Word: presentable
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Dates: during 1980-1980
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...overall complaint, the Soviets say the Carter Administration has been guilty of "vacillation and inconsistency," of shifting policies and switching signals. "The present leadership in Washington has never adopted one line to which we could adjust or respond," says a Soviet diplomat, echoing a view shared by many critics of the Administration in Western Europe and the U.S. The Soviets are especially bitter over one shift in Carter's policy. They say he deliberately tricked the U.S.S.R. into thinking that it might be a diplomatic partner in the Middle East. In the fall of 1977, a joint U.S.-Soviet statement...
Though the present rulers will surely not be swept away quite that precipitously, Kremlinologists believe that in the five years following Brezhnev's death, most of the top leadership will be replaced. Every effort will be made to give the impression of an orderly succession. An interim leadership group composed of some of Brezhnev's surviving associates will presumably come to the fore. The immediate successor in Brezhnev's key post as General Secretary of the Communist Party is expected to be Andrei Kirilenko, who is three months older than Brezhnev, but in better health. Another contender...
...democratic reforms than their predecessors. In fact, as Soviet planners face tough priority decisions about spending on military vs. consumer goods in the economic hard times of the mid-'80s, the leaders may be forced to demand greater discipline and more sacrifices from the population. Such policies will present hazards for any new regime. Soviet elite -members of the party, favored intelligentsia, and so on-could become politically disenchanted with any government that severely restricts their perks. Stiff labor discipline, cutbacks on wage increases and higher prices for consumer staples could lead to popular unrest-as they have...
Western intelligence experts estimate the KGB's present strength at 500,000. Of these, 90,000 are believed to be directly involved in intelligence and counterintelligence work. An estimated 300,000 are uniformed troops responsible for the safety of the country's leaders and the protection of its borders. The other KGB employees perform administrative duties and help run prisons, concentration camps and those psychiatric institutions in which dissidents are often held...
...that the U.S.S.R. will suffer some Western-style energy headaches in the next few years. Indeed, the Soviets are already suffering the first symptoms of the coming crunch. Gasoline prices have doubled during the past two years, to roughly $1.25 per gal. Plans to expand car production beyond the present million-a-year level have been shelved; talk of building a second large automobile and truck factory has ceased; and Pravda, the Communist Party newspaper, has printed lengthy exhortations to conserve energy. Except at Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport, where many foreign flights arrive, jets of Aeroflot, the national airline...