a group of Afghan communists who are now residing abroad contacted us In the process of consultations with Babrak Karmal and Sarwari we found out they informed us officially-that they had worked out a plan for moving against Amin and for forming new state and party organs However Amin began mass arrests of the politically unreliable Five hundred people were arrested and three hundred of them were killed In these circumstances Babrak Karmal and Sarwari without changing their plans for an uprising appealed to us for assistance including military assistance if needed We have two battalions stationed in Kabul so we can provide certain assistance if there is a need However just for an emergency for extreme circumstances we need to have a group of forces stationed along the border If such an operation is carried out it would allow us to solve the question of defending the achievements of the April revolution resurrecting the Leninist principles of state and party building in the Afghan leadership and strengthening our positions in that country This is a memo for a discussion I do not know Brezhnev's reaction to it but judging by the further developments it is quite clear I would like to add to what General Varennikov said On December 8 there was a meeting in Brezhnev's office of the threeW not the fourt on Afghanistan Now I will be reading in English In their argument for a military intervention in case Afghanistan is lost Ustinov and AndrOpov cited dangers to the southern borders of the Soviet Union and a 91 SESSION possibility of American short-range missiles being deployed in Afghanistan and aimed at strategic objectives in Kazakhstan Siberia and other places Then came the meeting of December 12 General Varennikov described everything in detail so I do not need to repeat it I would like to point out one more thing in the last month or month and a half before the invasion the American factor was not constantly present in our so-called deliberations In general if you look at the situation in Afghanistan we did not have any government-to- government channels to discuss developments in Afghanistan with the Americans I am not speaking about the military side or about the intelligence side I am speaking of the diplomatic level There was nothing like this at all I can say that only at the very last moment in December this question emerged on the diplomatic level and only in connection with the NATO decision to deploy INF in Europe and it was formulated with the worry in the back of our minds that there might be bases in Afghanistan We thought that if Afghanistan was lost then as they say the vacuum would be filled by the Americans But overall I would say the American factor did not play that big a role until the very end I am speaking about the political discussions in the Politburo The exception is the discussion of Amin's possible turn to the West that has already been noted here There were no other discussions Even if you look at the Politburo decisions on the introduction of troops that have been published and that we have here it is very interesting to note that America is almost never mentioned in any documents I There are two possible explanations for this One is that the Politburo still believed that they would be able to salvage their 91 SESSION relations with the Americans at some level Our relations at the end of the Carter administration were unfortunately bad Both sides share the blame equally but there still was some hope However the final decision with regard to the United States was the following The risk of inaction was at least as great as the risk of action That is as far as the American factor was concerned In other words what was at stake in Afghanistan was worth the risk There was one more overall discussion on January 20 where Carter was mentioned among other things but the record of that discussion says Even though the Carter administration organizes a big campaign on the world scale against us nonetheless in our countermeasures against America we should not allow Afghanistan to affect the wide range of issues in which we are involved together with the Americans That was put into the decision It was the last time it was said in the hope that something could haVe been repaired in the relationship It was an internal document and the U S government's actions were characterized in it very negatively That document is very characteristic of our state of mind In all subsequent decisions in 1980 we never returned to that issue again Moreover we became very harsh in our line with regard to Afghanistan In fact it was written in one of the decisions that all attempts to negotiate a settlement on Afghanistan with the Americans were futile and hopeless And then the events developed following their own logic There was a campaign against us in your country We were trying to defend ourselves-T mean the political side of course So this was the way the events developed And I agree with the General the decision to introduce troops was very painful for us it was preceded by a lot of deliberations difficult for both the political and the military sides and foreign policy considerations played a big 93 SESSION role Unfortunately it all developed in such a way that by the beginning of 1980 we had nothing in common You know the reasons for that situation Let me correct you a little about the SALT treaty It was different from what has been said her First we had the splashW-the summit the signing the hugs By the way when they were hugging each other I was standing right behind them Gromyko was also standing there and Grechko Grechko asked him BRUTENTS Ustinov DOBRXHIN Ustinov that's right Ustinov asked Gromyko What do you think Will they kiss each other Laughter Gromyko responded '1 think they will Ustinov said No they will not Laughter But it turned out that Gromyko knew the state of mind of both leaders better They did kiss after all It was very unexpected for everybody But after those tragic events of November and December our relations became very bad You know our current assessment of the situation in Afghanistan very well We discussed it in our Parliament recently