Afghanistan We Really Must Go

Since the December summit between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, Moscow has been dropping ever more arresting hints of its readiness to bring home the 115,000 Soviet troops in Afghanistan. Last week the man at the top flashed the clearest signal yet, and it sent peace hopes soaring. In a move clearly timed to capture a wide audience, a Soviet broadcaster interrupted a prime-time television showing of the 1958 film based on Mikhail Sholokhov's classic, And Quiet Flows the Don, to read an announcement from Gorbachev. There are "considerable chances," said the General Secretary's statement, that the next round of peace...