Word: technocrats
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...this regard, Andropov's brief tenure may have provided a hint of what the West can expect from Gorbachev. Andropov's ascendance, too, occasioned high hopes in the West. The code words of wishful thinking were the same: moderate, pragmatist, technocrat, sophisticate. Within a day of his selection, there was talk of an Andropov era, a phrase that suggested a clean and welcome break with the past. His style seemed fresh and that, it was assumed, connoted a change in the content of Soviet policy. Here was a Soviet leader who would be comfortable and stimulating on the Georgetown cocktail...
Kosygin retained his role as Kremlin spokesman on foreign affairs, although his position was much weakened by Brezhnev's expanded authority in the field. Kosygin had risen and survived by pursuing a technocrat's career. Dry even by Soviet standards, free of personal foibles or idiosyncrasies, he was so ascetic that in New York, his daughter Ludmilla, armed with a long shopping list of her own, could not think of anything to buy that her father would want or need...
...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...