Word: politburos
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...large (444 pages) and shapeless piece of sentimentalism. For example, it dispels the myriad rumors about the fate of Stalin's infamous secret police chief, Lavrenty Beria. One persistent story has it that he was shot or strangled by his colleagues at a meeting of the Politburo right after Stalin's death. Setting the record straight, Svetlana repeats that General A. A. Vishnevsky, chief surgeon of the Soviet Army, told her that Beria was summarily tried in 1953, held for a few days in the basement of the General Staff building in Moscow and shot there ten minutes...
...tried to lay the groundwork for a tranquil succession. Over the past several years, Ho had gradually moved away from the day-to-day exercise of power, turning over routine responsibilities to a triumvirate consisting of Premier Pham Van Dong, Party First Secretary Le Duan and high-ranking Politburo Member Truong Chinh, all in their early 60s (see box, page 28). For the immediate future, Ho's title will probably be taken by Vice President Ton Due Thang, an 81-year-old nonentity. Actual power will probably be wielded by the triumvirate?plus Defense Minister Vo Nguyen Giap...
Hanoi's leadership has been remarkably stable. No other Communist Party in the world has endured so long without a major purge. When it was formed in 1945, the Party's Politburo had eleven full members. Today nine of the eleven remain in power; the missing members are Ho and Nguyen Chi Thanh, the North's second-ranking military man, who died in 1967. There were always divisions and differences, but Ho helped keep them submerged by the force of his personality and, in his declining years, by his mere presence. "He was the hoop that held the staves...
...under wraps, there was no disguising anxieties in Peking and Moscow. Chinese Communist Premier Chou Enlai, accompanied by a brace of high-ranking aides, arrived in Hanoi less than 48 hours after the announcement of Ho's death and almost immediately went into lengthy conferences with the North Vietnamese Politburo. Next day he flew back to Peking, probably to avoid a confrontation with incoming Soviet Premier Aleksei Kosygin. The semicomic scramble to avoid a meeting brought into the spotlight once more the Sino-Soviet rivalry for favor in North Viet...
Since Ulbricht had looked hale at an East German Politburo meeting only a few days earlier, the old Stalinist was presumably suffering from a case of diplomatic indigestion. Both the Poles and Soviets have been sweet-talking the West Germans of late, an activity as unlikely as it is an anathema to Ulbricht...