We can practice autoflagellation now history has passed its judgment and we are not going to dispute it But still it would be nice to analyze what happened day by day chronologically and to find out what day to-day considerations rather than grand plans on the global scale- grand designsW were entertained by the two sides the concrete issues that both sides dealt with month by month The last thing I would like to mention is this One of you said something about the timetable I was in Moscow in January I was in the 94 F-II f-Il f-I f-I f1 1 SESSION hospital I left on January 20 As always I met with Brezhnev Every time I came to Moscow I used to meet with Brezhnev so that he could give some instructions on how I should conduct myself in the United States Gromyko joined us He was laconic He said Be careful and advise us how to be careful how to prevent Carter from getting us both into a lot of trouble He is behaving like an elephant in a china shop now ' That is what Gromyko said I told Brezhnev what all this might mean for our relations I understood that it might lead to a total disruption of our relations But Brezhnev said to me Do not worry Anatoly we will end this war in three or four weeks This was his farewell word to me I did not argue I did not know all the details But it shows the state of mind of our leader then I am sure that our military thought differently But he I do not know why thought exactly so that the war wold end very soon And that state of mind influenced very important decisions that were being made and those that were not made as a result Thank you WESTAD Thank you very muchIr Anatoly BRUTENTS What was your source The meeting on December WEBTAD We all know Anatoly the diplomat now we have been introduced to Anatoly the historian I talked about not expecting any sensations here I think we actually got a couple of them just now These re completely new materials that nobody has ever seem before At least for me they make several of the loose pieces that I had concerning decision making on Afghanistan fall into place particularly the December 2 memo from Andropov 95 SESSION 1 B AFreawoou was nothing to lose in the U S -Soviet relationship by signing these pieces of paper saying we were equivalent Had we left ourselves no option but to accept your going into Afghanistan Did you feel that the correlation of forces enabled you to treat us with disdain more or less as Brezhnev did in his communications to Carter I certainly sensed a strategic optimism in military circles and perhaps in the Politburo too DOBRININ I just quoted to you the decision of the Politburo after the invasion made after Carter made a number of very anti Soviet statements concerning our internal domestic affairs saying that we should do everything possible not to spoil the broad and wide relations we had with the United States That statement was made only for the members of the Politburo So I must dispute what you are telling us U S Soviet relations were on our minds and were very important But there was not a lot of optimism Brezhnev was very glad to have signed the treaty but other events such as the Cuban brigade affair signaled major problems in our relations And finally it became very clear that there would be no SALT The United States was not going to ratify it It was very clear you know how it happened So this question about the strategic relationship was rather irrelevant in the minds of the Politburo at that time We signed a very good treaty but it went out the window 000M Can I ask Karen Brutents to respond also RESTAD I think we will have to get back to that question in the next session because we really need to take a break now But before we take 109 5555th 19 MosmNc political point of view in order to demonstrate our seriousness HESTAD Thank you Mark I would like now to turn to the Russian side Anatoly I wanted to start with you I see that you are ready But before you get started let me just alert everyone to the important materials that we have about this in Anatoly's newly-published memoir which all of us have been frantically trying to read There is quite a bit of fascinating material there about the immediate aftermath of the afghan intervention and about some of the conversations hnatoly had with Brzezinski and others DOBRYNIN Well I presume that at some point we will discuss what we did after the introduction of the troops Are we only going to discuss what happened during the immediate reaction now NESTED I think we could start with the period immediately after the troops were introduced and then we can see how far we can get nosnmm Okay Mark here was in the same shoes as I in Washington Was it tranquil I would not say so Laughter It was a rather hot spot I sat there reading all those speeches day after day We are all emotional people even diplomats are sometimes I had a rule I would sit for one hour completely alone-without any of my assistants after we discussed things just to give my own feelings a chance to subside But I would like to say a few general words of interest to all of you Our government did not have the same good habit yours did of 152 SESSION communicating with its embassies When your embassies wrote an assessment you would get feedback from your government saying this was good and that was not quite so good and so forth But for us it was like sending an assessment into a black hole If I sent a telegram to Moscow I would never know what the reaction was until I went there myself and had a chance to discuss it with people While I was in Washington we received not a single piece of information not me nor my colleagues-from our own intelligence people on Afghanistan Nothing There was a Splendid ignorance We were trying to guess what was going on So I come to the second question on your agenda what kind of reaction did the Soviet leaders foresee There was no energy spent in Moscow at all on this There was no discussion of what other actions we should take besides sending in the troops One reason for this first of all is that they thought that our relations were so bad that the intervention would not change very much This was their way of thinking