Historians Remember President Jimmy Carter’s Efforts to Aid Afghan Rebels

2025 · VOA Learning English

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1. Many historians say U.S. President Ronald Reagan helped defeat the former Soviet Union and end the Cold War.

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2. Reagan’s efforts included giving support to rebel groups fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s. U.S.

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3. support for Afghan rebels began earlier under the administration of President Jimmy Carter.

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4. Carter ordered secret nonlethal aid to rebel groups six months before the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

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5. The Soviet Union invaded in December of 1979.

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6. Carter worked on cooperation with the Soviet Union by seeking approval of the SALT II (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks) agreement on nuclear

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7. weapons. At the same time, his policies and statements pushed against Soviet goals.

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8. David Gibbs is a history professor at the University of Arizona.

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9. Gibbs said, “I think people’s image of Carter as a deeply religious man, a deeply moral man, is very much influenced by the activities

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10. he’s done after he left office. [But] he definitely…had a side that was very willing to use force, including nuclear weapons.”

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11. In the summer of 1979, Carter signed a secret order known as a “presidential finding” that permitted the U.S.

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12. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to give nonlethal aid to rebels.

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13. The rebels were fighting Afghanistan’s Soviet-supported communist government.

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14. Carter’s order stayed secret until the

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15. 1990s. It became known after several Carter administration officials, including former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, communicated its existence.

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16. They said the trap aimed to force the Soviets into a long war similar to America’s fight in Vietnam during the 1960s and early

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17. In 1998, Brzezinski denied to the French magazine Le Nouvel Observateur that the Carter administration had a plan to get the Soviets into a long war

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18. in Afghanistan. However, he also called such a program “an excellent idea.”

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19. He said most experts do not believe the aid was part of a plan to make the

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20. Tobin also said the Carter administration decided to first wait to see how the situation in Afghanistan would develop after the 1978

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21. government overthrow. But that policy ended with the kidnapping and killing of U.S.

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22. Ambassador Adolph Dubs in February of the next year. Brzezinski then ordered a new plan for Afghanistan.

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23. Tobin said Brzezinski asked an administration official to consider the question: “Should we help any insurgents Tobin said U.S.

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24. government officials thought military aid to rebels would cause a strong Soviet reaction.

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25. This judgment led the Carter administration to give nonlethal aid instead.

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26. Tobin wrote in an article “The Myth of the ‘Afghan Trap,’” about the concerns of U.S. officials.

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27. He said, instead of trying to push the Soviets into a fight, Brzezinski worried the Soviets would slowly expand their power in Afghanistan.

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28. “The objectives in mid-1979 were essentially to do something, anything, to counter the Soviet advance in Afghanistan,” Tobin said.

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29. Even if Carter did not want armed conflict in Afghanistan, he took a strong position against Soviet efforts to control the Persian Gulf.

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30. That body of water lies between Saudi Arabia and Iran, two major oil producers. During a speech to the U.S.

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31. Congress in 1980, Carter warned that the U.S. was prepared to use “any means necessary” to prevent a Soviet takeover of the Persian Gulf area.

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32. On December 28, 1979, the day after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, Carter gave permission to supply weapons and training for

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33. Carter lost the 1980 election to Reagan who mostly continued Carter’s Afghan policy for several years before greatly increasing the

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34. secret aid program. The aid reached several hundred million dollars a year, and the Soviet military left Afghanistan in defeat in 1989.

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35. Jimmy Carter died at the age of 100 on December 29, 2024.

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