The Politburo discuss the need for Soviet troops to withdraw from Afghanistan, the best way to do that, and set up a time table to withdraw troops.

Gorbachev and Chairman Karmal discuss the future of Afghanistan with less intervention from the Soviets.

Gromyko and Dost discuss the situation in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan and foreign relations between Afghanistan and Western countries.

The following CPSU Central Committee document, dated 1 April 1979 and signed by Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, Defense Minister Dmitrii Ustinov, KGB chief Yurii Andropov, and CC International Department head Boris Ponomarev, provides a strikingly candid assessment of the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan that the Soviet Politburo confronted in spring 1979. The report attributes the increasing success of the Islamic opposition (i.e., the Afghan Mujaheddin) to the “miscalculations and mistakes” of the PDPA (People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan) regime that seized power following the April 1978 “revolution.”

Meeting of Kosygin, Gromyko, Ustinov, and Ponomarev with Taraki in Moscow to discuss the deterioration of the situation in Afghanistan and expressing Soviet support for Afghanistan.

The decree is on the situation in Afghanistan.