Iu. Andropov and B. Ponomarev give their opinion on Tudeh Party First Secretary Kiyanuri’s request for weapons from the USSR.

CC CPSU Politburo Session nominating Gorbachev for General Secretary after the death of Konstantin Ustinovich Chernenko. Many members of the politburo spoke in favor of Gorbachev for General Secretary. They make a unanimous recommendation to the Plenum of CC CPSU.

The letter is a request from Iranian political émigré Hekmat to the CPSU CC to give him assistance in finding work in [his] field. Also includes a recommendation for Hemkat.

Ponomarev and Schcherbakov bring up issues which have arisen from a lack of communication between Korean officials in the DPRK and their families in the USSR.

Shcherbakov reports on the arrival of Korean officials for professional education in the USSR.

Politburo discussion, presided over by Andropov, on how to respond to the Western decision to deploy new nuclear weapons in Europe.

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.