MY OPINION OF THE RUSSIANS HAS CHANGED MOST DRASTICALLY ...

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000504830011-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 27, 2010
• Sequence Number: 11
• Publication Date: January 14, 1980
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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It was as though 'a time warp
had plunged the world back
into an earlier and more dan-
er assistance" to help Pakistan defend its
independence.
These actions were only the latest in
an escalating series of retaliatory moves.
Carter officially requested the Senate to
postpone any further consideration of the
U.S.-Soviet treaty to limit strategic arms,
once the chief symbol of superpower
detente. The U.S. and nearly 50 other
countries then called for an emergency
session of the U.N. Security Council to
condemn the latest Soviet aggression.
That meeting convened on Saturday. And
the U.S. summoned Ambassador Thomas
J. Watson Jr. home from Moscow for con-
sultations. (Not even during the crisis trig-'
gered by the Soviet invasions of Hungary
in 1956 and of Czechoslovakia in 1968
was the American ambassador recalled
from Moscow.)
, a'A gerous era. Soviet divisions had
swarmed across the border of a neigh-
country and turned it into a new
boring
satellite. Moscow and Washington were
exchanging very angry words. Jimmy
Carter accused Soviet Communist Party
Chief Leonid Brezhnev of lying, and the
Soviets' TASS press agency shot back that
Carter's statements were "bellicose and
wicked." For Carter, the rapid series of
events in Afghanistan seemed to provide
a remarkable kind of revelation. Said he,
sounding strikingly naive in an ABC tele-
vision interview: "My opinion of the Rus-
sians has changed most drastically in the
last week [more] than even in the pre-
vious 2% years before that." He added that
it was "imperative" that "the leaders of
tie world make it clear to the Soviets that
they cannot have taken this action to vi-
olate world peace ... without paying se-
vere political consequences."
What those consequences might be
was the subject of week-long strategy ses-
sions, and then on Friday night Carter set
forth his response to the bold Soviet chal-
lenge. Appearing for 13 minutes on na-
tionwide television, he delivered the
toughest speech of his presidency.
Warned Carter: "Aggression unopposed
becomes a contagious disease." He de-
nouriced the Soviet invasion of Afghani-
stan as "a deliberate effort by a powerful
atheistic government to subjugate an in-
dependent Islamic people" and said that
a "Soviet-occupied Afghanistan threatens
both Iran and Pakistan and is a stepping-
stone to their possible control over much
of the world's oil supplies."
'Carter then announced that he was
sharply cutting the sale to the Soviets of
two kinds of goods they desperately need:
grain and advanced technology. Con-
tracts for 17 million tons of grain, worth
$2 billion, are being canceled. Soviet fish-
ing privileges in American waters are also
being severely curtailed, as are new cul-
tural exchange programs; Carter further
hinted that the U.S. might boycott this
summer's Moscow Olympics. To shore up
Afghanistan's neighbors, Carter said that
the U.S. "along with other countries will
provide military equipment, food and oth-
ad a new cold war erupted be-
tween the U.S. and the Soviet
Union? Not quite. At least not yet.
J But it seemed certain that the pol-
icy known as detente, which stressed co-
operation between the two competing nu-
clear giants, had not survived the 1970s.
The' events of last week stood also as a
grim reminder that it is not the Amer-
ican hostages in Iran that are the central
object of U.S. foreign policy, but rather
the potentially life-and-death relationship
with the Soviet Union. '
Afghanistan was an odd and remote
focal point for such a U.S.-Soviet crisis.
The snow-swept, mountainous land has
few natural resources, and its Muslim
tribesmen are more than 90% illiterate.
Yet it was here that the Soviets chose to
do something they had not done since
World War II: in a blitzkrieg involving
an estimated 50,000 soldiers, supported by
tanks and helicopter gunships, the Soviet
army crashed across the Afghan border
to take control of a country that had not
been a member of the Soviet bloc. By
forcefully expanding its international
sphere of direct control, the Kremlin in ef-
fect had violated a fundamental ground
rule of East-West relations. In a meeting
with his top aides, Carter said sternly that
the Soviet invasion is "a quantum jump
in the nature of Soviet behavior. And if
they get through this with relative polit-
ical and economic impunity, it will have
. r, 011
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91
serious consequences on the world in f
years to come."
In an attempt to mobilize a broad in-
ternational condemnation of the Soviet
action, the President telephoned half a
dozen foreign leaders and cabled about
25 others, stressing to them how gravely
the U.S. viewed the matter.
The U.S. made a special effort to ral-
ly the NATO allies. Deputy Secretary of
State Warren Christopher flew to Lon-
don to meet with high-ranking British,
West German, French, Italian and Ca-
nadian diplomats, then on to a New'
Year's Day emergency meeting at NATO
headquarters in Brussels. The NATO al-
lies agreed to review thoroughly, their re-
lations with the Soviet Union and to find
ways to back countries near Afghanistan,
particularly Pakistan, which is not only
frightened by the increased proximity of
Soviet army units but is also deeply trou-
bled by the mounting chaos in neighbor-
ing Iran. They also decided to solicit sup-
port from Third World states for a U.N.
declaration against Moscow. The U.S. re-
ceived the strongest support from the Brit-
ish; Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher
has been taking a tough anti-Soviet stand
since coming to office last year. Though
the French were less firm, a French dip-
lomat later said, "Like the U.S., we feel
strongly that Soviet intervention in Af-
ghanistan is wrong."
One of the fundamental questions. was
why the Soviets had suddenly torn the
fabric of U.S.-Soviet relations and in-
ternational order by such an undisguised
invasion. Moscow had its own rationale.
According to the Soviet-government dai-
ly Izvestia, the U.S.S.R.'s troops had saved .
Afghanistan from being subverted by the.
CIA and turned into an American base.
Other Soviet versions said the U.S. had
teamed up with Pakistan, China and
Egypt to carry out "primarily anti-so- '
viet designs." They described leftist Pres-
ident Hafizullah Amin, who was exe-
cuted four days after the Soviet invasion