Politburo decision. Agree with recommendations of Afghanistan commission (GROMYKO, ANDROPOV, USTINOV, PONOMARYOV) for protecting Soviet interests worldwide after the invasion of Afghanistan. Includes text of jointly signed recommendations, 27 January 1980 (210-A), pp 2-9. [R 28 January 1980, Pb 181/34] total 9 pp. (excerpts)

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[page one of nine]

Return within 3 days to CPSU Central Committee
(General Department, Sector 2)

Workers of all Lands, Unite!

COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE SOVIET UNION. CENTRAL COMMITTEE

Top Secret
SPECIAL FILE

No. Pb 181/34

To Comrades:

Brezhnev, Andropov, Gromyko, Suslov,
Ustinov, Ponomaryov, Rusakov

Excerpt from Minutes No. 181 of the meeting of the Politburo
of the CPSU Central Committee, held on 28 January 1980

Further measures to protect the State interests of the USSR
in connection with the events in Afghanistan

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Agree for the most part with the views expressed by Comrades Gromyko, Andropov, Ustinov and Ponomaryov in the attached Note.

The USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the KGB, the Ministry of Defence  and the International Department are to be guided by these views in developing practical measures in relation to Afghanistan.

SECRETARY OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE

[vertical text along left-hand margin]

ATTENTION

A comrade in receipt of top secret documents of the CPSU Central Committee may not pass them to others or acquaint anyone with their content without special permission from the Central Committee. Photocopying or making extracts from the documents in question is categorically forbidden.  The comrade to whom the document is addressed must sign and date it after he has studied the content.

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[pages two to nine, 27 January 1980, 210-A]

Top Secret
SPECIAL FILE

To the CPSU Central Committee

Further measures to ensure the protection of the USSR’s State interests
in connection with the events in Afghanistan

[page three]

– In relations with the USA we must continue to maintain a balanced and firm line in international relations to counteract the provocative steps of the Carter administration. …

– Our influence over the positions of particular US allies in NATO, above all France and the Federal Republic of Germany, must be intensified, making the greatest use … of the differences between them and the USA as exposed in their choice of response to the actions of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.

– Noting that China and the USA are using the events in Afghanistan as a convenient pretext for a further rapprochement on an anti-Soviet basis, we should draw up long-term measures to complicate relations between Washington and Beijing in the context of developing relations within the so-called triple alliance of the USA, China and Japan. …

– In the Non-Aligned movement, the resources of Cuba and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, and also countries on the progressive wing of the Movement, should be used to inspire statements in support of the Afghan government …

– The main efforts in opposition to the hostile activity of the USA and its allies should be concentrated on the Islamic countries of the Middle and Near East. …

– Measures should be taken to preserve the anti-imperialist and, above all, anti-American aspects of Iran’s foreign policy. …

– In carrying out these foreign policy and propagandistic measures, the thesis must be even more widely promoted that the Soviet Union’s military assistance to Afghanistan cannot be viewed in isolation from the provocative attempts of the USA, over the course of a long period, to achieve unilateral military advantages in regions strategically important to the USSR.”

[page nine]

Gromyko, Andropov, Ustinov, Ponomaryov

27 January 1980
No 210-A

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NOTES

See Short Biographies for identity and positions of Afghan, Soviet and other officials.

General

• 1. Notes and additions by translator and editor are bracketed, thus [ ]
• 2. Text written by hand is indicated in italic script, and
• 3. by underlined italic script when a handwritten phrase, figure or word has been added to a previously typed document.

Translation,  JC

Hoover Institution : Fond 89, Opis 34, Reel 1.1001, File 3