Word: kgb
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Andropov, had been engraved and sent to more than a dozen TIME printing plants in September. But the preparation could provide no more than a framework into which the week's news and analysis would be set. One extraordinary example: an exclusive TIME interview last Friday with a KGB defector, now in British hands, who tells how Brezhnev overruled KGB advice about Afghanistan, and how a bloody coup followed...
Andropov was, to Western experts, by far the most controversial of the contenders. Stern and serious behind his thick spectacles, he was the Ambassador to Budapest during the Soviet army's efficient repression of the Hungarian uprising in 1956. As head of the Committee for State Security (KGB) from 1967 to May 1982, he had also overseen the suppression of internal dissent. But at the same time, Andropov developed a reputation for pragmatism and sophistication, at least by Soviet standards...
...exclusive interview with TIME last week, Vladimir Kuzichkin, the former KGB major who defected to Britain last June, stressed the difference between Andropov and other top Soviet leaders. Said Kuzichkin: "With the progress of time it will become clear that Andropov is his own man. Although he made his name as the KGB boss, he was not a professional policeman, having much wider interests. He owed his KGB job to Brezhnev, but he was never Brezhnev's creature...
...standard of living under Brezhnev, Soviet citizens may have to settle for no further improvement in the 1980s. But they are not likely to rebel openly. Lacking any genuine forum in which to express dissatisfaction, Soviet consumers will probably do little more than grumble. Andropov, with his KGB background, may deal more harshly with strikes or other eruptions of anger that might occur. Says Historian Walter Laqueur: "Expect tighter discipline rather than liberalism, but expect some economic reforms...
Yuri Andropov becomes the first KGB boss to run the country...