Aleksandr Antonovich Lyakhovskiy Working Paper pp - Woodrow ...

The Soviet leadership decided to exploit a favorable situation, counting on the fact that the Americans were
most concerned on how to solve the problems in Iran where Ayatollah Khomeini’s Islamic revolution had overthrown
the Shah and, on November 4, the US embassy in Tehran was seized and would not stand in the way of our actions in
Afghanistan. The idea appeared of creating conditions to remove Amin and replacing him with a more loyal figure
since he was not reliable and was capable at any moment of realigning himself toward the West. This is what was
feared most of all – the changes in policy in Egypt, Chile, and Somalia in an anti-Soviet direction were still fresh in
Moscow’s mind…And here again “evidence” “surfaced” about his purported association with the CIA; that is, every
basis was present for doubt.
At a symposium organized by the Norwegian Nobel Institute in September 1995, in reply to my question,
“Was Hafizullah Amin an agent of the CIA” former CIA director Stansfield Turner replied: “I have heard many times
about Amin’s ties with the CIA and the US. I ought to say that they ascribe more things to us than we were able to do.
Afghanistan was not a first priority problem for us; we had many more other problems. And even today we have
limited interest in it.”
LYAKHOVSKY: “…As Valentin Ivanovich [Varennikov] has just said, our leadership found itself faced with a
question [after Amin overthrew Taraki in September 1979]: what to do now It was decide[d] to leave it as it was for
the time being—to accept the facts, even though, as I have said, they did not trust Amin. They did not trust him
because there were reports that he was a CIA agent. I am not going to prove or disprove it, because there are some
secondary facts that speak for it, and some that speak against it. For instance, in 1977, when Khalq and Parcham were
getting united—even before the April [1978] revolution—Amin was not elected to the Politburo because everyone
opposed him. [He] was accused of cooperating with the CIA during his study in the United States. He admitted that
he was ‘playing’ with the CIA because he needed money to continue his studies; but he said it was nothing serious,
‘just playing.’ There is a transcript of a meeting with Ulyanovsky, where he talks about this[.] Karen Nersesovich
[Brutents] has this document.
…After Amin had killed Taraki, the attitude of our leadership to him changed. Our leadership was afraid that
Amin might be cooperating with the CIA, and, observing his turn to the Americans and the Pakistanis, was worried
that he might abandon us. And at the same time Amin continued his ministry of Socialist slogans. So we were
worried that we might find ourselves in a situation when we would be in Afghanistan, and the Afghan leader would be
pro-American, but still using Socialist rhetoric. In other words, he would be disguised as a socialist; but he would not
be ‘our man.’”
Later, Turner responded:
“I have heard many descriptions of possible relationships between Amin and the CIA, and of the United
States and its designs on Afghanistan. I would like to start with a view that Leonid [Shebarshin] and I share: that
people in our business are often accused of doing all kinds of things we never have the capability of doing. And I
would refer to the comment Gary [Sick] made earlier that when the Shah approached us to do something undercover
with respect to Afghanistan, we turned our back on that. I would suggest to you that while this conference is on
Afghanistan, if you put it in the context of 1978 and early 1979. Afghanistan was not very high on the American
foreign policy agenda. We are focusing on it entirely here. We had lots of other things that were of much greater
concern to us…
As far as the CIA and it[s] relations with Amin are concerned, I would ask you to step back and recognize
that starting in 1976-1975, actually—covert actions—undercover activities like this—were in bad repute in the United
States—as was the CIA—as a result of the Church committee hearings, which roundly criticized past activities of the
CIA. As far back as 1974, our Congress had passed a law saying that any time we were going to undertake one of
these dirty tricks or covert action campaigns, the President must approve it and must inform the Congress. When I got
there in 1977, there was no strong inclination on the part of the Carter administration to exercise covert activities. But,
interestingly…the CIA itself was running very scared having had this considerable criticism, and was reluctant, even
in the case of Afghanistan after the invasion, to get involved in a major covert activity that might backfire and lead to
another Church Committee investigation, and another series of criticisms of the CIA….”
Marshall Shulman, formerly an advisor on Soviet affairs to Secretary of State Cyrus R. Vance, added:
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