A discussion among the top leadership of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU on the problem of limiting production shortwave radio sets that receive Western broadcasts. The argument is made that, if sets capable of receiving Western radio broadcasts are not produced, Soviet citizens will find ways of adapting non-shortwave radios to receive the broadcasts. The Soviet leaders seem to be under the misconception that the production of shortwave receivers in America was stopped so that Americans couldn’t receive information from the USSR and that the Soviets should do likewise.

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.

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

Notes on a meeting in Moscow from March 6-10 between Yasser Arafat & the PLO Delegation and the Soviet government. Arafat was met by Brezhnev, Boris Ponomarev and Andrei Gromyko. Among the issues discussed were the situation in the Middle East, the Soviets desire for Palestine to counter Egypt's "capitulation" to Israel and the U.S. (which Arafat affirmed), tensions in Southern Lebanon and the PLO's increasing desire to further cooperation with Syria and non-Christian Lebanese groups.

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.