Word: brezhnevs
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...style of Western diplomatic gestures. TIME has learned that Thatcher, in consultation with Washington, hopes to expand bilateral meetings between East-bloc and Western foreign ministers in order to lay the groundwork for a possible superpower summit along the lines of the 1974 meeting between President Gerald Ford and Brezhnev in Vladivostok. Said Thatcher: "If there is to be progress on arms control, it will come not through negotiating skill alone but because a broader understanding has been reached...
...mend. West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl had the feeling that the new Soviet leadership was "weighing its words." Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau saw hope in the fact that "there was a repetition of the use of the word détente and a real continuity with the Brezhnev spirit." But Chernenko gave Western leaders no hint that the Soviet Union was about to change its position on the new NATO missiles in Europe. Reports on Chernenko's round of meetings carried by the official news agency TASS were decidedly more guarded than most Western assessments...
...make it the first time when he was competing with Andropov. Now that the better man is gone he'll get his chance." Said a worried Moscow housewife: "We are going back to the old ways. Andropov was a strong leader and a strict disciplinarian. Chernenko is like Brezhnev, softer. The Soviet people need someone who will make them work...
...Chernenko staged his political comeback? According to speculation at the time of Andropov's election, Chernenko had been passed over because of his close ties to the Brezhnev bureaucracy. According to this theory, the party apparatus, and hence Chernenko, had lost out when Defense Minister Ustinov tipped the balance in support of Andropov, who had been head of the KGB for 15 years and shared the military's concern for discipline and efficiency. The actual explanation may have been far simpler. Andropov's colleagues on the Politburo apparently considered him to be the more qualified of the two. But once...
Chernenko may be well suited to serve as chairman of the board in what could prove to be the most collective Soviet leadership since the first years of the Brezhnev era. A major test of his personal power will come when the Politburo decides who will assume two other posts left vacant after Andropov's death: the largely ceremonial position of Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, in effect President, and Chairman of the Defense Council, a shadowy group that oversees national security policy (see chart). If Chernenko fails to be named to either post, he may prove...