(3 of 5)
One day things began to look brighter. A man called [Hafizullah] Amin seemingly emerged from nowhere to be Taraki's deputy. He was a cultivated Oriental charmer. Quietly, Amin began to take control away from Taraki. More important, he persuaded Moscow that he would be able to defuse the Muslim threat. We at the KGB, though, had doubts about Amin from the start. Our investigations showed him to be a smooth-talking fascist who was secretly pro-Western (he had been educated in the United States) and had links with the Americans. We also suspected that he had links with the CIA, but we had no proof. In short, the KGB was pointing to a danger that Amin—if he could ride the tiger of Muslim insurgency and come out on top as the leader of an Islamic Afghanistan—not only would turn to the West but would also expel the Soviet Union—lock, stock and barrel—from Afghanistan. On political grounds, the KGB argued, it would be better, even at this late hour, to put Karmal in as President.
Despite our warnings, and to our complete amazement, Mr. Brezhnev backed Amin. Taraki was invited to Moscow. Secretly, Mr. Brezhnev and his Politburo colleagues had agreed with Amin that Amin would arrange for Taraki to step down as President on his return to Kabul. Amin carried out the agreement in spirit, if not to the letter: Taraki stepped straight from the presidency to his grave. Moscow was willing to turn a blind eye to that. It was only weeks, however, before the smooth-talking Amin made the KGB argument seem correct. Amin did not honor specific promises made to the Soviet Union, he complained about the KGB's activities in Afghanistan, and he wanted Soviet officials who had had the "effrontery" to advise him recalled. Moreover, things in Afghanistan were looking blacker and blacker. Terrible reports were coming in of what Muslim insurgents were doing to any Soviet advisers they caught. Worse, though the uprising was spreading, Amin seemed to be doing nothing to combat it.
The Politburo now really was convinced that the KGB argument had been right: Amin was planning to turn Afghanistan against the Soviet Union. So the Politburo decided Amin had to go. Preferably quietly—but certainly dead. At first, we—that is, the KGB—were given the job. We had an officer, an illegal who passed as an Afghan and had for some time been one of Amin's personal cooks. He was ordered to poison Amin. But Amin was as careful as any of the Borgias. He kept switching his food and drink as if he expected to be poisoned. The illegal's nerves began to fray as his attempts.
The failures annoyed Moscow. The Politburo accepted a less quiet way of getting rid of Amin. This time special Soviet troops were to storm the presidential palace. The day after Christmas 1979, Soviet paratroopers began arriving at the Kabul airport. They strengthened the substantial garrison we had quietly been building up there. The next day an armored column moved out of the airport toward the palace. It consisted of a few hundred Soviet commandos, plus a specially trained assault group of KGB officers—rather like the U.S. Green Berets. They were all in Afghan uniforms, and their vehicles had Afghan markings.