"It will be like Viet Nam "

For all its efforts to lessen the impact of the Afghanistan invasion on Soviet citizens, the Kremlin leadership is beginning to discover that the war has caused considerable disquiet and difficulties on the home front. Although there are no credible casualty figures, Dissident Andrei Sakharov has spoken of "thousands" of Soviet deaths; relatives and friends of soldiers have become uncomfortably aware that the number of casualties is high. According to Moscow-based European diplomats, Soviet authorities have stopped burying soldiers with full military honors in an apparent attempt to divert attention from the deaths. Many of the seriously wounded have been flown for treatment to hospitals in East Germany instead of the U.S.S.R., apparently to conceal the extent of casualties.

Now, says a European businessman, "all over Moscow, for the first time, people are beginning to whisper in the shops, to ask what exactly is going on." Some Westerners attending the Olympic Games heard plaintive and angry words about Afghanistan, usually from people who brought up the subject themselves. Reported one such observer:

A wide range of Soviet citizens raised the issue, speaking openly, worriedly and almost compulsively. The first was a young woman who, after a brief back-and-forth about the Olympic boycott, admitted: "We should never have gone into Afghanistan. Never. We will fight there for years. It was a terrible mistake. It will be like Viet Nam." When it was suggested that, tragically, thousands of soldiers will come home in coffins, she wheeled with frustration in her eyes: "What do you mean will? Thousands already have come home in coffins. And it is only the beginning."

Another conversation was with an official involved in security for the Games. "I have two friends who have been killed in Afghanistan," he confided. "One I have known since boyhood. He has a daughter too, just as I do. I look at my child and I think of my friend and I wonder should we ever have had children? It is a terrible time for children when their fathers may have to go to war."

His voice flared with anger, and he made a spitting gesture. He explained that traditionally the graves of fallen Soviet soldiers have been inscribed DIED FOR THE MOTHERLAND. But not for Afghanistan. "Do you know what they put on their tombstones? Four words: DIED FOR INTERNATIONAL DUTY! What is that? I do not know what 'international duty' is. But this is what they put on the graves." And he made the contemptuous spitting gesture again.

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