Word: harvester
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...sting came to light when Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev announced that the 1977 Soviet grain harvest would amount to 194 million metric tons-the lowest since 1975. That bland statistic caused tremors of shock through not only the U.S. Department of Agriculture but the Central Intelligence Agency as well. All summer long the Agriculture experts and the CIA operatives who try to keep track of conditions on Soviet farms had forecast a fat 215 million-ton harvest, indicating that Moscow would not need to buy much foreign grain this year. But the bulletin from Brezhnev meant precisely the opposite...
Actually, there were ample signs this summer of trouble in the Soviet harvest. In Chicago, grain traders heard reports of big Russian purchases eight weeks ago. And in mid-July the Russians were chartering grain-carrying ships. This was done secretly, through Soviet front companies in Paris; bills of lading were rewritten at sea from "Destination Rotterdam" to "Transshipment Rotterdam, Destination U.S.S.R." Not only was the Russian demand for ships an omen that the U.S.S.R. planned to buy more gram than would be necessary with a good harvest, but it lifted world freight rates by 15%,which should also have...
Agriculture Secretary Robert Bergland insists that the poorer than anticipated Soviet harvest was "probably" caused by a late period of bad weather and does not simply reflect poor intelligence. Indeed, Agriculture picture analysts say they were revising their estimates of the Soviet harvest downward before Brezhnev made his announcement...
...Erich Honecker. In the Kremlin's starkly modern Palace of Congresses, President Leonid Brezhnev rose to keynote the festivities with a 90-minute report on the state of the Soviet Union and the world. As always, he had quite a lot to say-about the latest Soviet grain harvest (somewhat disappointing), Moscow's current approach toward Peking (mildly conciliatory) and Eurocommunism...
...general, we resident correspondents worry too much about getting our next trip, just as outside journalists worry about getting their next visas. This sometimes leads to an almost unconscious self-censorship." Munro's own reports have not all been critical of China. He marveled last year at a grain harvest he was allowed to join, and even his human rights series contains kind words for the leniency with which the Chinese sometimes handle people accused of nonpolitical crimes. As for his stories about the less engaging aspects of Chinese life, Munro claims no bias other than his commitment to objectivity...