Word: generality
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...entertained Moscow dignitaries vacationing in the spas near Stavropol. Among them was Yuri Andropov, then chief of the KGB, who eventually became Mikhail's mentor. In 1978 Mikhail Gorbachev was promoted to Party Secretary for Agriculture, and the couple finally returned to Moscow. By 1985 Mikhail was General Secretary of the party and the leader of the Soviet Union. Spotting a photograph of Andropov in Washington last year, Raisa said, "We owe everything...
...diligence can sometimes be charming. During a visit to Czechoslovakia in 1987, Raisa kept behind Mikhail and conscientiously repeated, "Thank you so much for coming," as they worked the crowd. In Prague she noticed that the General Secretary was about to overlook a young boy. "Mikhail Sergeyevich," she said in her high-pitched voice. Her husband turned around, greeted the child and invited him to Moscow. Her thoroughness can be irritating too. At a State Department lunch in Washington, Raisa upset Secretary of State George Shultz by having a brief conversation with each of the 180 people on the receiving...
...dinner companion during her 1985 trip to Paris. "We are really friends -- or, if you prefer, we have a great rapport." Mikhail seems to enjoy his wife's feistiness. After his British publisher asked him last April about the possibility of Raisa's writing a book, the General Secretary smiled and said, "My wife is a very independent lady. On this occasion, I will act as a messenger boy. She will make up her own mind...
...Gorbachev is clearly sensitive to opinion at home. When Soviet television broadcast his interview with NBC's Tom Brokaw last year, a question on whether Gorbachev discussed "Soviet affairs at the highest level" with his wife was deleted. The General Secretary's answer ("We discuss everything") was cut as well. In Washington last year she spontaneously crossed the street to talk to Western journalists, underlining a Gorbachevian openness; her KGB bodyguards promptly ordered the only Soviet journalist in the press group to leave...
...woman who chats up Western reporters abroad or the more modest one who stays in the background on her husband's tours of Soviet factories and collective farms? At a time when Gorbachev's reform efforts are still facing opposition from hard-liners, obstructionist bureaucrats and skeptical workers, the General Secretary is likely to tread softly. But he has not given up on pushing his wife forward, perhaps to demonstrate in the most personal terms that he is intent on improving the lot of women. Since 1987, for example, she has been a director of the Culture Fund, a potentially...