Word: kremlinologists
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Whoever wins out, and whenever the change occurs, U.S. officials charged with deciphering Soviet affairs do not expect any radical departures in Kremlin policy. To understate the case, Soviet leaders do not rise to the top by advocating brilliantly unorthodox ideas. Says one Kremlinologist: "There are no young Turks in the Kremlin waiting to redress the wrongs of previous generations." But Soviet policy may become less predictable as new leaders relatively unfamiliar to the West acquire authority...
...year it was Defense Minister Dmitri Ustinov who was missing. Questioned by a Western reporter, Politburo Member Viktor Grishin allowed that Ustinov, who has not been seen in public since September, was suffering from a "sore throat." U.S. analysts did not believe Ustinov was dying, but, as one Washington Kremlinologist put it, "colds in the U.S.S.R. tend to be fatal...
...respond favorably to Reagan's address or to overtures made by Shultz in private. Most analysts predicted that Gromyko would stick to his original text. "He will probably give us a good deal of tough stuff and lay out old positions as new Soviet initiatives," says a senior Kremlinologist in Washington. "But there may well be a subtle line or two indicating whether the Russians are ready to do some real business...
...problem of succession. The process is more complicated and painful than usual because it is the third period of uncertainty in two years (Leonid Brezhnev died in November 1982, Yuri Andropov last February). The upshot, says Harvard University Professor Richard Pipes, is "a profound crisis and lack of direction." Kremlinologist Marshall Goldman of Wellesley College in Massachusetts calls the Politburo situation "the worst of all circumstances. Everyone knows Chernenko is sick, so no change is possible...
...Soviets understand the motivations behind Washington's mild talk. While they are probably realistic enough to know they cannot do much to damage Reagan politically, they do not want to do him any favors either. Says Arnold Horelick, formerly the CIA's top Kremlinologist, now director of a newly formed Center for the Study of Soviet International Behavior sponsored by the Rand Corp. and U.C.L.A.: "The Soviet leaders will be reluctant to do anything that might gratuitously contribute to Reagan's reelection. That does not mean they would turn their backs on something concrete, but they certainly...