Word: technocrats
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Mikhail Gorbachev, 52, represents a new breed of better-educated Soviet technocrat. The son of peasants from the rich farming region of Stavropol in southwest Russia, Gorbachev holds a law degree from Moscow State University and another degree in agronomy from the Stavropol Agricultural Institute. His knowledge of farming, the weak link in Soviet economic planning, won him a place in the Secretariat and catapulted him into the Politburo's inner circle at the tender age of 49. Continuing failures on the farm have cut short the careers of past agricultural experts, but Gorbachev appears to be flourishing even though...
...failings of his rivals. Most disappointing has been John Glenn, the astronaut turned Senator. His hero status and centrist politics made him a logical match for Ronald Reagan. But the more Glenn hit the stump, the further he fell in the polls. He comes off as a good, gray technocrat, offering facts, not vision, often lapsing into jargon and digressions that leave audiences drowsy. He can show zest, though, sometimes speaking clearly and substantively on favorite issues, such as arms control and cutting the budget deficit. Since his positions are closer to the center than Mondale's, Glenn theoretically...
...stupefying banality called Auto-man offers a fluorescent, blond Superman who is summoned up by a wimpish computer jock in moments of crisis. Automan owes more to I Dream of Jeannie than to computer science, however. Another new show, NBC's Riptide, has something for every armchair technocrat, including a klutzy orange robot with a display screen in its chest and a silly grin on its mute face...
...highest count since October 1982. The two new men, presumed to be Andropov supporters, had been blocked from advancing further in their careers under Leonid Brezhnev. Andropov also promoted an old KGB comrade to candidate membership in the party council and gave greater authority to a like-minded technocrat on the Central Committee Secretariat. Andropov's address to the party plenum conveyed a similar feeling that he was in command. In language not heard since the days of Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet leader railed against "intolerable" waste in the economy and accused factory managers of "marking time." Said...
...given a voting position on the Politburo commensurate with his new job on the Party Control Commission. The plenum confirmed the importance of the KGB in inner Kremlin councils by elevating the KGB chief, General Victor Chebrikov, 60, to candidate membership in the Politburo. Yegor Ligachev, 63, a technocrat from Siberia who shares Andropov's concern for economic discipline, was given greater leeway in controlling party personnel appointments, making him one of the most powerful officials in the Secretariat...