Word: kosygin
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Late in the Johnson Administration, at the Glassboro summit, Robert McNamara patiently tried to persuade Premier Alexei Kosygin that it was in the interests of both countries to forswear large-scale antiballistic missile (ABM) defenses, since a defensive arms race would only escalate the offensive one already under way. Each side would feel compelled to increase the number and destructiveness of weapons with which to "penetrate" the defenses of the other. Eventually, in the first round of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT I) during the first Nixon Administration, the Soviets agreed to limit ABMs...
...Historian Bertram Wolfe unwisely described Brezhnev as "an insignificant transition figure in a new interregnum." Initially, Brezhnev shared authority in a triumvirate with Premier Alexei Kosygin and President Nikolai Podgorny. By 1973 he had elbowed aside any rivals for power. He placed allies in principal positions in the party hierarchy and increasingly emerged as chief spokesman for the Politburo. On trips abroad he was treated as head of state, even though he did not formally assume that title again until after Podgorny's dismissal...
Brezhnev, at first with Kosygin's assistance, began dismantling many of Khrushchev's more quixotic experiments, especially those that weakened the power of the Communist Party. Restrictions on private farming were eased, and wages were increased. At the same time, Brezhnev subtly moved back toward some policies that were reminiscent of the Stalin years. Arrests and deportations gradually extinguished the dissident movement. Some future historians may mark Brezhnev's expulsion in 1974 of Nobel-prize-winning Novelist Alexander Solzhenitsyn as one of the most significant events of the Soviet leader's long reign...
Whether or not Johnson left his mark on his adversary is beside the point. The important thing is that he and Kosygin were able to sit down and size each other up. In those moments of crisis between the superpowers, a President is better off judging a human than a legend...
...Glassboro, N.J., Lyndon Johnson met Alexei Kosygin, one of the reigning triumvirate that replaced Khrushchev. Johnson devised an elaborate form of body language in an effort to convince Kosygin that he was dealing with a tough Texan. L.B.J. gave the Soviet one of his crusher handshakes, then hovered over the shorter Kosygin. Convinced that eye contact was a measure of a man's determination, Johnson locked eyes with Kosygin at one crucial point. Needing a sip of coffee, L.B.J. felt for his cup on the table rather than release his visual grip on Kosygin, who finally blinked and looked...