the Red Army to subdue the Basmachi Movement in Central Asia in
the 1920s and 1930s (Hershberg, 1996–97: 177). The Soviets had an
interest in the continuation of a negotiation process – to buy time, to
play down their setbacks, to confuse the Afghan resistance, to mute
international criticism, and to raise doubts about the wider value of
aid to the resistance forces (Saikal, 1984a: 487). But ultimately,
more than just time separated 1983 from 1988.
The finalisation and signing of the Geneva Accords
Bringing the Geneva Accords to a conclusion proved a complex
task. The reason was that the draft accords dealt not only with the
withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan, but also the discon-
tinuation of external assistance – in effect, aid from Pakistan and
the USA – to the Afghan resistance. In a letter to Cordovez of 8
December 1985 and in a speech five days later, US Deputy
Secretary of State John Whitehead had effectively accepted that
US aid to the resistance would cease at the beginningof a Soviet
withdrawal from Afghanistan, even though Soviet aid flows to the
Kabul regime would be permitted to continue throughout (and
beyond) the period of the withdrawal. This concession seems to
have resulted from a certain degree of inattention in US circles at
a time when there was little confidence that the Geneva process
was leading anywhere. It appears that President Reagan had not
been briefed on the details of the negotiations and knew nothing
about Whitehead’s speech (Cordovez and Harrison, 1995: 193).
When Reagan was quizzed about the issue in a television interview
in December 1987, he rejected the idea of cutting off aid to the
resistance in exchange for a Soviet withdrawal, and in the face of
outrage from Senators and members of Congress, this was for-
malised in a State Department statement on 4 March 1988.
ComingafterGorbachev’s decisive statement of intention to with-
draw from Afghanistan, this prompted an explosion from Gorbachev
in Moscow. Yet those in the State Department who had promoted the
December 1985 concession had no case for believing that they were
being sabotaged. It should always have been apparent to them that
138 The Afghanistan Wars