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Oxford University Press, USA
Out of Afghanistan: The Inside Story of the Soviet Withdrawal
Out of Afghanistan: The Inside Story of the Soviet Withdrawal
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When the Soviet Union pulled its forces out of Afghanistan, the American media had a simple explanation: Soviet troops had been hounded out of the mountains by U.S.-armed guerrillas--the skies cleared of Soviet aircraft by Stinger missiles--until the Kremlin was forced to cry uncle. But Diego
Cordovez and Selig S. Harrison shatter this image. Out of Afghanistan shows that the Red Army was securely entrenched when the Soviet Union agreed to withdraw: American weaponry and Afghan bravery raised the costs for Moscow, but it was six years of skillful diplomacy that gave the Russians a way
out. Cordovez and Harrison provide the definitive account of the Soviet blunders that led up to the invasion and the bitter struggles over the withdrawal that raged in the Soviet and Afghan Communist parties and the Reagan Administration. The authors are particularly well-suited to their task: Cordovez
was the United Nations mediator who negotiated the Soviet pullout, and Harrison is a leading South Asia expert with four decades of experience in covering Afghanistan. Their story of the U.N. negotiations is interwoven with a gripping chronicle of the war years, complete with palace shootouts in
Kabul, turf warfare between rival Soviet intelligence agencies, and the CIA role in building up Islamic fundamentalist guerrilla leaders at the expense of Afghan moderates. Cordovez opens up his diaries to take us behind the scenes in his negotiations, and Harrison draws on interviews with Mikhail
Gorbachev, former Secretary of State George Shultz, and other key actors. The result is a book full of surprises. For example, the authors demonstrate that the Soviets intervened not out of a desire to drive to the Indian Ocean, but out of a fear of a U.S.-supported Afghan Tito. Rebuffs by hardline
bleeders in the Reagan Administration undermined efforts by Yuri Andropov to secure a settlement before his death in 1983. Even more startling, Gorbachev resumed the search for a negotiated withdrawal more than a year before the first American-supplied Stinger missiles were deployed in the war. The Soviet intervention in Afghanistan was one of the pivotal events of recent history. Out of Afghanistan destroys many of the myths surrounding the Afghan war and will have a profound impact on the emerging debate over how and why the Cold War ended.
Author: Diego Cordovez, Selig S. Harrison
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 06/29/1995
Pages: 472
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.74lbs
Size: 9.58h x 6.42w x 1.49d
ISBN: 9780195062946
Review Citation(s):
Library Journal 05/15/1995 pg. 83
Publishers Weekly 05/01/1995 pg. 48
New York Times 08/11/1996 pg. 21
Cordovez and Selig S. Harrison shatter this image. Out of Afghanistan shows that the Red Army was securely entrenched when the Soviet Union agreed to withdraw: American weaponry and Afghan bravery raised the costs for Moscow, but it was six years of skillful diplomacy that gave the Russians a way
out. Cordovez and Harrison provide the definitive account of the Soviet blunders that led up to the invasion and the bitter struggles over the withdrawal that raged in the Soviet and Afghan Communist parties and the Reagan Administration. The authors are particularly well-suited to their task: Cordovez
was the United Nations mediator who negotiated the Soviet pullout, and Harrison is a leading South Asia expert with four decades of experience in covering Afghanistan. Their story of the U.N. negotiations is interwoven with a gripping chronicle of the war years, complete with palace shootouts in
Kabul, turf warfare between rival Soviet intelligence agencies, and the CIA role in building up Islamic fundamentalist guerrilla leaders at the expense of Afghan moderates. Cordovez opens up his diaries to take us behind the scenes in his negotiations, and Harrison draws on interviews with Mikhail
Gorbachev, former Secretary of State George Shultz, and other key actors. The result is a book full of surprises. For example, the authors demonstrate that the Soviets intervened not out of a desire to drive to the Indian Ocean, but out of a fear of a U.S.-supported Afghan Tito. Rebuffs by hardline
bleeders in the Reagan Administration undermined efforts by Yuri Andropov to secure a settlement before his death in 1983. Even more startling, Gorbachev resumed the search for a negotiated withdrawal more than a year before the first American-supplied Stinger missiles were deployed in the war. The Soviet intervention in Afghanistan was one of the pivotal events of recent history. Out of Afghanistan destroys many of the myths surrounding the Afghan war and will have a profound impact on the emerging debate over how and why the Cold War ended.
Author: Diego Cordovez, Selig S. Harrison
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 06/29/1995
Pages: 472
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.74lbs
Size: 9.58h x 6.42w x 1.49d
ISBN: 9780195062946
Review Citation(s):
Library Journal 05/15/1995 pg. 83
Publishers Weekly 05/01/1995 pg. 48
New York Times 08/11/1996 pg. 21
About the Author
Undersecretary-General for Special Political Affairs of the United Nations from 1981 to 1988, Diego Cordovez was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for his role in negotiating the Geneva Accords. Selig S. Harrison, a former Washington Post foreign correspondent and the author of five books about Asia, is a Senior Associate of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
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