this was Gromyko's at least In addition we really did not have plans for an invasion throughout 1978 and 1979 We had none until the very last minute in December That is why as Karen mentioned yesterday nobody was involved on the expert side On the 6th of December there was the first decision made by three fellows On the 12th of December there was another made by three plus Brezhnev Though in our protocol it said all the members of the Politburo agreed they were not there Look at the way they signed it on the 28th There was a bureaucratic trick They were not present but then later on this was given to them to sign onto Only a very few people knew about it Who could have prepared for the international reaction Presumably that was the Foreign Ministry's job but nobody not even 153 SESSION 19 Moawms Kornienko who was number one at the time knew anything about it We did not have any contingency discussions The military I am sure did some contingency planning with respect to their own business but they never told Gromyko So we did not prepare any elaborate list of possible American or Western reactions of course there was a general understanding at the top level that there would be a bad reaction There would he propaganda and so on everybody knew this But as far as I know nobody discussed at the Politburo what concrete actions the West might take Nothing The Soviet leaders did not foresee any specific Western reaction just a negative one You will notice from the briefing materials that only on January 20th did the Politburo discuss for the first time the Western reaction There was a meeting of the Politburo and they gave instructions to different Ministries to prepare in a general way a response to the Western reaction The instructions were not very concrete merely to prepare to denounce the Americans and so on There was not a single specific proposal You see in this decision of the Politburo What exactly did they want I will now read in Russian the decision of the Politburo on the 28th of January In our relations with the United States now and in the future we should contrast the confrontational position of the Carter administration with our steady and firm line in international relationsW this is the directive that went to all of us diplomatsI- notwithstanding the fact that Washington will continue to conduct an anti-Soviet campaign and that it will make efforts to coordinate the actions of its allies Our countermeasures Soviet countermeasures it means but it does not specify what kind of countermeasures they were never discussed but it was assumed that there would have been some sort of countermeasures- Our countermeasures 154 SESSION should be carried out on the axiom that we should not exacerbate the entire complex of our relationship with the United States what kind of message could we the professional diplomats extract from that directive What kind of conclusions could we take from that I remember receiving that part of the directive in the Embassy On the one had we needed to follow a firm line Did it mean that I sitting in Washington should speak firmly to Brzezinski I tried to speak firmly with him when it was necessary but was that the point What could I do concretely There was nothing guidance here They only give us an abstract goal the right one I should say we certainly should have tried to avoid straining our relationship with the United States further I totally agreed with that But how were we to do it practically The U S position was absolutely clear especially after Carter spoke in Congress about the Carter Doctrine Unfortunately at that moment our leadership did not think seriously and deeply about what political diplomatic and other consequences there might be besides military consequences Of course they understood that this was a bad thing to do and that we had be ready especially with propaganda So in responding to your question I can say that we did not seriously consider the U S reaction I asked people later about this There was no consideration of this either in the Foreign Ministry or in the Central Committee Later certain things were prepared but they were prepared for specific issues For example you wanted to boycott the Olympics and we had to respond to that and so on -for each of the individual questions But there were no countermeasures I have to say also that when I read Turner's report yesterday - the CIA report J was a little bit surprised According to the report 155 the CIA told the American leadership that they should not expect any kind of large scale intervention This was in the period immediately before the introduction of our troops He even said when the first troops were moving into Afghanistan that the CIA expected that only a very small force would move into the country At first I thought that your intelligence was not very capable but then I realized that your failure to foresee the intervention was not your fault It was our fault because we decided to introduce troops only on December 6 You simply did not have time to figure it out because we ourselves had just learned about the decision For us it was finalized on the 6th There was very little time left for you to orient yourself and there was very little time for our diplomatic service to orient itself as well Thus unfortunately I have to tell you that our diplomatic service was not ready to carry out any kind of effective counter propaganda or to attempt to justify what had already been done in Afghanistan I think that that explains the state of relations between you and us at that time I can tell you about one interesting little meeting with Brzezinski on December 6 I knew nothing about the coming decision in Moscow and as far as I understood he had no idea either What did we discuss We talked about the ratification of SALT II He was telling me that it would probably be ratified by March After SALT II is ratified he told me we can talk about SALT That was planned for April He also said that we could talk about controlling the deployment of middle-range missiles in Europe He was just thinking aloud we were examining the horizon But that was on December 6 when the