او اندروپوف چې په هغه وخت کې د شوروي سوسیالیستي جمهوریتونو د کي جي بي مشروو د خپلو لوړپوړو چارواکوپه لاس کې یو یرغمل ووچې له یوې خوا یې د امین انځور د یوه امریکایي څارکښ (جاسوس) په توگه راکښلی وو او دهغه د واکمنۍ دوام یې په ښندیز یا مبالغوي ډول شوروي ته یو گواښ باله
د دیسامبر په ۲۴ نېټه اوستینوف د دفاع د وزارت لوړپوړي چارواکي پرته له دې چې د دغه مأموریت موخه ورڅرگنده کړي په یوې غونډه کې راټول او هغوی ته یې د شوروي سرتیرود لیږد پریکړه اعلان کړه.
له کنفرانس وروسته د ډوډۍ په وخت: (له کېڼې - ښۍ خوا ته) د کي جي بي پخوانی مأمور نیکلای س. لیوانوف، دملي امنیت د آرشیف غړی سویتلانا سارانسکایا، دامریکې پخوانی سفیرریموند ل. گراتفورد، د شوروي د بهرنیوچار د وزیرپخوانی مرستیال گریگوري م. کورنینکو او د امریکا ددفاع پخوانی وزیرمک نامرا
When and Why the Decision to Send Troops [to Afghanistan] Was Made.
[from Georgy M. Kornienko, The Cold War: Testimony of a Participant, Moscow,
Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya, 1994, pp. 193-195]
[In the period] from March to October 1979, A. A. Gromyko and I often exchanged
opinions regarding the requests from the Afghan government to send in Soviet
troops, and every time we came to a shared understanding that such a step would
be impermissible. I have not noticed any doubts on that issue on the part of Yu.
V. Andropov or D. F. Ustinov either until October. However, some time in
October, after the physical removal of Taraki by Amin, Gromyko became �locked
in��in his conversations with me he no longer touched upon the issue of the
expediency (or inexpediency) of sending Soviet troops into Afghanistan. From my
conversations with him, already after the introduction of troops, I concluded
that it was not Gromyko who said �A� in favor of such decision, but that he was
�pressured� into it by Andropov and Ustinov together. Which one of those two was
the first to change their initial point of view and spoke in favor of sending
the troops, one may only guess.
Additional evidence that became available to me recently, leads me to suggest
that it was Ustinov after all, who said �A� in this sad affair. The push to
change his former point of view of inexpediency of sending Soviet troops in
Afghanistan came from the stationing of American military ships in the Persian
Gulf in the fall of 1979, and the incoming information about preparations for a
possible American invasion of Iran, which threatened to cardinally change the
military-strategic situation in the region to the detriment of the interests of
the Soviet Union. If the United States can allow itself such things tens of
thousands of kilometers away from their territory in the immediate proximity
from the USSR borders, why then should we be afraid to defend our positions in
the neighboring Afghanistan?�this was approximately Ustinov�s reasoning. As far
as Andropov is concerned, who at that time was Chairman of the USSR KGB, in this
situation he was a hostage of his own apparatus, which on the one hand
exaggerated the danger for the USSR of Amin�s continuation in power, because he
was being portrayed as an American agent, and on the other hand, exaggerated the
power of the USSR to change the situation in the desirable for the USSR
direction. I was aware of the existence of such mood and perceptions in the KGB
apparatus.
Among the leadership of the General Staff, people like Chief of General Staff N.
V. Ogarkov, his First Deputy S. F. Akhromeev, and Head of Main Operations
Department V. I. Varennikov, the idea of sending troops to Afghanistan did not
inspire any enthusiasm, according to my information. For understandable reasons,
they justified their objections against it by professional rather than political
considerations, supporting them by [referring to] the American experience in
Vietnam: the impossibility to cope with Afghanistan with the forces that could
be used [for it] without substantially weakening the Soviet groups of forces in
Europe and along the border with China, which was not acceptable in those years.
However, in the end, Ustinov disregarded their opinion. As far as I know,
experts of the International Department of the CC CPSU regarded the decision to
send troops to Afghanistan as a mistake as well, and tried to let their
considerations on that issue be known to the highest leadership, but without any
success.
As far as I was able to reconstruct the development of the events later, the
difficult deliberations of the �three� over the problem of whether to send the
troops or not continued all through October, November, and the first part of
December. On December 10, 1979, Ustinov gave an oral order to the General Staff
to start preparations for deployment of one division of paratroopers and of five
divisions of military-transport aviation, to step up the readiness of two
motorized rifle divisions in the Turkestan Military District, and to increase
the staff of a pontoon regiment to full staff without setting it any concrete
tasks.
However, the final political decision to send Soviet troops into Afghanistan was
made in the second part of the day on December 12, 1979 by a narrow group of
Soviet leaders: Brezhnev, Suslov, Andropov, Ustinov, and Gromyko (some
publications also mention Kosygin, but according to my information, he was not
present there because he was ill on that day). Thus the fateful decision was
made by not even full CC CPSU Politburo, although a handwritten Resolution of
the Politburo was prepared after the fact, which was signed by almost all the
members.
After that, accelerated preparations of [military] units and formations that
were assigned [the task of] entering the neighboring country began in the
military districts on the border with Afghanistan. On December 24, Ustinov
convened the highest leadership of the Defense Ministry and made an announcement
of the decision to send Soviet troops into Afghanistan without explaining the
purpose of that mission. On the same day, the first printed document signed by
the Defense Minister was prepared�the directive, which said that the decision
was made to �send several contingents of Soviet troops deployed in the southern
regions of the country into the territory of the Democratic Republic of
Afghanistan for the purposes of rendering internationalist assistance to the
friendly Afghan people, and also to create favorable conditions to prevent
possible anti-Afghan actions on the part of the bordering states.�
Translated by Svetlana Savranskaya, The National Security Archive.