How united or divergent were the views in the Carter Administration, responding to the invasion of Afghanistan?
ZB: They were surprisingly uniform. That is to say, I remember that the State Department, which earlier had opposed taking a very tough stand on Afghanistan, and certainly didn’t want us to be issuing any public warnings directed to the Soviet Union, came in with a long list of something like 26 or 28 proposed sanctions against Soviet Union, including the most severe ones that subsequently were adopted by the United States. So once the Soviets had acted, some of the hesitations and reticence regarding how we should respond to the Soviet challenge, dissipated almost instantly. INT: But you managed to increase the powers of the National Security Council? ZB: Well, I didn’t increase the powers of the National Security Council, but obviously what the Soviets did confirmed what we were arguing for some time: namely, that if we don’t draw the line clearly enough, we’re going to get an escalation in Soviet misconduct, that simply acquiescence was not good enough. And in that sense, yes, I sup
