The document was a presidential finding, a legal requirement for covert action. Jimmy Carter signed it on July 3, 1979. It authorized the CIA to provide propaganda and non-lethal aid to Afghan insurgents, known as mujahideen, who were fighting the government of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan. The amount was modest, initially just over half a million dollars for pamphlets and medical supplies. The Soviet Union had not yet invaded; that would come on December 24. Carter's action was a warning shot, an attempt to raise the cost for Moscow's client regime in Kabul.
Common belief holds that the massive American arming of the mujahideen began after the Soviet invasion. The pipeline started six months earlier. Carter's directive was a cautious, limited probe. It was based on a Cold War calculus to contain Soviet influence, not a foresighted plan to create a quagmire. The program expanded under President Ronald Reagan into a multi-billion dollar operation that supplied Stinger missiles and other weapons.
The initial trickle of aid became a river that helped bleed the Soviet army over a decade. It also empowered fundamentalist factions within the mujahideen, creating networks and arsenals that outlasted the war. The consequences of that first signed page would include the rise of the Taliban and the incubation of al-Qaeda. Carter sought to send a message. He set a process in motion that would far outstrip its original intent.