A complex multinational diplomacy during the Prime Minister-ship of Rajiv Gandhi produced the formula for a coalition government in Kabul to be led by exiled Afghan king Zahir Shah. The coalition was conceived to stop the fundamentalists from taking over Kabul after Soviet withdrawal. The idea received support of the UN and was approved by the US, India, Pakistan and the Soviets. But even as all sides worked on the coalition, the United States took steps that India considered a ‘stab in the back’. Responding to the serious setback in ties with the US, Rajiv began an aggressive diplomacy and joined hands with President Najibullah of Afghanistan.    Rajiv’s diplomatic response triggered a series of events that wrecked the chances  of the coalition. As the Zahir Shah-formula dissipated, General Zia ul Haq of Pakistan went against the Geneva Accords which required him to end supply of weapons to the mujahedin fighters in exchange for Soviet withdrawal. As Zia violated the Geneva Accords by supplying weapons to the Mujahedin fundamentalists, a number of violent incidents in Pakistan culminated in the air crash that killed General Zia on August 17 1988. Following Zia’s death John Gunther Dean, the US envoy to India, who worked on the Zahir Shah plan with Rajiv Gandhi, courted controversy by describing the air crash as an assassination and blamed the US for letting down Rajiv Gandhi.     This book, based on the official papers collected by John Gunther Dean between 1985 and 1988  narrates how India and the US cooperated and then fell apart and how the end of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan began  the a new 21st conflict in  South Asia.