The Road to Afghanistan - George Washington University

‘true communist’ and his friends on the other end of the ideological spectrum have incommon? During Amin’s election campaign for parliament, he was supported financially bythe chairman of a joint-stock company, Spinzar Sarwari Nascher, who was known as amonarchist and was close to King Zahir Shah. After the revolution, Amin released him fromprison and allocated a car and driver to him. There was also talk about secret meetingsbetween Amin and some unidentified Americans. That’s all we have.”“Nothing particularly substantive,” remarked Kryuchkov with displeasure.“Continue working in this direction, but tread carefully. God forbid if Comrade Amin wereto find out. Don’t forget that you are dealing with a senior statesman and our partner.”Medyanik, a professional of the highest caliber, didn’t need to be reminded of that.The next day, Kryuchkov presented a report on the same sensitive issue toChairman of the KGB Andropov. Kryuchkov, as usual, tried to avoid conclusions andevaluations, relying instead on the facts of the matter. He was very experienced inbureaucratic games, and when communicating with Politburo members, he neverpermitted himself to issue his own opinion in regards to any major state problems. In thebest case, he would limit himself to general remarks and would always emphasize hisloyalty to Marxist-Leninist principles. In this case, he chose proven tactics, first listing theundoubtedly positive characteristics of the Afghan leader (his great industriousness,persistence, energy, eagerness to learn) before moving to the drawbacks (indulgent, overlyambitious, intolerant of dissent, often insincere). “The Soviet colleagues had somequestions related to the American period of his biography. For instance, not everything wastransparent in his bank accounts, which are currently under investigation. But in general,Comrade Amin is loyal to the general secretary and obviously works harder than anybody246