Word: kosygin
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...Soviet admission of its economic woes comes at a time when Party Boss Leonid I. Brezhnev and Premier Aleksei N. Kosygin are launching a major attempt to correct the Soviet Union's underlying economic ill: its troubled agricultural system. Though a grain exporter under the Czars, Russia under the commissars is unable even to feed itself; it imported almost as much grain (25 million tons) during the past three years as India and China combined...
...role for a Soviet leader. All last week, during his private talks with Egypt's President Gamal Abdel Nasser, Russian Premier Aleksei Kosygin found himself forced to go soft on imperialism. At least that is what Soviet sources traveling with Kosygin were leaking to Western newsmen. "Actually," argued one Russian, "we are fighting Washington's battle. And we're having as much trouble restraining Nasser as you used to have restraining Chiang Kai-shek...
...matter is Nasser's burning desire to mount a military offensive against Saudi Arabia, which has been aiding the Yemen Royalists in their fight against Nasser-backed Hassan al-Amri, the would-be dictator of Yemen. Russians in the Premier's entourage let it be known that Kosygin is willing enough to aid Nasser with arms and equipment in the Yemen war, but fears that a widening of the conflict to Saudi Arabia would bring about a "hot war" confrontation in the Middle East that neither Russia nor the U.S. wants. Hence, the Russians said, Nasser received...
Nasser must have been disappointed as well by Kosygin's response to the Egyptian food problem. Kosygin counseled Nasser not to risk a stoppage of the U.S. Food for Peace program-Washington is still sitting tight on this year's $150 million worth of grain-because Russia simply cannot afford to pick up the grocery bill. As a result, the joint Russo-Egyptian communiqué issued at the end of Kosygin's eight-day trip was notably mild in its criticism of U.S. activities...
...Faced Solidarity. The whole episode was an interesting illustration of the new caution that pervades Soviet foreign policy these days. Kosygin's trip, after all, was his first planned foray abroad since he took over as Premier 19 months ago. The harsh confrontations that once were Moscow's hallmark from Berlin to the Caribbean no longer occur. Instead the Russians seem anxious to avoid direct conflict with the U.S. Still, the Russian rulers have to maintain anti-imperialist face in order to argue convincingly against their Red Chinese ideological rivals. That task fell last week to Party Boss...