("They'll greet us with flowers and candy . .. sort of")
Thirty years ago this December, the Soviet Union decided it was a good idea to take advantage of an unstable region by launching an invasion of Afghanistan. Convinced this would be easy and "what the Afghan people wanted", Moscow quickly moved to set up a Soviet backed regime and to fold Afghanistan into the Communist bloc. Or tried to anyway.
Dallas Townsend (CBS News): In recent days U.S. Intelligence has detected the influx of a battalion of Soviet troops, about five hundred men, into Afghanistan.”
Oddly enough, the news warranted only a scant 16 second mention at the end of this CBS World News Roundup broadcast from December 16, 1979. The big news was still the ongoing Hostage drama in Tehran. We were, it seemed, a bit preoccupied to notice what the other hands were doing.
The rest, as they say, is history.