introduction of troops was about to begin We were quietly sitting and discussing those things 1 He also said that the President would be 155 a SESSION 19 Monnwc glad to receive the General Secretary in Washington in June-in the summer or in the fall of 1980 He said that it would not be necessary to sign a treaty at that meeting just to meet to exchange opinions would be very good I agreed with practically everything that he said I wrote to Moscow that that would have been a good idea Moscow did not respond Naturally they were in the middle of making decisions to introduce troops into Afghanistan Afterwards the American side did not make any significant presentations to us to be very honest at least not at the diplomatic level Tom Watson went to the Foreign Ministry twice Once he met with Komplektov he was head of the department and he also met with Maltsev who was not the best expert on those issues Their discussion was of course absolutely useless After that or maybe a day before that Marshall Shulman met with my deputy in Washington I was in Moscow at the time He talked with Vasev Marshall told him that there was a concern in Washington that we had our contingent of troops near the Afghan border and that the troops were moving toward Afghanistan He said We would like to know what the purpose of that movement of troops toward Afghanistan is in accordance with the treaty of 1972 You remember that treaty which was signed during the Nixon administration Vasev was not an expert on this So the conversation went nowhere And that was it There was no warning of any sort There was nothing like that I do not want to accuse you of anything here You did not know either But still you were already signaling to us that there was something wrong We did not respond So the decision was taken at the top level Only five men or three men-knew None of them was an expert on the United States There was no mechanism for anticipating the American reaction-nothing 157 SESSKON After we introduced our troops nobody organized an interdepartmental body There was a commission of three or four Ponomarev was sometimes invited and sometimes he was not invited Three were permanent members That was itl This demonstrates that there was a great deal of ignorance among our leadership about the United states obviously this action would have foreign policy implications But they simply ignored this They were probably very much concerned with the military consequences but they ignored the diplomatic ones After your reaction we simply tried to defend our position in our propaganda But of course this put us on the defensive internationally RESTAD Thank you very much Anatoly I will return to you later on for some follow up comments on your later meetings I want to go to Sergei Tarasenko now then I will turn things over to Marshall TARBSENKO Anatoly Fedorovich raised the question of how it all looked on the diplomatic front from the Embassy's point of View At that time I was in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs I would like to share my personal impressions of how it all happened I personally and the entire Ministry-learned about the invasion five minutes after Ambassador Thomas Watson left Maltsev's office where altsev told him that the entire world knew that a massive military interference was being carried out against the Republic of Afghanistan and that was why we were introducing our troops When the person who took notes during the discussion came down we immediately saw in his face that something was wrong He said Troops have been introduced My heart sank I immediately realized that it would lead to no good SESSION more as we find ourselves increasingly in lower-level conflicts rather than total wars military power is being used for clearly political purposes That dividing line as to who directs how the military power is applied must be thought through more carefully Clausewitz did not give us much guidance as to where the dividing line was he simply told us there had to be political direction at some level of military endeavor I believe that thoughtful political leaders and thoughtful military leaders in the kind of combination we have here around this table must address this issue in the years ahead in order that we better understand why it can be bad for a country to be successful militarily as the Soviet Union was in Afghanistan and as the United States was in Vietnam LEGVOLD Stan thank you very much From your first comment I would put you in the category of people who believe that choices that were made mattered during this period of time They mattered fundamentally And the problem with choice was this issue of misperception that I referred to it was very important that we did not make accurate assessments of the motivations capabilities and intentions of the other side Secondly you are suggesting that from 1977 to 1980 we were the victims of an inadequate integration of military power and foreign policy choice That is an issue which has not been resolved today and which may only be getting worse How on the list I have Anatoly Dobrynin next then Marshall and then Bill Odom I would appreciate it if each of you would be brief Anatoly Two points First I would not like to leave the impression EIE Sesslow 20 Moewmc for the future historians that d tente was a complete failure in Soviet-American relations Today all we have discussed is failure It was only another five years before we had another d tente although no one used the word d tente the word was anathema for President Reagan But still it was d tente We had a very good relationship there were very good developments on many points that we are now discussing in a critical way They were solved or on the way to being solved We should not lose perspective on this d tente was not doomed because it was d tente but rather because of the objective circumstances To answer your second point the principal reason for failure in this period was definitely the existence of completely contradictory conceptions of d tente in your country and in my country This was a fatal contradiction The ideological approaches were completely different We had