The CIA could buy the guns. Pakistan controlled how fast they reached Afghanistan.

By June 1980, the CIA had ordered roughly $30 million in Soviet-origin military equipment for Afghan insurgents. Its own assessment identified a decisive constraint: the pace at which Pakistan could move the weapons onward. The American supply operation depended on a partner controlling the final distribution.

A June 11 CIA memorandum described a route through three countries before the arms entered Afghanistan. Equipment from Egypt travelled on American C-141 aircraft to Dhahran in Saudi Arabia, transferred to Saudi C-130s for Islamabad, and then passed through Pakistani hands to eight Afghan exile organisations based in Peshawar.

Approximately $10 million in arms had already been distributed, the memorandum said. Direct Cairo–Islamabad flights were planned to increase deliveries by about 40%. CIA field observations were offered as evidence that weapons were reaching the insurgents; the agency reported no evidence of Pakistani diversion at that stage.

Pakistan was also negotiating its own assistance. In February, CIA director Stansfield Turner recorded ISI chief Akhtar Abdul Rahman saying President Zia-ul-Haq considered a proposed $200 million American military package unacceptable and personally demeaning. Akhtar nevertheless conveyed a desire to keep talking and to confirm Pakistan’s alignment against the Soviet Union.

By November, the covert programme was poised to grow. Turner requested an $80 million budget for the following fiscal year, divided equally with Saudi Arabia. At a meeting earlier that month, Akhtar had told the Americans that Pakistan could distribute as many weapons as they could provide. Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki supported increasing assistance.

The memoranda expose both the logistics and the negotiations sustaining the partnership. The public documents record what officials assessed and requested at particular moments. The November request establishes an ambition to expand; it supplies no final accounting of what was approved, purchased or delivered.