Word: afghanistan
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...September. But the preparation could provide no more than a framework into which the week's news and analysis would be set. One extraordinary example: an exclusive TIME interview last Friday with a KGB defector, now in British hands, who tells how Brezhnev overruled KGB advice about Afghanistan, and how a bloody coup followed...
Khrushchev evidently decided Kennedy could be pushed around, and so he ordered nuclear missiles placed in Cuba. Khrushchev badly misread Kennedy. Eighteen years later Brezhnev measured Jimmy Carter during the Vienna summit of 1979; he subsequently decided that the Soviets could invade Afghanistan without serious consequences...
...rumors for the past two years that Afghan rebels planned to blow up the tunnel. Western military and diplomatic sources in Pakistan said that any sabotage that closed the tunnel for a long time could severely curtail delivery of military supplies to the 100,000 Soviet troops stationed in Afghanistan. For that reason, it is well guarded. An insurgent group called the Islamic Party belatedly claimed responsibility, but few diplomats took the pronouncement seriously. If the tragedy in the Salang Tunnel was more than an accident, by week's end there was precious little evidence...
...heart of the matter, of course, was the pipeline itself. The administration was worried that the Soviets could blackmail the Europeans by denying them gas, and that cash obtained form the sale of gas would end up in Afghanistan and Poland in the form of guns. These concerns were not unwarranted...
Though Zia and Gandhi carefully steered clear of such thorny topics as the India-Pakistan territorial dispute over Kashmir and the Soviet invasion of nearby Afghanistan, both leaders seemed politely pleased with the talks. Gandhi called them "cordial." Zia pronounced them "excellent." Not exactly torrid reviews. But given the decades of cold enmity between the two countries, any hint of warmth is historic...