entirely different views of how the would develop There was no clear vision of a common goal at all except for avoiding nuclear war and that was a good result of d tente by the way But it was the only common goal On all other issues and on all other interpretations of the meaning of d tente each side was thinking of course that it was right and the other was wrong So as you mentioned misconceptions played an important role in the failure of d tente Now about military misconceptions both sides were looking at the most worst possible scenario You were thinking that we were going to seize the Middle East oil fields we were thinking that you wanted to overrun us militarily to force us into a new arms race and to press us from a position of strength We were convinced that in Afghanistan we were engaged in a very local conflict but you did not accept that That was our feeling 219 Season Of course there were mutual suspicions and mistrust all through the period Brezhnev had them same for Carter I know that many of you of course know President Carter but I happened to meet both of them On the basis of my personal encounters with them I had the impression that they both wanted peacef and they both wanted to have good relations They were both sincere on this I discussed this with Carter I discussed it with Brezhnev They were for peace for better relations for agreements but you know how it happened circumstances conspired against this and they were not strong enough leaders to impose their will on the situation Of course military detente is impossible without political d tente We had no political d tente Of course it was very bad that we did not attempt to find common or collaborative measures to find a way out of our difficulties Diplomacy was completely absent during this period There were only a few discussions on Afghanistan but they were very vague I would say But domestic conceptions of detente were very important to its fate r in your country and in my country In your country as you know the majority of the American public sincerely came to believe that detects was a bad thing they came to believe that we outplayed the Americans that the v 5 government was always on the defensive that Russia was using d tente as a cover for imposing its will In my country there was no problem supporting d tente because in Our minds d tente was very simple d tente meant peace ho nuclear war Beyond that no one really looked into what d tente meant Two final things First you made our troops in Afghanistan a single issue for the whole of your foreign policy and for relations between the Soviet Union and the United states There was nothing else that you wanted to discuss only the presence of our troops there ZED SESSION During Vietnam War two weeks before Nixon came to Moscow for the first time in 1972 there was a huge bombardment of Hanoi The Soviet government held an eight-hour discussion on whether or not to accept Nixon or to refuse to accept him because Vietnam was our ally The view prevailed that the relationship between the Soviet Union and the United States was so important that we could not really cancel Nixon s visit I do not want to blame you entirely because we share the blame for the failure of d tente but in this case you put everything on this one issue either we had to make a complete withdrawal very soon or there would be no U S -Soviet relationship at all Second during that period we had very narrow foundation for our relationship By the end of the Carter administration there was very little left on our bilateral agenda There was really only one small link the SALT talks which we tried to maintain as a bridge between us But when it failed we had nothing left-only contradictions That was a very dangerous situation We made a mistake too by the way in stubbornly refusing to have a meeting until we had SALT This was a diplomatic mistake If we had a meeting in 1977 or 1978 probably we could have found some way to help turn around Soviet-American relations Perhaps we could not have finished but still we might have saved the relationship Instead the irritants and challenges piled up We were moving steadily apart until we came to the middle of 1979 It was a very bad situation We finally reached an agreement on SALT and had our meeting but there was no ratification and we had not even a single bridge remaining between us Those are not all of the reasons for the failure of d tente but they are important I would like to repeat however that the 211 SESSION dismantling of d tente in the late 1970s did not mean that d tente did not come back later on Even a very anti-Soviet figure like Reagan could come to the conclusion that this confrontation was not favorable to the United States ultimately We came to that conclusion too There was a later positive development in our relations based upon a new detente In the present post-Communist time we need if you like to redefine our goals and our means Unfortunately we both still do not have a clear vision of common goal in a post-Communist world There is no common goal Yugoslavia demonstrates this There is discord in the United States over how to handle Russia there is great disillusionment in Russia about the United States Let us face it Of course our great asset is that there is no threat of a nuclear war From this point of view we have a clear horizon But our two countries have not yet found a common vision of the future and they have not worked out a partnership because as of now we do not have equal partnership let us admit it But there is a possibility The whole history of Soviet-American relations proved that it was possible to have a good partnership So I finish my comments on a more hopeful note LEGVOLD Thank you Anatcly Marshall SHULMAN Mr Chairman I hope you will regard this as a mini-intervention I would like at some appropriate time to take the floor to respond to Anatoly's discussion of the deterioration of relations But my purpose in raising my hand was to respond to something that Stan Turner said It is something that I want to get onto the record in the discussion 222 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