Word: chernenko
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...mystery facing the specialists deepened with the brief, repeated appearances on Moscow television last week of a strikingly frail Soviet Leader Konstantin Chernenko. The General Secretary, who took office in February, had vanished from public view on July 13, ostensibly to enjoy a summer vacation. He had been seen only once after that, presenting medals to three cosmonauts in a ten-minute film clip on the Sept. 6 Moscow evening news...
...Chernenko's latest appearances, within days of his 73rd birthday, were hastily arranged. One occasion was the presentation of the Order of Lenin to Harilaos Florakis, head of the pro-Soviet Communist Party of Greece. During the proceedings, Chernenko looked visibly weaker than he had two weeks earlier. He leaned on the corner of a desk for support and had difficulty breathing as he read his prepared text. Three nights later, Chernenko turned up again on the news program, giving a strained, five-minute message to the Finnish people...
...after Chernenko walked stiffly back onto center stage, there were more signs and wonders in the Kremlin. The official news agency TASS announced in a tersely worded bulletin that Military Chief of Staff and Deputy Defense Minister Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov, 66, had given up his post "in connection with a new appointment." The sudden change caught Western observers and Soviet officials alike completely off guard. Said a Washington military analyst: "It may be really important in terms of the succession struggle, or it may only be turmoil in the armed forces...
...unusual press conference. Such indications of Ogarkov's growing prominence had led many Kremlin watchers to view him as a possible successor to Defense Minister Dmitri Ustinov, and there was initial speculation last week that his "reassignment" might be part of sweeping changes in the leadership, possibly involving Chernenko, that the Kremlin wanted to keep hidden...
...world was puzzled by everything that was going on in Moscow, there was no mood of crisis in the Soviet capital. The two younger Politburo members who are most frequently mentioned as possible successors to Chernenko certainly did not seem to be worried. Grigori Romanov, 61, flew off to attend a function in Ethiopia, and Mikhail Gorbachev, 53, left on an official visit to neighboring Bulgaria. They would hardly have left town if a power struggle were under way in the Kremlin...