CovertCouncil

Read the document

DOCUMENT FILE · 26 June 1979

The Afghan program begins: the Special Coordination Committee, 26 June 1979

The White House record of the 55-minute meeting at which Carter's advisers agreed to give Afghan insurgents covert cash and propaganda support, six months before the Soviet invasion: the first decision of the program later called Operation Cyclone.

Declassified 2018

3 min read · 6 sources, 5 primary

From the document

It is CIA’s judgment that monetary support for food, clothing, and medical supplies is critical if opposition to the Taraki regime is to be sustained throughout the winter.

Summary of Conclusions, the DCI's report · ✓ verified against FRUS

All the goods (food, medical supplies, and clothing) are to be purchased in Pakistan.

Summary of Conclusions, the CIA's answer on how the money would be spent · ✓ verified against FRUS

The CIA probe had reached the conclusions that Afghanistan language broadcasts to the largely illiterate insurgents would provide a rallying point now lacking.

Summary of Conclusions, CIA option 1 (radio) · ✓ verified against FRUS

Excerpts are passages from a US government work (public domain), quoted exactly and checked against the text on history.state.gov on every rebuild.

The meeting lasted 55 minutes, from 9 to 9:55 on the morning of 26 June 1979, in the White House Situation Room. Its subject line read "Afghanistan and Grenada." Zbigniew Brzezinski, the President's national security adviser, chaired; the Vice President, Under Secretary of State David Newsom, Director of Central Intelligence Stansfield Turner and his deputy Frank Carlucci, and officials from Defense, the Joint Chiefs, Justice and the budget office attended. Donald Gregg of the NSC staff wrote the summary of conclusions, classified Top Secret1.

How it got there

Afghanistan had been under a communist government since April 1978, and by 1979 a rural revolt was spreading. At an earlier meeting, on 6 April, the same committee agreed that aid to the insurgents was realistic only "through and/or with the assistance of the Pakistanis," and sent the CIA to hold exploratory talks with Pakistani intelligence2,5. The June meeting heard what that probe had found.

What was decided

Turner reported that ties with insurgent leaders had been made in Pakistan, that Pakistani support seemed to be "tailing off," and that cash for food, clothing and medicine was critical if the opposition to President Nur Muhammad Taraki was to last the winter. Asked how the money would be spent, the CIA said it would be handed out in increments, with accountings sought, and that all goods would be bought in Pakistan. Turner also described a radio station in a third country, still unnamed in the release, whose broadcasts could reach a largely illiterate population1.

The committee then agreed on five steps:

  • approve cash support (Option 2), starting with money already in the CIA budget, the amount still withheld; Pakistan would be told, but the CIA would run the operation alone;
  • let the CIA ask the third government about using its broadcasts;
  • expand psychological efforts to unite the insurgents, and work with "an existing Pakistani agent asset";
  • defer the options of sending humanitarian supplies through Pakistan or a third country until Pakistani reactions and "other political fallout" were weighed;
  • tell Saudi Arabia, and encourage the Saudis to fund similar covert aid1.

The CIA was asked to draft a Presidential Finding for the first five options "on a step-by-step basis." A sixth option in the attached CIA paper, limited military supplies through Pakistan, was not discussed1.

What followed

President Carter signed two findings on 3 July 1979. The editors' footnote quotes them: one authorized propaganda, radio access through third countries and support to the insurgents "in the form of cash or non-military supplies"; the other, worldwide in scope, authorized efforts to expose the Kabul government as "despotic and subservient to the Soviet Union"1. A State Department summary of May 1980 put the total for cash and non-lethal supplies under these findings at $695,0004. By October Turner reported the money spent, and told Brzezinski that "only arms were really wanted at this point"3. Lethal aid came only after the Soviet invasion of December 19794; see the 1980 briefing memorandum and our page on Operation Cyclone.

The record was published in 2018. The Grenada item, the radio country, two participants' names and every dollar figure remain withheld1.

Sources

  1. FRUS Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977–1980, Volume XII, Afghanistan, Document 53 (Summary of Conclusions of a Special Coordination Committee Meeting, 26 June 1979), US Department of State, Office of the Historian (2018).
  2. FRUS Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977–1980, Volume XII, Afghanistan, Document 48 (Minutes of a Special Coordination Committee Meeting, 6 April 1979), US Department of State, Office of the Historian (2018).
  3. FRUS Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977–1980, Volume XII, Afghanistan, Document 71 (Editorial Note on Turner's meeting with Brzezinski, 4 October 1979), US Department of State, Office of the Historian (2018).
  4. FRUS Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977–1980, Volume XII, Afghanistan, Document 267 (Briefing Memorandum From Spiers to Muskie, 9 May 1980), US Department of State, Office of the Historian (2018).
  5. FRUS Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977–1980, Volume XII, Afghanistan (Preface), US Department of State, Office of the Historian (2018).
  6. Wikipedia Operation Cyclone, Wikipedia.

Elsewhere in the files