Word: leonid
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...because it has Chinese backing. China represents one of the two strategic obsessions of the Soviet Union; the other is upheaval in Eastern Europe. Many sophisticated Russians believe war with their largest and most unfriendly neighbor is inevitable. The fear of China was one of the main incentives for Leonid Brezhnev to embark upon a policy of détente with the West. He did not want to wage cold wars-with the ever-present threat of hot ones-on two fronts. One reason why détente has all but failed is that the Soviets believe the Carter Administration...
President Bok and four other university presidents sent a cable of protest Thursday afternoon to Soviet Premier Leonid I. Brezhnev, Soviet Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Dobrynin, and Anatoly P. Alexandrov, president of the Soviet Academy of Sciences...
Moscow responded with even more vitriol. In a statement to Pravda, Soviet Communist Party Leader Leonid Brezhnev accused Washington of launching "a shameless anti-Soviet campaign," being "outright hypocritical" and telling "mountains of lies" about the Soviet action in Afghanistan. Said the Kremlin's aging chief: "The impression is increasingly forming in the world of the U.S. as an absolutely unreliable partner in interstate ties, as a state whose leadership, prompted by some whim, caprice or emotional outbursts ... is capable at any moment of violating its international obligations...
...aback by the worldwide condemnation of its invasion of Afghanistan, but all its trumpets of propaganda blared denial and defiance. The Afghanistan rebellion had to be suppressed, went the Kremlin line, and so the Soviet army had to suppress it. "To have acted otherwise," said Soviet Communist Party Chief Leonid Brezhnev, "would have meant leaving Afghanistan a prey to imperialism." Furthermore, said Brezhnev, Afghanistan was not even the cause of the current crisis. Said he: "If there were no Afghanistan, certain circles in the U.S. and in NATO would have found another pretext to aggravate the situation...
There are some good signs. Carter reads the hot-line messages from Leonid Brezhnev with knitted brows. Question marks. He handles the few pages as if they were radioactive. They could be. He says each critical word as if destiny were buried in its syllables. That could be too. He talks about power and the possibility of war as he used to talk Government reorganization and revenue sharing. His mind probes beyond the merely visible. If the Soviet moves in Afghanistan are unopposed, that confirms to the men in the Politburo that they can invade the soft spots...