181. Telegram From the Embassy in the Soviet Union to the Department of State and the International Communication Agency1

1474. Subject: Soviet Reaction to U.S. Policy.

1. (C—Entire text)

2. One of the first authoritative Soviet reactions to President Carter’s State of the Union message has come from Leonid Zamyatin, Chief of the International Information Department of the CPSU Central Committee, who appeared, along with Yevgeny Primakov, the Director of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the USSR Academy of Sciences, on the January 26 “Studio 9” television program.

3. Zamyatin made the sharpest criticism to date of President Carter personally and of the “turnaround” in U.S. policy—which he said had begun long before Afghanistan.2 He also, for the first time to our knowledge by a high level Soviet official, publicly made the charge that Hafizullah Amin was a CIA agent. The Soviet press has printed this charge before, but attributed it to Afghan officials. Also of interest are Zamyatin’s claim that the Soviet Union more than once had warned the United States via diplomatic channels to “stop the action against [Page 515] Afghanistan that you are carrying out from the territory of Pakistan” and Primakov’s charge that the U.S. is planning military intervention in Iran. In this latter connection, Primakov said Soviet declarations had made it clear that the USSR could not stand aside if events took such a turn.

4. Zamyatin was, in effect, elaborating Brezhnev’s claim in his January 12 Pravda interview that, if there had not been an Afghanistan, the U.S. would have had to invent one in order to further its policy of destroying détente.3 But Zamyatin did so with all the venom and invective for which he is famous. His analysis was that the U.S. is embarking on the role of world gendarme, and he illustrated the point by quoting James Reston as having told him on his recent visit to Moscow that Washington was “nostalgic” for the days of Truman when the U.S. could carry its will anywhere in the world.

5. Zamyatin also elaborated Brezhnev’s “threat from the south” theme, providing considerable detail aimed at convincing his audience that the U.S. was on the verge of taking over Afghanistan and that, between that and Amin’s machinations with the CIA, the Soviet Union really had no choice but to act. Given the shrillness of his remarks on U.S. policy, the Soviet listener must have been a bit puzzled by both Zamyatin’s and Primakov’s concluding references to the viability of the policy of détente and to CPSU determination to continue in this direction because there is no alternative to détente.

6. Our conclusion, based on programs such as this, as well as Gromyko’s remarks in Damascus4 and reports we have received of bilateral Soviet approaches to the French and West Germans, that the Soviets are taken aback by the strength of the international reaction to their invasion of Afghanistan and are now rapidly mounting an all-out propaganda offensive in an effort to shift world opprobrium to the U.S. While many of their “big lie” charges are ludicrous, we fear that continued denials, such as that the Department spokesman has already given concerning the Amin-CIA connection,5 will be called for in the days and weeks ahead.

7. Washington will have received excerpts from the “Studio 9” interview via TASS English. We have also pouched a tape of the broadcast to USICA.

Watson
  1. Source: Carter Library, National Security Affairs, Brzezinski Material, Cables File, Box 6, Afghanistan: 1/27–28/80. Confidential; Immediate; Sensitive. Sent for information to Warsaw, Amman, Baghdad, Beijing, Beirut, Belgrade, Berlin, Bonn, Bucharest, Budapest, Cairo, Damascus, Islamabad, Jidda, Kabul, Leningrad, London, Paris, Prague, Rome Sofia, Tel Aviv, Tokyo, Tripoli, USBerlin, USNATO, and USUN. Printed from a copy that was received in the White House Situation Room.
  2. An item in the President’s Daily Brief, January 29, described an article in Pravda, January 29, as “Moscow’s initial authoritative reply” to Carter’s State of the Union address, and characterized it as “polemical and vindictive” and “replete with abusive language about your administration.” (Central Intelligence Agency, Office of the Director of Central Intelligence, Job 81B00401R: Subject Files of the Presidential Briefing Coordinator for DCI (1977–81), Box 8, Afghanistan Crisis—December 1979, PDBs)
  3. See Document 166.
  4. Gromyko’s remarks on Afghanistan during his visit to Damascus were reported in telegram 662 from Damascus, January 28. The telegram characterized Gromyko as “strongly attacking” the United States during an exchange of toasts at a dinner in his honor, January 27. (National Archives, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy File, D800049–0340)
  5. Not further identified.