THE NEW AFGHANISTANISM

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000100420043-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 21, 2011
• Sequence Number: 43
• Publication Date: March 1, 1981
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/21: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100420043-1
STAT
The new Afghanistanism
When the U.S. government began a covert
operation to send weapons to Afghanistan
last year, it hit on a novel way to keep the
operation secret: it told the press. Most re-
porters were unable to confirm initial leaks
about weapons supplies and did not report on
them. Others confirmed them, printed them,
and moved on to other issues. Within
months, the weapons story had all but van-
ished. Instead, press accounts largely
portrayed Afghan insurgents as battling
Soviet tanks and aircraft with, as described
in a UPI interviee?with a rebel leader in May
1980, "axes and gasoline bombs made from
Coca-Cola bottles.- By the first anniversary
of the Soviet invasion on December 27,
when many papers reviewed the situation in
Afghanistan, almost all failed to mention
U.S. weapons supplies. Those that did
minimized their importance.
The first accounts of the U.S. decision to
aid the resistance in Afghanistan appeared
soon after the Soviet invasion. On January 5,
1980, William Beecher reported in The Bos-
ton Globe that the administration had made a
"hush-hush decision . . . [to] do everything
possible to slip weapons to the Moslem in-
surgents." He wrote further that the supply
operation was to be coordinated with China
and with Egypt, which had agreed to con-
tribute some of its anti-aircraft missiles if the
U.S. would replace them. The operation was
intended to tie down Soviet troops in a pro-
longed confrontation. .
Additional details soon emerged in The
Washington Post and The New York Times.
The CIA had been assigned to carry out the
operation and would supply the Afghans
with Soviet-made rifles and anti-tank and
anti-aircraft missiles. The venture was
characterized by the Times as the CIA's
"first of this nature and magnitude since the
Angolan civil war ended" four years earlier.
The existence of the operation was indi-
rectly substantiated by other press reports. In
February, Egypt's minister of defense said
his country was training Afghan rebels and
planned to arm them and send them home;
Egypt was also reported by the Times to be
receiving a new generation of American
anti-aircraft missiles (suggesting that perhaps
the bargain reported by Beecher was being.
COLUMBIA JOURNALISM REVIEW
March/April 1981
carried out). Afghan insurgents near the bo
mortars, heavy machine guns, and Sovi
rifles. By April 6, 1980, Tad Szulc'in Th,
New York Tunes Magazine was discussing
the CIA's supply operation in considerable
-detail
That same day, 60 Minutes broadcast
"Inside Afghanistan," a report on Dan
Rather's journey across the Pakistan border.
By relying almost entirely on the statements
of Afghan rebels and a Pakistani information
officer, Rather managed to consolidate popu-
lar misconceptions about the war into one
high-impact, coast-to-coast broadcast. He
accepted at face value claims that, in the
words of the Pakistani, "no country is pro-
viding arms and ammunitions to Mujaha-
deen, freedom fighters." The officer's
statement was understandable given Pakis-
tan's fear of Soviet retaliation. Rather's cre-
dulity was not.
The broadcast seemed to mark a
watershed. In a survey of news accounts
(including those carried by the Times, the
Post. Newsweek, and U.S. News & World
Report), close to three-quarters of the arti-
cles appearing through April presented the
U.S. as planning to provide, or already pro-
viding, aid to the rebels. After April, the
proportion was reversed: about three-
quarters of the articles reviewed either stated
that the U.S. was not giving aid or played
down such assistance as inadequate or of the
wrong type- . -
At the same time, the press failed to con-
nect mounting evidence of a significant
weapons supply in Afghanistan with previ-
ous reports of American involvement. There
was, for instance, a story in the Times citing
reports of Egyptian and Chinese weapons in
Afghanistan. State Department officials an-
nounced that they were helping the rebels in
every way they could - including ways they
said they could not talk about. Further, the
rebels were reported in the Times to possess
anti-aircraft guns and anti-aircraft missiles,
causing the Russians to lose planes and as
many as fifteen helicopters a month.
As the first anniversary of the invasion
approached, one might have expected
thorough assessments of possible U.S. in-
volvement. Instead, the "axes and gasoline
bombs" theme took over in full force. Many
print outlets, including The Wall Street
"avle, ano
probably most accurate, explanation is given
by those reporters, like Michael Getler of
The Washington post. who originally re-
ported the planned covert operation.-"The
lid went on very tightly, afterwards," Getler
said, adding that other Washington reporters,
unable to confirm those reports indepen-
dently,
could not. repeat the. story second-
hand indefinitely.
Another consideration is the difficulty of
getting into Afghanistan. "I can't think of a
scene that reminded me in as many w2vs of
[Evelyn Waugh's] Scoop as these journalists
who go to Peshawar and sit around in the In-
tercontinental Hotel filing stories based on
what religious groups tell them," says Car
negie Endowment senior associate Selig
Harrison, author of a forthcoming study of
the Afghanistan situation. who traveled to
Pakistan last year. "The kind of work that
would lead you to find out what foreign help
is going in there, no one is doing to my
knowledge." -
ome reporters may also be inhibited by
a reluctance to give succor to the
Soviets, who have been banging the
drum of CIA interference in Afghanistan
since long before their own invasion. When
asked about Newsweek's January 5 story,
Fred Coleman, one of several reporters con-
tributing to the article, observed that "ob-.
viously, people on this side don't want to
give credence to [the Soviet claim], so that
makes it sensitive.'-'..
Five years ago significant U.S. assistance
to Afghanistan - or the lack of it - would
have been a major news story. But today
many hard 'questions are not being asked.
Among them is whether, in fact, the U.S.
wants the Soviets out of Afghanistan, or pre-
fers to make the country Russia's Vietnam.
It could be that we are deliberately furnishing
just enough aid to keep the insurgency alive
but short of victory. In that case, the Afghans
are paying a heavy price for their role in the
global balance of power.
The Reagan administration will no doubt
review the situation. Maybe the press should
too. Jay Peter,-ell
Jay Peter_ell is an assoriero nt'rh: r,,...,,
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/21: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100420043-1