Word: kgb
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...public is welcome 24 hours a day. Two guards politely answer questions, and visitors can leaf through the neatly arranged newspapers while relaxing on comfortable brown leather sofas. This paragon of bureaucratic efficiency is the reception center of the Committee for State Security, better known by its initials: KGB...
Peeking into the orderly KGB waiting room, a block away from the headquarters on Dzerzhinsky Square, few would question that the Soviet security service has undergone a dramatic transformation since Stalin's era, when numbed citizens queued for news of arrested relatives. Once a crude weapon of repression, it now functions as a sophisticated instrument of state control, both at home and abroad. But despite the change of image, the KGB still inspires fear and loathing. As a letter in the magazine Ogonyok put it last August, "The time has come to lift the curtain of secrecy from the KGB...
...party bureaucracy in his ambitious reform programs. The key question was whether he dared to take on the third pillar of Soviet power: the security establishment. An answer of sorts came at the party plenum two weeks ago. In a blitzkrieg shake-up of the leadership, Gorbachev named KGB chief Viktor Chebrikov, 65, head of a new commission on legal reform. Deputy KGB chairman Vladimir Kryuchkov, 64, leap-frogged over two more senior officials to get Chebrikov's vacant post...
...clear whether Gorbachev handpicked Kryuchkov as his new KGB chief, but the two shared a common patron in Yuri Andropov. Kryuchkov, whose affectionate nickname is said to be "Kryuk" (meaning hook), accompanied Gorbachev to last December's Washington summit, marking him as a man to watch. A specialist in international operations, Kryuchkov is not closely associated with repressing dissidents during Gorbachev's democratization effort. His appointment may be a signal that the Kremlin now attaches greater priority to KGB activities abroad. In the view of a U.S. State Department Soviet expert, "Gorbachev wants to narrow KGB responsibilities and get them...
Viktor Chebrikov, 65. Already a voting member of the Politburo, Chebrikov was moved from chief of the KGB to head a Central Committee panel that will oversee legal reform. Sideways...