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

221. Memorandum From the Vice President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Clift) to Vice President Mondale¹

Memo No. 907–80

Washington, February 28, 1980

SUBJECT

• George Kennan’s Assessment of Current Soviet Leadership and the Afghanistan Invasion

You asked me if there was anything to the assertions by George Kennan (article at Tab A) that Soviet actions in Afghanistan were out of character for Brezhnev, Kosygin and Gromyko.² CIA has responded that Brezhnev still appears to be in charge and, of the others, only Kosygin was apparently not a party to the Politburo’s decision to invade Afghanistan. CIA reasons that a gradual disenchantment with Detente (witnessed by the U.S. Congress position towards SALT as of last November and the concurrent U.S. decision to deploy new TNF assets in Europe), together with the fear that Muslim extremism of the type practiced in Iran would spill over into Afghanistan and into the Soviet Union, served to remove most, if not all, concern about unnecessarily harming U.S.-USSR relations by a decision to commit troops.

At Tab B is CIA’s initial assessment of Brezhnev’s role, as stated in their 16 January daily intelligence report.³ At Tab C is a preliminary CIA assessment of Politburo’s decision-making concerning Afghanistan, and at Tab D is a later CIA memorandum on current Politburo thinking on Afghanistan.⁴ Clipped portions of Tabs C and D appear to be especially relevant to Kennan’s assertions.

1. Source: Carter Library, Donated Historical Material, Mondale Papers, Box 70, Foreign Countries—USSR: 1–2/80. Top Secret; Codeword. In the upper right corner an unknown hand wrote: “VP has seen.”
2. The article, attached at Tab A but not printed, is George Kennan, “Washington’s Reaction to the Afghan Crisis: ‘Was This Really Mature Statesmanship?’” New York Times, February 1, 1980, p. A27. Kennan asserted that the decision for the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan was “abrupt,” “bizarre,” and “clumsy” which suggested “the recent breakthrough, to positions of dominant influence, of hard-line elements much less concerned for world opinion, but also much less experienced, than these older figures,” that is, Kosygin, Brezhnev, and Gromyko.
3. Attached at Tab B but not printed is a CIA memorandum, January 16, that concluded Brezhnev “continues to be in the center of things and it seems almost impossible that the decision on Afghanistan could have been made over his objection.”
4. Attached at Tab C but not printed is a CIA memorandum, February 5, that repeated the initial intelligence assessment of January 16, to the effect that Brezhnev remained “in full political control and was directly involved in and supportive of the decision to use military force against the Afghan insurgents.” Tab D is printed as Document 191.