Word: brezhnevs
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...Soviet relations, Moscow Bureau Chief Erik Amfitheatrof studied the record of the past and consulted dozens of Soviet and Western sources. He also drew on his on-the-scene experience of watching Gromyko at numerous Kremlin functions, including the receptions for foreign statesmen that followed the funerals of Leonid Brezhnev and Yuri Andropov. On those occasions, he reports, Gromyko lingered longer with East bloc allies and exchanged only perfunctory greetings with Western leaders. "The exception," Amfitheatrof notes, "was Britain's Margaret Thatcher, who seemed able to charm the grim-faced Foreign Minister...
Ever since Leonid Brezhnev became seriously ill, the Soviet Union has had no strong direction from the top. As Brezhnev's health deteriorated, decision making was virtually paralyzed. His successor, Andropov, began his tenure by projecting a forceful image, particularly in cracking down on corruption, absenteeism and economic inefficiency. But soon he too was mortally ill; from Aug. 18, 1983, until his death last February, he was not seen in public. Again, decisions were postponed as his colleagues waited and presumably maneuvered for position...
...Kremlin's leadership crisis became even more apparent when, after four days of deliberation following Andropov's death, the Communist Party Central Committee announced that Chernenko had been named to the top position. Known more for his loyalty to Brezhnev than for his expertise in any area except the party bureaucracy, Chernenko had been conspicuously passed over 15 months earlier when Andropov succeeded Brezhnev; indeed, there was some speculation that Andropov had shunted his erstwhile rival aside...
...consensus among Western experts today is that although Chernenko quickly collected all the titles that Brezhnev and Andropov held (General Secretary of the Communist Party and President, as well as Chairman of the Defense Council), he in fact merely shares power with Defense Minister Dmitri Ustinov and Foreign Minister Gromyko. It is the latter who, after more than a quarter-century as the executor of other men's policies, is thought to have been most instrumental in shaping the current hard line. There seems to be no one powerful enough to rein him in. Adam Ulam, director of Harvard...
...SALT: Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, negotiations that began early in the "Nixon Administration, producing the 1972 SALT I treaty limiting ABMs and an interim agreement restricting offensive weapons, and ended with the 1979 SALT II treaty, signed by Jimmy Carter and Leonid Brezhnev but never ratified by the U.S. Senate...