Word: leonid
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What can be said with certitude about Andropov is that he is a master politician, adept at the behind-the-scenes maneuverings, and patient coalition building that made his rise to power possible. Few of the contenders for the succession labored under more formidable handicaps. Leonid Brezhnev, wary of Andropov, opposed his police chiefs ambitions. But Brezhnev's first choice, Andrei Kirilenko, fell ill or was disgraced last year. Then Andropov gradually undercut the heir apparent, Konstantin Chernenko, a longtime Brezhnev crony who was vulnerable because he lacked both experience and political pull...
...years afterward, it was commonly accepted in both Moscow and Washington that the overwhelming U.S. nuclear advantage had enabled Kennedy to go to the brink and force Khrushchev to back down. The episode humiliated the Soviet leadership and contributed to Khrushchev's downfall two years later. Leonid Brezhnev and his comrades were determined that the Soviet Union catch up to the U.S. in all forms of military power, but particularly in the nuclear forces that were believed to have been politically crucial in the Cuban missile crisis...
Thus the Soviet Union over which Andropov now presides is vastly more powerful, both in the absolute and by comparison with the U.S., than it was two decades ago. That is thanks largely to Leonid Brezhnev. But while the Soviet ability to exert force on the world has grown, so have the external dangers and internal defects with which its new leaders must cope. That too is Brezhnev's legacy...
While the Soviet standard of living nearly doubled during Leonid Brezhnev's rule, he left behind an economy slipping into deep trouble. Factories are faltering. Farms cannot feed the people. Oil production is peaking and may soon fall. After decades of steady progress, growth has seriously slowed. Still harder times may lie ahead...
...Reagan Administration believes it can influence the orientation, and possibly even the composition, of the leadership that has succeeded Leonid Brezhnev. That belief, whether it proves right or wrong, is a variation on an old theme: a stubbornly recurring but usually frustrated American desire to effect some change for the better in the system that poses the most serious military threat and political challenge facing the West...