Wilson Discusses 'Charlie Wilson's War'

Former Texas congressman Charlie Wilson

“It was a scary time, and while most have forgotten, it was real, and it was terrifying,” said former Texas congressman Charlie Wilson about the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

Filled with anecdotes about his fondness for Sam Houston State University, Wilson, who attended SHSU in 1950-51, spoke to a packed Lowman Student Center Theatre on Wednesday morning as part of the Distinguished Lecturer Series.

“I was born and grew up in Trinity in the 1930s and 1940s and came here in 1950. Huntsville was sort of a cultural Mecca for people who lived in Trinity,” Wilson said.

“Sam Houston was a very exciting place for me in 1950. I was 16 or 17, and I was interested primarily in history,” he said. We had the Country Campus that was a big thing for Sam Houston for all of the boys coming back from the war and their new wives to live, so they could go to school on the GI bill.

“I’d be in history class with those boys and I just drove them all crazy; making them tell me war stories over and over,” he said.

His speech, “The Red Army’s Last Battle and the Collapse of the Soviet Empire,” revolved around the book written about him, "Charlie Wilson's War," and Congress’ helping of Afghanistan during the 1980s against the Soviet Union attack.

“This all-powerful, indomitable, irresistible empire (the Soviet Union) invaded a small country bordering on its south made up of tribesmen and shepherds, people who had never seen a toilet, people who were illiterate, people who were unarmed,” he said, “but unfortunately for the Red Army, people who were born without fear, with good eyesight and with a steady trigger finger.”

After holding out for almost a year, the war, “truly a battle of flesh and blood against iron and steel,” began to draw interest from the United States Congress, Wilson said.

“We became very interested from the standpoint of the interests of the United States, as well as from the standpoint of great sympathy for these mountain people,” he said. “I became convinced when we were getting reports of the Russians losing officers to knives and stones in the city of Kabul and other cities of Afghanistan that the Russians had bitten off more they had intended to chew. So we began to help them, and we began to help them significantly.”

Wilson with SHSU president James F. Gaertner

Aid came in the form of billions of dollars channeled into the Central Intelligence Agency, and in 1980, President Ronald Reagan made the “enormously courageous decision” to furnish the Afghans with Stinger missiles to repel the Russian HIND helicopters, which had been specifically designed to withstand firing from the heaviest Afghan bullet, according to Wilson.

On September 26, 1986, three of these helicopters were shot down, the first of the war, and after that, the Soviets lost one or two per day for the rest of the war, which was three years.

“The idea that the Red Army, which had terrified us for 50 years, might actually be defeated by a rag-tag group of mountain men was so exciting that we began to pour everything we could into Afghanistan,” Wilson said.

The result of those actions also led to the end of the Cold War.

“The Soviet Army had never lost a battle before September of 1986, and they never won one after that,” Wilson said. “Not only did they lose the war, but the Red Army marched out of Afghanistan in the face of God and everybody on Feb. 15, 1989.

“The prestige of the Red Army was broken, the heart of the Red Army was broken, the morale of the Red Army was broken and more than anything else, the influence in the Kremlin of the Red Army was broken. And the Army was then unable to persuade the Kremlin that there was a military opportunity in (other areas).”

In answer to questions from the audience, Wilson said the United States is continuing to do the right thing in Afghanistan. Iraq, however, is a different matter.

“If I had been president I would not have gone to Iraq,” he said. “Iraq did not threaten the United States; Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction; and we have no critical evidence that Iraq had any relationship with Al Qaeda.

“And I’ll be damned if I know how to get us out.”

—End—

SHSU Media Contact: Jennifer Gauntt
April 14, 2004
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