Word: ogarkov
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Fortunately, not many military men shared Grechko's mad, bellicose stance. In 1970 I talked with Nikolai Ogarkov, a well-educated, sophisticated and intelligent officer. Later named First Deputy Defense Minister and Chief of the General Staff, he has since been demoted. Ogarkov took a more realistic view of the prospect of war with China. He felt that the Soviet Union could not attack China with a nuclear barrage because it would inevitably mean world...
When Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov, 67, was abruptly removed as Chief of Staff and Deputy Defense Minister last September, it was widely assumed that he had fallen out of favor with the Kremlin. The first official indication of his new standing came in an obituary for Defense Minister Dmitri Ustinov, which was published on Dec. 22. Ogarkov's name appeared in the tenth of 17 rows of official signatures. Said a Western diplomat in Moscow: "He must be in about a third-echelon position...
There was some speculation last fall that Ogarkov might have taken over command of the western forces of the Warsaw Pact or that he had been appointed head of the Voroshilov Academy of the General Staff in Moscow. The obituary, however, placed his name alongside those of the chiefs of the Main Political Directorate of the Armed Forces, which oversees the Communist Party's control over the military. If Ogarkov has indeed become a sort of political commissar, it would be an ironic appointment for a career officer with a reputation for being at odds with the party's views...
...departure added to a sense of uncertainty in the Soviet military. With arms negotiations on hold, the Kremlin has seemed baffled about how to react to the defense policies of the West, particularly to those of the Reagan Administration. The abrupt transfer of Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov from his post as chief of the general staff last September suggested that the leadership was divided over nuclear and conventional strategy...
...Party Leader Erich Honecker to cancel a trip to West Germany are similar bids to reinforce the regime's monolithic authority. Another such incident may have been the sudden announcement two weeks ago that Moscow's outspoken Military Chief of Staff and Deputy Defense Minister, Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov, had been replaced. Last week a Soviet military official told a U.S. arms-control expert that Ogarkov had been named to head the country's second-ranking military academy, a job transfer that Pipes calls "both a demotion and a humiliation...