Word: tikhonov
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...event that may offer further insight into Chernenko's condition: Greek Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou will make an official visit to Moscow in mid-February. Because Papandreou is a head of government rather than a head of state, protocol requires only that he be received by Soviet Premier Nikolai Tikhonov. But Moscow has been courting Papandreou's socialist government assiduously of late, and Chernenko, health permitting, would almost certainly want to take part in Kremlin talks with the Greek visitor...
...ailing. What is more, Chernenko's age is not at all unusual in the top leadership. Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, the voice of the Kremlin at international conferences for decades, is 75, though apparently in good health. Newly appointed Defense Minister Marshal Sergei Sokolov is 73; Premier Nikolai Tikhonov is 79. Sooner or later, they will have to give way to less familiar faces; the process, in fact, may already be under way behind the Kremlin's walls...
...aging and ailing Politburo. They seem capable of responding only tentatively to overtures from the U.S. Shultz, for example, has made no secret of his desire to visit Moscow for talks with Soviet leaders early next year. At Indira Gandhi's funeral, when Soviet Premier Nikolai Tikhonov expressed standard diplomatic hopes that he would one day see Shultz in the Soviet capital, the Secretary of State pointedly replied, "Is that an invitation?" Tikhonov was noncommittal, but Shultz still expects to make the trip...
...Tikhonov blandly assured Shultz that TASS was only quoting "outside sources" and that the allegations did not reflect the Kremlin's official view. A State Department aide characterized the exchange somewhat differently. Said the official: "There was a lot of shouting." Some Western diplomats in Moscow speculated that the Soviet charges were meant to deflect attention from Italian Judge Ilario Martella's report indicting three Bulgarians (and by implication the Soviet KGB) for conspiring to murder Pope John Paul...
...meeting grew more cordial when the two discussed the need for better relations. Tikhonov told Shultz he hoped to see him in Moscow soon. "Is that an invitation?" Shultz asked. "That is Foreign Minister Gromyko's job, not mine," Tikhonov replied. "But I presume we will see more of you." It is perhaps as well that the pair did not agree to get together too soon. Three days later, in his first major speech since his Washington visit, Gromyko pointedly referred to Mrs. Gandhi's murder as "a heinous crime" and blasted "the criminal policy of state terrorism...