Word: ogarkov
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After Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov, 67, was abruptly removed last September as chief of the Soviet general staff, he was variously reported to be in charge of a military academy or a command in the western U.S.S.R. Some analysts interpreted the ouster as a rebuke to a strong-willed career soldier who refused to tailor his views to prevailing political sentiment. Ogarkov's call to intensify the development of nonnuclear weaponry and his public hectoring of the U.S. had apparently put him at odds with the ruling Politburo's aging members. But Communist Party Leader Mikhail Gorbachev has been making...
...Ogarkov's reported demise was baffling, so was his reported return. There was speculation that he was never demoted, but was heading a secret project to help reorganize the Soviet Union's western defenses...
...Soviets like to say, "no accident" that in the same month as Brezhnev's Tula speech, Nikolai Ogarkov became chief of the Soviet general staff. Marshal Ogarkov was a controversial choice among the top brass. He had been the top military representative to SALT. The civilian leadership apparently picked him because he too believed in sufficiency, parity and stalemate. He also favored Soviet-American agreements as a means of regulating the arms race...
...Ogarkov, however, was no dove. The money saved by relying less on nuclear missiles he wanted to spend on advanced conventional weapons. He did not want those rubles diverted to the beleaguered Soviet consumer economy. He was finally demoted in September 1984. But the new chief of the general staff, Marshal Sergei Akhromeyev, was also a proponent of the idea that enough is enough in nuclear weaponry...
...Gorbachev's housecleaning instincts. Defense Minister Sergei Sokolov, 74, has been designated only a candidate member of the Politburo rather than a full member, as his immediate predecessors were, and a number of his subordinates have been replaced. On the other hand, Gorbachev has restored to grace Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov, 67, who was removed as chief of staff by Chernenko. Ogarkov has been made operational commander of the Soviet Union's western front. His ideas sometimes clash with mainstream military thinking; he is thought to favor more emphasis on conventional, and less on nuclear, weapons. Says one senior Western diplomat...