81. Memorandum From the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Planning (Slocombe) to the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy (Murphy)1
SUBJECT
- Afghanistan
I appreciate your asking my views on this issue. I don’t share Bob Komer’s reservations:
1. It is, I think, very much in our interest that we keep the Afghanistan insurgency going. It would be a major blow if heavier Soviet involvement led to a clear Kabul victory and the petering out of the resistance. Indeed, it would mean that the Soviets had been able to do for Amin what no one had ever been able to do for a Kabul government. On the plus side, if the insurgency keeps going, the various rebel factions may be persuaded to get together. Clearly they won’t if things go badly. Even if they don’t, they may be able to make life difficult for Moscow’s Kabul clients even disunited if they have reasonable outside support.2
2. It is the Soviet backyard, but it is also an area where the status quo ante is not having a puppet regime. Our objective is certainly not the unattainable one of installing people in Kabul we can control, but of continuing a situation in which the Soviets, having installed (or more likely connived at installing) a friendly regime find it’s not much more than the Kabul garrison instead of a strong central government.
3. I’m all for saving assets for promising opportunities, and that would be decisive against larger scale actions, but I think a modest US investment of funds (and some arms) would be more likely to pay off here than elsewhere (see para 4 below). (Having written that, it occurs to me that Bob may mean the SecDef should save his assets for more [Page 227] promising interventions with the White House. Since I don’t know why the SCC (I) turned down the original proposal, I can’t assess how much of a reopening the issue requires.3 I think he could raise it noncommittally at a BVB lunch, without risking much.)
4. The fact that the Paks and the Iranians are already helping seems to me an argument for some modestly increased US effort, rather than the reverse. We have learned over the years that we can’t easily affect complicated distant local conflicts operating from here—but that we can have some impact when we can reinforce local concerns. (In current circumstances, being on the same side as the Ayatollah seems strange, but someday we may want to be able to remind them that the Shah wasn’t opposed to the Soviets as a way of being nice to the US but because the US can be a helpful ally against Soviet adventures.) In the current state of our relations with Pakistan, being able to cooperate in this is a useful way of making clear that we have—and can follow through on—some common security concerns. In fact, in my view a principal argument for somewhat increased US support is the beneficial impact on other countries (Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, even China) rather than our impact on events in Afghanistan itself.4
In short, I think we should adhere to the policy that I believe was adopted some months ago: Do what is appropriate to keep the insurrection going, working with others in the region. I can’t comment on specific plans because I don’t know enough about what’s been proposed, but if it’s feasible, I’d favor funds for arms and facilitating services to locate them and get them there.
- Source: Library of Congress, Donated Material of Secretary of Defense Harold Brown, Box 82, Afghanistan. Secret; Sensitive. A copy was sent to Komer. Attached but not printed is a November 20 memorandum from Sullivan to Murphy that contained comments on a Department of Defense paper characterized by Sullivan as “calling for a more aggressive covert action policy on Afghanistan.” Sullivan defended the paper, in response to Komer’s comments, noting that the paper’s objective was not to “win” in Afghanistan by attempting to “install a pro-U.S. western style democracy,” but to “ensure that the Soviets do not win and to ensure the fall of the Amin regime” by increasing monetary aid to the insurgents to $5 million. Sullivan recommended that the paper go forward “even if we do not succeed in overcoming opposition at the SCC level.” The DOD paper with Komer’s comments was not found.↩
- In the left margin beside this paragraph, an unknown hand, likely Murphy’s, wrote: “All true but . . . question is whether [illegible].”↩
- See Document 76. The Presidential Finding did not include a provision to support the Afghan insurgents with military supplies. In the left margin beside this paragraph an unknown hand, likely Murphy’s, wrote: “Also my points.”↩
- In the left margin beside this paragraph, an unknown hand, likely Murphy’s, wrote: “True.”↩
- Slocombe signed “Walt” above his typed signature.↩