Nasty Piece of Work

IT is the little things that stick in the mind, those transient items that show up on an inside-page paragraph of one’s newspaper for a day or two, then vanish, forgotten by everyone else but oneself. Here is one of those oddities from the Carter years. In mid-September 1980 a Russian soldier sought refuge in the U.S. embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan. Astoundingly-this, please remember, was nine months into the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, a geostrategic event of the first magnitude-there was no one at the embassy who could understand Russian. After a few days, during which the air in the embassy must have been well-nigh crystalline with embarrassment, a deal was struck-no doubt “assurances” were given-and the unfortunate squaddie was returned to the tender care of the Soviet military authorities. I often wonder what became of him. Better not to know, perhaps.

This little incident has always stood for me as a symbol of the cluelessness and impotence of the Carter administration, by common agreement one of the low points in 20th-century American statecraft.

About the Author

John Derbyshire

Mr. Derbyshire is a former contributing editor of National Review.

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IT is the little things that stick in the mind, those transient items that show up on an inside-page paragraph of one’s newspaper for a day or two, then vanish, forgotten by everyone else but oneself. Here is one of those oddities from the Carter years. In mid-September 1980 a Russian soldier sought refuge in the U.S. embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan. Astoundingly-this, please remember, was nine months into the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, a geostrategic event of the first magnitude-there was no one at the embassy who could understand Russian. After a few days, during which the air in the embassy must have been well-nigh crystalline with embarrassment, a deal was struck-no doubt “assurances” were given-and the unfortunate squaddie was returned to the tender care of the Soviet military authorities. I often wonder what became of him. Better not to know, perhaps.

This little incident has always stood for me as a symbol of the cluelessness and impotence of the Carter administration, by common agreement one of the low points in 20th-century American statecraft.