Word: gorshkov
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...Ducks. After the war, Stalin started building big warships again, but only 15 cruisers had been completed by the time he died in 1953. The new chief in the Kremlin had no sympathy for Stalin's plans. Nikita Khrushchev fired Stalin's navy chief, Admiral Kuznetsov, and brought in Gorshkov, who by then was naval chief of staff...
...party member since 1942, Gorshkov knew better than to openly oppose Khrushchev. But as a skilled politician himself, he knew well how to stall. He subtly resisted the missile enthusiasts in the Kremlin, kept alive the concept of surface ships. Then Khrushchev decided to put missiles in Castro's Cuba?and the whole game changed. The humiliation of their backdown under the guns of the U.S. Navy impressed on the Soviet leaders the value of naval power. Shortly after the crisis, Khrushchev sent an order to the admiral: Create a surface fleet...
...Gorshkov's own status reflects the navy's elevation to a place of importance. His fleet ranks in the top troika of Russian weaponry, alongside the ICBM command, a separate service in the Soviet setup, and the air force strategic bombers. In the chain of command, Gorshkov reports directly to the Defense Ministry. He was elected to the Central Committee in 1961, became a Hero of the Soviet Union in 1965 and was promoted last year to the exalted five-star rank of Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union, only the third to get that honor...
...befits his rank, he is chauffeured each morning from his spacious Moscow apartment to the Defense Ministry in Arbatskaya Square. Gorshkov seldom entertains and rarely appears at diplomatic functions. Married, he often spends weekends with his wife at their government-supplied dacha near Moscow. Like most high-ranking Soviet officers, he is withdrawn even from his personal staff, spent most of the time that he was not traveling about in India alone in his bedroom...
Harassment Policy. The Soviet navy's 465,000 men are also deadly serious about their chief task: a potentially lethal game of espionage and tag. Gorshkov's fleet has expanded its activity on the seas by three hundredfold in the last ten years, and much of its effort is devoted to a determined policy of harassment, probing and provocation. Across the oceans of the world, the light-grey-hulled Soviet warships are watching, trailing and sometimes crowdj ing the ships of the Western fleets, especially those of the U.S. Navy...