Word: pacts
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More shocking to me were events in Hungary. In the explosion following the "Polish October," I thought that Imre Nagy had gone too far in declaring Hungary's withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact and his attempt at disrupting that nation's socialist system. Still, I was shaken by the brutality of the reprisals. It was in this context that I first heard of Yuri Andropov, our Ambassador to Hungary. A classmate at our embassy in Budapest described how Andropov handled the erupting crisis: "He was so calm, even while the bullets were flying--when everyone else at the embassy felt...
...Moscow, Politburo Member Mikhail Gorbachev, 53, viewed by many as the heir apparent to the leadership, canceled a trip to Paris, where he had been expected to attend the 25th congress of the French Communist Party. Two weeks earlier, the Kremlin had announced that a conference of Warsaw Pact leaders, set for mid-January, had been postponed. In Bonn, West German Socialist Leader Willy Brandt announced that a visit to the Soviet capital in mid-February had also been postponed at Moscow's request. So great was the climate of uncertainty in Moscow that foreign diplomats and journalists became nervous...
Even though Chernenko's health probably caused the last-minute postponement of a Warsaw Pact summit meeting earlier this month, the Soviet press worked hard at creating the illusion that the President was at his desk in the Kremlin. With TV cameras recording the event on Jan. 19, party officials nominated him in his absence for a seat on the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Republic, a post of no significance. They released statements in Chernenko's name congratulating Syrian President Hafez Assad on his re-election as head of his country's ruling Baath Party, and greeting a Moscow...
...Warsaw Pact meeting in Sofia, Bulgaria, last week was to have been the first gathering of the seven-member organization's top leaders since January 1983. It was considered particularly significant since it followed the resumption of U.S.-Soviet arms talks. Then came the brief announcement from TASS: the conference had been postponed. To many Kremlin watchers, there was only one possible explanation, as voiced by a senior British diplomat: "A deterioration in Soviet President Konstantin Chernenko's health...
Chernenko is thought to be suffering from chronic emphysema; traveling during the cold snap that has gripped Europe might have worsened his condition at a time when disagreements among pact members require vigorous diplomacy. The treaty that established the alliance is up for renewal, and Hungary and Rumania are known to oppose Moscow's desire to extend the agreement in perpetuity. Said a State Department Kremlinologist: "You don't conquer recalcitrant allies from a wheelchair...