SOVIETS IN AFGHANISTAN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP86M00886R001700090217-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 17, 2009
• Sequence Number: 217
• Publication Date: January 17, 1984
• Content Type: MEMO

VOM
Approved For Release 2009/03/17: CIA-RDP86M00886RO01700090217-8
17 January 1984
MEMORANDUM FOR:. Deputy Director for 'Intelligence
FROM: Director of Central Intelligence
SUBJECT: Soviets in Afghanistan
A few days ago I asked you about information someone could give
me regarding how the Soviets have reactivated some mines in Afghanistan
from which they have received a great deal of revenue, enough it was
said to cover the cost of the invasion. I don't recall the source.
It was someone who came in to see me. This item from today's Wall Street
Journal deals with the-subject, apparently based on information gather
by the Institute of Strategic Trade, a think tank located in Washington.
William J. Casey
Attachment:
WSJ article, dtd 17 Jan 84,
"Afghan Resources Flowing
to USSR Despite the War;
Hungary Seeks Dollars"
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 .
Approved For Release 2009/03/17: CIA-RDP86M00886RO01700090217-8
Afghan Resources Flowing to U.S.S.R.
Despite the War; Hungary Seeks Dollars
By AMITY SHLAkS
\i off Reporter of Tm W A".t. STMAL? .l/)UI4NAL
Being bogged down for four years in a
military campaign against Afghanistan's ;
Moslem tribesmen hasn't stopped the So-
viet Union from exploiting and importing'
Afghanistan's natural resources-gas, cop-
per and, reportedly, uranium.
known for certain. The Afghan rebels, in- .
cluding former offi-
cials of the Soviet-
backed vern-
Foreign
More recently, the Soviets have
launched a copper mining and smelter
project near Kabul. according to the cen-
ter. If the project is completed in the next
several years it could give Afghanistan
about 2% of world production. John F.
Shroder of the center said in a report.
Some predictions put Afghanistan's copper
ore reserves at 3.5 million metric tons.
And according to a former member of
the Afghan Ministry of Mines who defected
recently to Pakistan, the Soviets have be-
gun mining uranium at newly discovered
fields near Kabul.
Hungary is the Soviet bloc's most suc-
cessful exporter of farm products-and it
appears to be seeking recognition of that
fact from Moscow.
ment's Ministry of Insight
Mines, say the Sovi-
ets credit the value of the resource imports
against Afghanistan's large debt to Mos-
cow-, Even so, sources agree that the value
of the Afghan exports don't come close to
repaying Moscow for the cost to it of prop-
ping up the communist government in Ka-
bul. The State Department estimates that
cost to be $12 billion since the Soviets in-
vaded Afghanistan?in December 1979.
Natural gas. Afghanistan's largest ex-
port, is piped from two large fields in
northern Afghanistan. to Soviet Central -
Asia. Radio Kabul, the government radio
station, reported recently that 84 billion cu-
bic feet of gas was exported to the Soviet
Union last year. But according to the
Washington-based Institute of Strategic
Trade, the Soviets have pumped as much
as four times that amount of Afghan gas
annually in recent years.
No one outside the Soviet Union knows
for sure. perhaps not even the Afghan re-
gime, because the meters that measure the
gas flow are on the Soviet side of the bor-
der. The Soviet Union developed Afghani-
stan's natural gas fields in the late 1960s,
and it has been the principal customer.
The rebel tribesmen have blown up part
or all of the pipeline at least three and per-
liaps as many as seven times since the in-
vasion, according to the Center for Afghan-
istan Studies, affiliated with the University
of Nebraska.
"What keeps the Soviet Union so inter-
ested in (Afghanistan's) gas is that they
need it for development in the Central
Asian Soviet republics." says Thomas
Gouttierre, the center's director. Some of
the gas, he says, serves to replenish gas
Lhat -is piped from the Soviet Union to
Western Eurove-
American economists who monitor So-
. viet bloc affairs read that interpretation
into a recent article on Hungary's agricul-
tural achievements in the Budapest news-
paper Nepszava (People's . Voice). The
newspaper noted that Hungarian farms in-
creased production 421,76 between 1970 and
1981, one and a half times better than the
next best East bloc agricultural exporter,
Bulgaria. The article said that even such
relatively high growth was "inadequate"
and that more should be done to increase
exports of farm goods.
The article is part of a Hungarian cam-
paign to get the Soviet Union to renew an
8-year-old trade agreement under which
Moscow pays U.S. dollars to Hungary for
agricultural shipments above a certain
level. In turn, the Hungarians pay dollars I
for Soviet petroleum above a certain
amount.
Hungary earned $719 million from this
arrangement in 1982, according to North-
western University economist Michael
Marrese, who studied Hungarian govern-
ment statistics. Without this hard-currency
windfall, the Hungarians would have faced
an overall dollar trade deficit of about $200
million, Mr. Marrese said.
The Hungarians are particularly eager.
to renew the Soviet agreement, which ex-
pires next year, because of their tenuous
credit position with Western banks.
But the Soviets aren't sure. Faced with
slowing economic growth and lower world
market prices for farm goods, they aren't
interested in continuing such high subsi-
dies to Hungary, according to Mr: Mar-
rese.
0'.
The good news for Poles is that their
government has bowed to public pressure
and trimmed food-price increases that
were scheduled for the new year. But the
bad news is that some food, specifically
meat, may be harder to get when the
higher prices go into effect next month.
This at least is the suggestion in the
Polish daily Zycie Warszawy (Warsaw
Life). An article by university professor
Ryszard Manteuffel notes' that Poland's
1983 summer animal census showed that
the cattle population since the previous
summer had dropped 5.4%, while the num-
ber of pigs was down 20%. This situation
would probably result in distribution of
more lower-quality meat products and
shortages at restaurants and stores that
sell processed meats, he said. Prof. Man-
teuffel predicted the government, the na-
tion's main meat distributor, would pur-
chase 16% less meat this year.
The February price increase will vary
from a low of 8% for lard to as high as 4217,
for bam, the state-controlled news media
announced last week. Prices will rise for
such staples as bread and butter, but won't
be increased for some basic food items
such as margarine, vegetable oil and low-
quality beef, the government said.
Rationing will continue for such staples
as rice, sugar, meat and grains, which re-
main in short supply, the Associated Press
reported from Warsaw.
Approved For Release 2009/03/17: CIA-RDP86M00886RO01700090217-8