The Road to Afghanistan - George Washington University

assured that there was no threat to Taraki’s plane did Sarwari permit the landing. Notunlike Amin, he joined the line of officials greeting Taraki at the very last moment.Amin was correct: there had been no accidents during the head of state’s absence. Allprominent government members remained in their posts. On that occasion, Amin’s andTaraki’s sides ended with a draw, but the stakes had been very high.The meeting at the People’s Palace went smoothly. Taraki gave a very long, floweryspeech concerning the results of the Non-Aligned Movement Summit in Havana, in whichhe emphasized Afghanistan’s role in the movement. He also mentioned that he hadpersonally received special attention from many foreign journalists. Amin asked aprovocative question concerning Brezhnev’s peculiar reception of Taraki in Moscow, inwhich other members of the Afghan delegation were not invited to participate. Tarakievaded a direct answer by bringing up the topic of the Soviet Union’s plans for militaryassistance to Afghanistan. His message that the general secretary of the Central Committeeof the Soviet Union’s Communist Party was committed to satisfying all Afghan requestsregarding a considerable increase in supply of weapons, ammunition, equipment, andtechnology was greeted by applause. “Such issues, my son, should be resolvedconfidentially,” he explained somewhat condescendingly to Amin. But Amin most likelyeither knew for sure or could figure out that it was not only the issue of military assistancethat was discussed by Taraki and Brezhnev in the Kremlin.September 12Amin wasted no time while the head of state was away at the remote “Island ofFreedom.” During the ten days that Amin was in charge of Afghanistan, he reinforced his517