Rodric Braithwaite - Afgantsy

17 The official transcripts of these Politburo meetings, and of the telephone conversations with the Afghan leadership, were published informally in the early 1990s, when the archives were briefly open. Most appear in Lyakhovski’s Tragedia i doblest Afgana . English translations are on the website of the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Cold War International History Project, ‘Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan’ ( http://www.wilsoncenter.org).

18 A full text is in Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana , 1995, and comes from TsKhSD, f. 89, per. 25, dok. 1, ss. 28–34; a shorter version is in Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana , 2004, pp. 119–22; a translation is on the website of the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Cold War International History Project ( http://www.wilsoncenter.org).

19 Woodrow Wilson Center Cold War Archive: transcript of CPSU CC Politburo Session on Afghanistan, 22 March 1979, TsKhSD, f. 89, per. 25, dok. 2.

20 Ali Sultan Keshtmand, interview, London, 25 May 2009.

21 A. Hyman, Afghanistan under Soviet Domination 1964–81 (London, 1982), pp. 126, 149, and 152.

22 D. MacEachin, ‘Predicting the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan’, Center for the Study of Intelligence ( https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/); Dorronosoro, Revolution Unending , pp. 103–4.

23 For a list of these requests, see O. Sarin and L. Dvoretsky, The Afghan Syndrome: The Soviet Union’s Vietnam (Novato, CA, 1993), pp. 79–84; and Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana , 1995, passim.

24 Gai and Snegirev, Vtorzhenie , p. 90.

25 Zaitsev, Alpha—My Destiny , pp. 114–15.

26 I. Tukharinov, Sekretny komandarm ( http://www.rsva.ru/biblio/prose_af/secret_com/index.shtml).

27 Gai and Snegirev, Vtorzhenie , p. 69.

28 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana , 2004, pp. 131 and 133. Pavlovski’s final report is on p. 192.

29 Zaitsev, Alpha—My Destiny , pp. 126–7.

30 Ablazov, Afganistan chetvertaya voina , p. 163; Sarin and Dvoretsky, The Afghan Syndrome , pp. 79–84.

31 MacEachin, ‘Predicting the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan’.

1 Much remains obscure about these events. The following account draws heavily on two sources: V. Mitrokhin, The KGB in Afghanistan , Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, DC, February 2002, and M. Slinkin, Afghanistan, Trevozhnye Leto i Osen 1979 g , Kultura narodov Prichenomorya , No. 4, 1998, pp. 138–52 ( http://www.nbuv.gov.ua/Articles/KultNar/avtory/slinkin/knp/index.htm). Mitrokhin was an archivist in the KGB who kept extensive notes on the documents he handled, which he brought to the West when he defected after the collapse of the Soviet Union. He rarely gives document references or even dates, and his account needs to be approached with caution. I have added material from A. Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana (Moscow, 1995) ( http://www.rsva.ru/biblio/prose_af/afgan_tragedy_and_glory/index.shtml), passim. But the details are still buried in the archives of the KGB and in Kabul.

2 A. Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana (Moscow, 2004), p. 153.

3 A. Maiorov, Pravda ob afganskoi voine (Moscow, 1996), p. 74.

4 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana , 2004; A. Borovik, The Hidden War (New York, 1990), p. 247.

5 Memorandum by Richard Holbrooke in Washington National Records Center, RG 330, McNamara Vietnam Files: FRC 77–0075, Vietnam—1966. The text was kindly given to me by Sherard Cowper-Coles.

6 That at least is the opinion of Mitrokhin and Lyakhovski. I have not come across any confirmation from the Afghan side that it was so perceived by Taraki.

7 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana , 2004, p. 155.

8 M. Slinkin, NDPA u vlasti (Simferopol, 1999), p. 128.

9 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana , 2004, p. 160.

10 Mitrokhin, The KGB in Afghanistan , p. 52. This passage seems to be a continuation of the telegram of 13 September referred to above.

11 Telegram from Puzanov and others to Brezhnev, ibid., p. 53.

12 Ibid., p. 55.

13 Ryurikov kept a diary on behalf of his ambassador, which is at Mitrokhin, The KGB in Afghanistan , pp. 59–62. This account of the shoot-out comes from the diary entry for 19 September, supplemented by interview with Ryurikov in Moscow on 24 July 2009 and 9 March 2010. According to Ryurikov, copies of his diary were sent to a number of departments in Moscow. See also Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana , 2004, p. 173.

14 Interview with Taraki’s wife in D. Gai and V. Snegirev, Vtorzhenie (Moscow, 1991), p. 45.

15 V. Ablazov, Afganistan chetvertaya voina (Kiev, 2002), pp. 163–8.

16 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana , 2004, p. 156.

17 Gai and Snegirev, Vtorzhenie , p. 44.

18 Ibid., p. 42.

19 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana , 2004, pp. 167–9.

20 Ibid., pp. 176–80. Kurilov’s account has been much shortened. General Bogdanov believes that Kurilov was carried away by his imagination. In his book The Great Gamble: The Soviet War in Afghanistan (New York, 2009), Gregory Feifer reports Gulabzoi’s insistence that he did not leave Kabul in a box.

21 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana , 2004, p. 181.

22 Mitrokhin, The KGB in Afghanistan , p. 71.

23 This account is based on the sometimes contradictory depositions of Ekbal, Vadud, and Jandad during the investigation into Taraki’s death which was conducted after Amin was overthrown. See Ablazov, Afganistan chetvertaya voina , pp. 149–56.

24 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana , 2004, pp. 185–6.

25 Ye. Chazov, Zdorovie i Vlast (Moscow, 1992), p. 182. Chazov is reporting what he was told by Andropov.

26 The views of Gorelov, Zaplatin, and Tabeev are recorded in Gai and Snegirev, Vtorzhenie , pp. 71–7.

27 G. Dorronosoro, Revolution Unending: Afghanistan, 1979 to the Present (New York, 2005), pp. 96–7; Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana , 2004, p. 189.

28 A. Volkov, ‘40-aya Armia: Istoria sozdania, sostav, izmenenie struktury’ ( www.rsva-ural.ru/library/?id63).

29 Lyakhovski implies as much in Tragedia i doblest Afgana , 2004, p. 213, though the facsimile of Chernenko’s note which he reproduces on p. 214 indicates that Grishin, Kirilienko, Pelshe, Tikhonov, and Ponomarev were also present.

30 R. Gates, From the Shadows (New York, 1996), p. 132.

31 Dorronosoro, Revolution Unending , p. 310.

32 S. Coll, Ghost Wars (London, 2005), p. 48.

33 This account of Andropov’s paper is based on notes taken by A. Dobrynin provided to the Cold War International History Project by Odd Arne Westad.

34 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana , 2004, p. 215; facsimile on p. 214.

35 Quoted in Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana , 2004, pp. 218–20.

36 A. Lyakhovski, Cold War International History Working Paper No. 51: Inside the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan and the Seizure of Kabul, December 1979 , Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, January 2007, p. 27.

37 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana , 1995, Chapter II.

1 A. Lyakhovski, Cold War International History Working Paper No. 51: Inside the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan and the Seizure of Kabul, December 1979 , Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, January 2007, pp. 30 and 32.