Word: konstantine
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...SOVIET UNION. Not just arms talks, but the entire strategic relationship between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. could soon be vitally affected by a simple fact of nature: age. It is not just that Soviet President Konstantin Chernenko, like Reagan, is 73, but that, quite unlike Reagan, he is ailing. What is more, Chernenko's age is not at all unusual in the top leadership. Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, the voice of the Kremlin at international conferences for decades, is 75, though apparently in good health. Newly appointed Defense Minister Marshal Sergei Sokolov is 73; Premier Nikolai Tikhonov...
...considered particularly significant since it followed the resumption of U.S.-Soviet arms talks. Then came the brief announcement from TASS: the conference had been postponed. To many Kremlin watchers, there was only one possible explanation, as voiced by a senior British diplomat: "A deterioration in Soviet President Konstantin Chernenko's health...
...year saw a slight improvement in the abysmal relations between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. In a January speech, Reagan sounded a new--for him --conciliatory note. But the Soviet leadership, immobilized by the illness of Yuri Andropov, did not register the change. When Konstantin Chernenko first took over the Soviet leadership, he followed Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko's hard line against the U.S. But in June the Soviets spoke of resuming arms talks in Vienna. Then Gromyko agreed to meet with Reagan in Washington, at the height of the presidential campaign. The Soviets can read public opinion polls...
President Konstantin Chernenko, 73, was conspicuously absent from the funeral ceremonies; his doctors had apparently advised him to stay out of the cold. Later in the week he made an appearance at a Kremlin awards ceremony. In his absence Politburo Member Mikhail Gorbachev, 53, and Romanov, the most likely candidates from the younger generation to succeed to Chernenko's party- leadership job, were prominent at the ceremonies. Even without the ministerial title, Romanov may prove to be a decisive figure in allocating military expenditures and could emerge as stiff competition to Gorbachev, now believed to be the front runner...
...sandy-haired man with gold-rimmed spectacles, Ustinov exuded neither charm nor charisma. Nonetheless, as a member of the dwindling but powerful old guard that had survived both Brezhnev and his successor, Yuri Andropov, he had become a more visible public presence early this year: in February, Soviet Leader Konstantin Chernenko shared the spotlight with Ustinov and Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko at Andropov's funeral. Later, in the fall, Ustinov faded out of the picture. Soviet television viewers had fully expected to see him pass through Red Square to review the massed battalions on the anniversary of the Bolshevik...