The Road to Afghanistan - George Washington University

The order to stand down came late in the evening. The operation had been cancelled.They could not bring themselves to take advantage of the opportunity. Too bad, I thought. Iwas certain that everything would have gone well, and that we would have been able to avoidmany unpleasant consequences. It’s possible that we would not have had to intervenemilitarily in Afghanistan at all had we captured Amin.Before going to bed I tuned the radio to BBC. Immediately I heard news about Kabul.The broadcast declared that President Nur Mohammad Taraki had been removed from powerdue to poor health.That night, we did not sleep. We were put on alert and stayed vigilant, ready to jump incase of an emergency situation. Rumor had it that some provocations were imminent; we hadto be prepared.***In the morning, before leaving for work, Starostin passed through the gate to thegarage and opened the door and the trunk of the Toyota Crown. He found a Miami-brandsmall-caliber revolver inside the car. Upon investigating the trunk he discovered a largepackage that was tied together with a woman’s green shawl embroidered with a floralpattern. Valery untied it and saw that the package contained stacks of American dollars andAfghani held together by rubber bands. He left everything there and returned to the houseto collect the weapons that his guests had brought inside. He left Sarwari’s Pashtun woolberet (“pakol”) for himself as a souvenir.He closed the garage door tightly so that his servant Rustam, who was supposed toarrive at any minute, would not notice the strange car. Then he got into his own car anddrove to the embassy. He reported to Osadchiy and Ivanov about the weapons and565