Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977–1980, Volume XII, Afghanistan

186. Telegram From the Embassy in the Soviet Union to the Department of State¹

Moscow, January 30, 1980, 2115Z

1670. Subj: Meeting With Gromyko. Refs: (A) State 25675, (B) State 24026.²

1. (S—Entire text.)

2. Summary: Gromyko responded to our démarche on U.S.-Soviet relations and Afghanistan by elaborating the emerging public line that the administration had embarked, long before Afghanistan, on a course aimed at damaging U.S.-Soviet relations and increasing international tension. He ticked off numerous “examples” to illustrate his point, beginning with NATO’s adoption of its Long-Term Defense Program while the UNGA Special Session on Disarmament was in session and including familiar complaints about the LRTNF decision as violating the equality which the President had allegedly acknowledged existed at the time of the Vienna Summit. He also faulted our handling of the Cuban brigade issue and charged that our conduct in the various arms control negotiations indicated that we were negotiating simply for the sake of negotiating, not with any intention of reaching agreement.

On Afghanistan, though he did not refer specifically to threats to Soviet security and only indirectly accused the U.S. of responsibility for events there, Gromyko generally repeated the public Soviet justifications for their action. He flatly denied a Soviet role in the change of government in Kabul, and he just as flatly stated that the Soviet troops would not be withdrawn so long as “external aggression” continued. He tried to dismiss as “not serious” any suggestion that the Soviet Union had designs on Pakistan or the Persian Gulf region, adding that anyone who really had doubts on that score should know that Brezhnev had clearly denied it.

The Sakharov case, Gromyko said, was a domestic affair which the Soviets were not prepared to discuss with any outsiders.

The Minister interspersed his basically hard-line response with appropriate indications of indignation, ridicule, and regret, but for the most part he seemed relaxed throughout the lengthy meeting. As was probably to be expected, there was no indication in anything he said of any give on Afghanistan in the near future. There was one conciliatory note at the end of his presentation, when he picked up our reference to the President’s willingness to search for areas of cooperation and reduce the risks of conflict. If we were sincere, he said, we would find that the Soviets would not hold back, as this had always been their policy.

Although State 26328, on your meeting with Dobrynin, arrived after I had seen Gromyko,³ I did not receive any clear intimations of interest in providing guarantees with regard to Iran and Pakistan—unless his observation that Brezhnev had already assured the world that they have no designs on other parts of the region could be considered such. As for Soviet withdrawal, his assertion that this would not occur until outside aggression ceased seems more categorical than Dobrynin’s hint that limitations on assistance to insurgents might suffice. Yugoslavia did not arise in the conversation. End summary.

3. Gromyko received me at 4:30 p.m. January 30 for a two hour and fifteen minute meeting. I read to him the talking points on U.S.-Soviet relations and Afghanistan from refs A and B and then also made the instructed démarche on Sakharov, leaving copies of the talking points on both subjects as non-papers.

[Omitted here is information unrelated to Afghanistan.]

15. Calling it his 7th point, Gromyko took up Afghanistan, noting that I had singled it out for “special treatment” in my statement.⁴ He observed first of all that Afghanistan is not an American province. I might reply, he said, that it is not a Soviet province either. This is true, and the Soviets never claimed that it was. But the Soviets resolutely reject all efforts to deny the Afghanis the right to decide for themselves questions of how they are to live, what kind of leadership they are to have, and so forth—and the U.S. is claiming the right to do that.

16. The U.S. Government can be in no doubt, Gromyko continued, that Afghanistan was subjected to outside aggression. It was in that connection that it called for assistance. In accordance with the UN Charter and the Soviet-Afghan treaty it had a firm legal basis and every right to appeal for help, including that of a military character in the struggle against external aggression. Washington, he said, does not like to touch on that question; it pretends not to see how things really are, to be aware of the aggression from the territory of Pakistan. Perhaps, he said, I could advise Washington to pay more attention to that question so it could see the situation better. He then referred to camps in Pakistan where thousands of people were being armed and trained and being sent to struggle against the people and Government of Afghanistan. In answering the President’s message sent on the hot line, Brezhnev had stated that there was a great deal the U.S. could do to stop those armed incursions from Pakistan.⁵ But this was not and is not being done.

17. The Soviet military contingents are in Afghanistan, Gromyko continued, and there is no basis for them to be withdrawn. They will remain there until such time as there is no external aggression and the U.S. Government must realize that. The Soviets pointed out in their initial statement to certain governments—without waiting for any propaganda campaigns to develop—that their contingents would be withdrawn if the external aggression ceased. The Soviet Union does not need Afghanistan—its territory or its riches. The U.S. Government and the President are aware of that. And the deeds and the words of the Soviets—unlike those of some others—do not diverge.

18. What Gromyko numbered example no. 8 was that Washington continued to repeat one false thesis, which had also been mentioned albeit softly in my earlier statement. This was that the Soviet Union was somehow involved in the changes in the leadership of Afghanistan. Nyet. That is an invention of Washington’s. The Soviet Union was not involved. The change was brought about by the Afghanis themselves. The present Afghan leaders did not come from the moon. The Afghanis formed their government and it is general knowledge that it is not doing badly. For example, tens of thousands of prisoners have been set free, including large numbers of Muslim clergy. Washington likes to speak of human rights. It should welcome this move, even if it does not applaud it. But it does not do so because this does not interest the administration; it is only interested in “pinching the foot” of the Soviet Union.

19. It would be better, Gromyko went on, to stick closer to the facts. Meanwhile, no one should tell the Afghanis how to run their affairs. And it is now clear to the whole world what kind of figure Amin was. One can only be astonished at what is being said about him in Washington. Every Afghani damns him, but Washington seems to like him.

