On December 1, 1979, KGB Chief Yuri Andropov gave an extraordinary handwritten letter to Leonid Brezhnev on the situation in Afghanistan and future Soviet policy. It marked the beginning of the process that would culminate in the Soviet military intervention. #Afghanistan1979

Andropov had been the Soviet ambassador in Budapest in 1956 and had helped to persuade Nikita Khrushchev to invade Hungary in order to stamp out “ideological sabotage,” which could spread like rot through the communist bloc.

He was again one of the main advocates for the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 for comparable reasons. And in Afghanistan he seems to have come to the same conclusion by the end of 1979.

After the ousting of Taraki in September, Andropov appears to have been embarrassed by the KGB’s failure to effect change and sideline Amin, and by December he had become one of the main advocates for military intervention (along with Defense Minister Dimitri Ustinov).

In the letter, Andropov tried to convince Brezhnev of the need for action in Afghanistan by outlining the difficulties there and leaving no doubt as to who was to blame for the current problems. https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/113254 

Andropov also pointed to more serious problems, relating to “Amin’s secret activities,” which forewarned of a “possible shift to the West.”

Amin’s actions had led to the “danger of losing the gains” of the April 1978 Saur revolution and a “threat" to Soviet positions in Afghanistan “as there is no guarantee that Amin, in order to protect his personal power, will not shift to the West.”

But Andropov offered a solution, as Afghan communists abroad had contacted the KGB with a plan to oppose Amin and create “new party and state organs.” They would, however, require “possible assistance, in case of need, including military.”

Andropov intentionally downplayed the scale of the Soviet military involvement, and falsely gave the impression that it would be the Afghans themselves that would overthrow Amin, with a Soviet contingency force being stationed along the border simply as a “precautionary measure.”

The “implementation of the given operation” (i.e. the liquidation of Amin and installation of a new leadership more beholden to Moscow) would allow the USSR to establish “Leninist principals in the part and state leadership” and “securing our positions in this country.”