Word: brezhnevs
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...could be sure that the leadership battle was definitely over. Although Andropov decisively occupied center stage at the elaborate ceremonies surrounding the funeral of his predecessor, Leonid Brezhnev, leaving any rivals far in the background, the country's gerontocratic leadership had not substantially changed. Only when Andropov faces this week's meeting of the 308-man Central Committee will his skills as a political infighter and his ambition to put his mark on the Soviet Union be tested...
...tone for the past week, indeed perhaps for the Andropov era, was set by the military honors that were accorded to Brezhnev on his final appearance in Moscow. The coffin carrying Brezhnev's body was borne from the House of Trade Unions, where it had lain in state for three days, by six high-ranking officers as a procession of generals and admirals carried his medals on red cushions. The coffin was placed on a gun carriage drawn by an amphibious army scout car, the modern-day Soviet equivalent of the traditional horse-drawn caisson. Soldiers with fixed bayonets...
...speeches by Andropov, Defense Minister Dmitri Ustinov, Academy of Sciences President Anatoli Alexandrov and a factory worker, pallbearers led by Andropov on the left and by Premier Nikolai Tikhonov on the right carried the coffin to another bier behind the mausoleum. There the family bade its last farewell to Brezhnev. His widow Victoria was overcome by emotion as she kissed her husband's face according to the Russian tradition. As an artillery salute boomed out and a military band played the national anthem, the coffin was lowered into its grave...
Finally, it was the turn of the U.S. delegates, Vice President George Bush and Secretary of State George Shultz. The Americans and the Russian looked at each other carefully as Viktor Sukhodrev, who had been Brezhnev's interpreter, translated for Andropov. The new Soviet leader showed no inclination to display his reputed command of English. Knowing they had been invited to talk privately with Andropov in two hours, the Americans then moved on toward a large portrait of Brezhnev, draped in black, that had been set up on a table just beyond the receiving line. Nearly every delegation...
...minutes with Soviet Foreign Minister Gromyko. The same day, Pravda Editor Viktor Afanasyev told a group of visiting Japanese journalists that both Peking and Moscow might agree to reduce their military forces along the Soviet-Chinese border. Though just such a proposal has been expected by diplomats since Brezhnev made overtures to Peking earlier this year, the timing of Afanasyev's statement seemed designed to give Andropov credit for a foreign policy initiative...