Word: andropov
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...parade before a lineup of Kremlin leaders atop the Lenin Mausoleum in Red Square has come to resemble a mystery play rather than a military pageant. Leonid Brezhnev died only three days after he made a faltering appearance in biting weather in 1982. His ailing successor, the late Yuri Andropov, gave hints of his imminent demise when he failed to show up for last year's ceremony. This year it was Defense Minister Dmitri Ustinov who was missing. Questioned by a Western reporter, Politburo Member Viktor Grishin allowed that Ustinov, who has not been seen in public since September...
...Thus it is often all but impossible, even long after the fact, for a news organization to detect that it has been the victim of disinformation. One classic instance that took months to expose: the rash of stories planted among Western journal ists that the late Soviet leader Yuri Andropov was a fan of jazz and Western fiction and a closet liberal...
...misfortune to still live in Moscow and someone walked up to me with a camera and a microphone and asked 'What do you think of Andropov's death?' I would think first of my own life...
...Soviet Politburo. Specialist opinion varies widely, but there is broad agreement that the Kremlin is preoccupied by the recurring problem of succession. The process is more complicated and painful than usual because it is the third period of uncertainty in two years (Leonid Brezhnev died in November 1982, Yuri Andropov last February). The upshot, says Harvard University Professor Richard Pipes, is "a profound crisis and lack of direction." Kremlinologist Marshall Goldman of Wellesley College in Massachusetts calls the Politburo situation "the worst of all circumstances. Everyone knows Chernenko is sick, so no change is possible...
...Center, and others note that any aspirant for the top Soviet leadership post must be both a full member of the Politburo and a secretary of the Communist Party's Central Committee, which comprises more than 300 members. The importance of having those two titles became clear when Andropov was hastily made a party secretary as a prelude to assuming the top job. The only men who fit the bill at the moment are two of the youngest Politburo members, Grigori Romanov, 61, and Mikhail Gorbachev, 53. U.S. analysts believe that Gorbachev is now firmly established...