Word: andropov
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...dark red, 35-ft.-high Lenin Mausoleum. There, the aging leadership of the Kremlin, dressed in look-alike dark gray overcoats and fedoras, shuffled slowly into line to review the parade. The face that every spectator sought was that of President and Communist Party General Secretary Yuri Andropov, 69, whose absence at a celebration two days earlier had been officially explained by the report that he was suffering from a "severe cold...
...stooping figure on the reviewing stand. Then came the correction: the man was Konstantin Chernenko, 72, a former rival for the leadership in the eleven-member ruling Soviet Politburo. Long after the ranks of T-80 tanks and SA3 missiles began rumbling through the square, the first sign of Andropov's continuing presence in the Soviet hierarchy was a huge airbrushed portrait of him that sat on a red-draped float during the ensuing civilian procession...
...Andropov's case, the Soviet authorities went to extraordinary lengths to blunt such a conclusion. Days earlier, Leonid Zamyatin, head of the Soviet Central Committee's international information department, had hinted broadly that Andropov might not appear at the parade because of his "cold." Soviet newspapers gave prominent display to photos of the larger-than-life Andropov portraits that appeared during the parade. Even though Chernenko took Andropov's place on the reviewing stand, the official party newspaper Pravda never once mentioned Chernenko's name in reporting the event...
Speculation about Andropov's health began to increase last March, after he briefly disappeared from public view. When Andropov reappeared, he seemed weak and shaky. His last public appearance was a meeting with a group...
Senators on Aug. 18. Since then, Soviet pronouncements have been issued in the form of communiqués in Andropov's name or through the official Soviet news agency TASS. A further signal that Andropov may not be well came last month, when he postponed a scheduled trip to Bulgaria...