20. As example no. 9, Gromyko took up Pakistan and the Persian Gulf, stating in this connection that he found the turn of Washington’s thinking on foreign policy questions really remarkable. This was especially true in connection with the aggression against Afghanistan, and also in regard to the statement in my démarche which implied anxiety on the part of the administration that the Soviet Union might take some action in regard to Pakistan and the Persian Gulf. In actual fact, he said, he thought that Washington did not actually think that way; there were too many leading figures who knew better, and only the paranoid could believe that the Soviets were intending action against Pakistan and in the region of the Persian Gulf. He asked that I inform my government and the President accordingly. My statement, he said, suggested that the Soviets were sending some sort of challenge. He asked what kind of challenge and to whom. As for the alleged danger to Pakistan and the Persian Gulf region, it was not enough to say simply that this was false; it was fabricated. The thought could only arise in the mind of a person who does not go to the trouble to analyze the situation. Anyone who knows the Soviet Union knows that such action is alien to the Soviet Union’s policies, ideology, and foreign policy line aimed at international détente and peace.

21. Noting that Brezhnev had made it clear, in his answers to a Pravda correspondent, that any such intentions toward Pakistan, Iran and the Persian Gulf were alien to the Soviet Union, Gromyko said that he was thus spared the necessity of speaking in more detail on the matter.⁶ He could only wonder however at the people who posed such questions concerning the intentions of the Soviet Union, and he asked whether I personally, as an Ambassador, and as an important representative of the American business community, could really believe such fabrications. But if there should be someone, somewhere, who has such beliefs, he hoped that his clarification would help them understand the truth of the matter.

22. As his tenth example, Gromyko referred by indirection to the measures taken by the U.S. in response to the Afghanistan action. The administration, he said, is now working energetically in shirtsleeves to increase international tension and sow discord in U.S.-Soviet relations. Brezhnev has clearly pointed out that it is easy to destroy relations but much harder to build them up and develop them. The question arises of how a great power can simply throw aside all of the positive things which have been accumulated over the years by previous administrations. He described the administration as looking around, throwing things overboard rapidly, and if it finds any left throwing them overboard as well. He then mentioned with some forcefulness that the Soviet Union had not come into being due to some external force but through the forces of its own people, in the same way as the United States came into being and exists with all of its social and economic attributes without any external approval. Questions of whether we approve of a social and economic structure or not, it seemed to him, should be set aside in our relations. Meanwhile, he concluded, it was not the Soviet Union but the U.S. side which bears responsibility for the growth of tension and for damage to U.S.-Soviet relations.

[Omitted here is information unrelated to Afghanistan.]

—As for Afghanistan, I said I had heard what Gromyko had said but that I assumed he did not really mean that he thought the U.S. was involved in any aggression against Afghanistan. Nor was I aware from any information which had come to me that Pakistan citizens were involved in the conflict, though he had referred to Pakistan involvement. Gromyko responded that I simply then did not have the facts—that there was no doubt about Pakistani involvement. There was massive evidence about their assistance in training Afghan rebels, about the supply of arms, and about the fact that U.S. arms were also involved.

—I told Gromyko I would like to understand more clearly what he had said about Soviet involvement in the events in Afghanistan, particularly with regard to the change of government. Our information, I said, was that Babrak had arrived in Kabul on a Soviet plane. Gromyko retorted that we put such information into circulation ourselves and then believed it when it comes back to us. I said I didn’t think that was where my information had come from and that I had in fact had the impression that Babrak had been living in the Soviet Union.

25. Gromyko then returned to my remarks on theater nuclear weapons to state that the principle of equality does not relate just to strategic arms. When this principle was addressed in Vienna it was understood that it related to the entire military and strategic posture and equilibrium of the two sides.⁷ How else, he asked, could it be? Otherwise there would be the absurd situation of reaching equality in one field and having it destroyed in a second or third field. Another aspect of the issue, he added, was that while U.S. medium-range missiles could reach the territory of the Soviet Union, just like strategic missiles, Soviet medium-range missiles could not reach the territory of the United States.

Watson

1. Source: National Archives, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy File, P900077–1625, N00002–0517. Secret; Niact Immediate; Nodis; Cherokee.
2. Telegram 25675 to Moscow, January 30, concurred with the Embassy recommendation that the United States should refute Soviet allegations of collusion between Amin and the CIA. The telegram offered the following talking point to that effect: “The Soviet charge that Amin was an agent of the CIA is ludicrous. Either your government is completely misinformed or this is a deliberate attempt at disinformation.” (National Archives, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy File, P910096–1939) In telegram 29487 to all diplomatic and consular posts, February 2, the Department expanded the effort to combat the Soviet “disinformation campaign” with a series of talking points to be used by U.S. diplomats worldwide. (National Archives, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy File, D800058–0925) The other referenced telegram, 24026 to Moscow, January 28, directed the Embassy to seek an appointment with Gromyko to underscore some of the points made by Carter in the State of the Union message. (National Archives, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy File, P880025–0688)
3. Telegram 26328 to Moscow, January 30, reported on Vance’s January 29 meeting with Dobrynin. (National Archives, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy File, P910096–1937)
4. Presumably Watson was referring to the démarche, not to a separate statement, which was not found.
5. For Carter’s message to Brezhnev, December 28, see Document 113. For Brezhnev’s reply, December 29, see Document 114.
6. See Document 166.
7. During the summit in Vienna held June 15–18, 1979, Carter and Brezhnev discussed arms control issues in two meetings on January 17. See Foreign Relations, 1977–1980, vol. VI, Soviet Union, Documents 203 and 204.