Word: brezhnevs
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...Brezhnev's conciliatory gestures were met with some skepticism by Western analysts. Pointing to the Soviets' continuing military presence in and around Poland, a French foreign ministry official said, "The soldiers aren't there with their rifles and tanks to hunt grouse, after all." Indeed, a State Department spokesman reported at midweek that there had been "no significant change in the overall level of [military] activity" despite the official end of the maneuvers...
...spite of all these compelling arguments for not going in, the Kremlin might ultimately decide that it has no choice. Indeed, according to a Western intelligence report, Brezhnev himself had to break a deadlock in the Politburo to block a Soviet decision to invade Poland last December. Last week's decision to give the Polish leadership another reprieve was also thought to have been adopted only after a fierce debate in the Kremlin. Reliable reports reaching Whitehall, TIME has learned, indicate that the case in favor of intervention was made by hard-line Party Ideologue Mikhail Suslov, supported...
...Even short of that, the Soviets would have to assume responsibility for Poland's $27 billion foreign debt and its faltering economy, all in the face of almost certain industrial sabotage, mass strikes and boycotts. Finally, intervention would mean the end of detente, which has been central to Brezhnev's whole foreign policy...
...intervention, Moscow's hopes of stemming a tide of democratization seemed to rest with Polish hard-liners like Politburo Members Stefan Olszowski and Tadeusz Grabski. If they could seize the upper hand within the party, then the Soviets would probably have no immediate need to go in. Brezhnev himself reportedly requested that Olszowski be sent to represent the Polish party in Prague last week, and the two men held long consultations there. Some Western analysts speculated that a new party shake-up might soon substitute Olszowski for Kania, whose name went conspicuously unmentioned at the Prague congress...
...Party congress under way. Senior party officials often travel in such cars with drawn curtains. But the limo was followed closely by an obviously well-equipped Mercedes-Benz ambulance. That was a dead giveaway that the VIP passenger was none other than ailing, 74-year-old Soviet Leader Leonid Brezhnev, whose battle with the infirmities of old age has become nearly as legendary as the formidable power he wields...