MOSCOW' S ANDROPOV VIEWED BY MAN WHO SAW ASCENDANCY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000100170033-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 23, 2010
• Sequence Number: 33
• Publication Date: December 14, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/23: CIA-RDP90-00552R000100170033-8
THE Er.' ='LMOP,.E EVENING SUN
14 December 1982
Mcsow"s Andropov viewed
by man who saw ascendancy
By Linell Smith As a member of this exclusive clique, Sakharov
#ven:ng Sun Sta:f went to the right schools and met the right people.
he
i
fact
d
I
n
,
first met An
ropo Z Join,
go , 20 yea s
.. . re:^ ary. an ex Soviet dip- ago. They were 17-year-old students taking the en-
iomat named Vladinmr Sakharov be. trance exam for the Moscow State Institute of In-
ga: telling American reporters that
65- ear-ofd Yt:ri Andropov seemed ternational Relations, the nation's most pl-esti-
med gious university. Each year, the institute accepts
des.ined to succeed Leonid eeBrezh-
nev as. general secretary of 60 students-usually members4od the Moscow elite
the
-to prepare them for careers as diplomats.
Communist Party.. "Igor was special even then," Sakharov recalls.
er who defe defe Sakharov. acted to the former CIA United inform- States "He was destined to go into the institute's Ameri-
ir; P71, also predicted that Andro- can-study group. At that time, it was impossible to
rte: wol:id resign from his post as get into: they only accepted three students a year.
c_recter of the Soviet intelligence He was smart enough to get enrolled in the insti-
.the KGB, in order w tute, but the pull of his family became the most
orgaair of
important
pos;LloL rirzLSelf for Brezhnev's job. thing after that."
resigned his ob. The year Igor took his exam, his father had
4fter And iov eli for
in 'pia v, r v Ren analysts post completed his ambassadorship to Hungary and
was overseeing the Central Committee's depart-
tinued to scoff at Sakharov's claim meat for relations with socialist bloc countries.
that Anerropov was the most likely "At that time, Igor was a very shy individual.
choice for Brezhnev's job. They said Not a joiner," says Sakharov. "He stuck to himself.
the Communist Party still associat- He was also absolutely harmless. He did not be-
et the KGB with the bloody purges long to the system of informers, of stukachi, in
of the Stalin. era. that choosing An- our class. He seemed most interested in the study
cronov would be political suicide. of American culture. So was I. So we exchanged
- ne be was put in charge of records and books."
the KGB. Andropov was perceived . Sakharov met Yuri Andropov only once, .at a
as a party cpporatchik, riot as a party Igor gave at his father's Moscow apartment.
KGB figure. He was the party per. It was a typical teen gathering, Moscow elite-style.
soy to straighten out the KGB and "It was 1963. We were all about 18. We drank a
bring it under the Central Commit- lot and listened to Western decadent music-a
tee's control" Sakharov said recent- Chubby Checkers record. I remember we were
ly during a phone interview from his doing the Twist. The party lasted about five hours,
Los Angeles home. then Igor told us to leave because his father was
Sakharov, who grew up as .a coming back- So we were just running out as be
member of the Moscow elite in the was coming in and he was quite pleasant. They
1950s and 1960s. says that Andro- were a pretty solid, decent family as far as I knew.
pov s 15-year internal cleanup pro- "There was a sister, too, I think. Older. But Igor
gram transformed the KGB into a was the hope of the family. Still, in the Soviet
respectable part of the Soviet lead- Union, the son is supposed to be the one to maker- '
ership system. He also says that, in life and the woman doesn't count."
among his Soviet baby boom con- At present, Igor is a member of the Soviet dele-
temporaries, Stalin is not perceived gation at the'35-nation European Security Confer-
as such a bad guy. ence in Spain.; his older sister Irina -is married to
Sakharov's 1980 book, "High Alexander Filipov, an actor who has performed in
Treason," tells of his childhood and avant-garde productions in Moscow. Yuri Andro-
but five-year career as a Russian pov is a widower.
diplomat/agent in North Yemen, Sakharov remembers Andropov's apartment as
Egypt and Kuwait- During that containing forbidden luxarie$ common to -other time, Sakharov's disillusionment households of the Moscow elite: Scandinavian fur-
wi W the Soviet system caused him niture, books in English by Somerset Maugharn
to provide the CIA with details of and John Steinbezk, a stereo, Western liquor and
his routine iLlet.E work. But records by Glenn Miller, Dave Brubeck, bank
some of iii.:-Host fascir.atinz-stories Sinatra and Peggy Lee. _
cn:,cern the social dynamics of the ED
Moscow elite, the privileged class of
inte:lipence officers, party officials
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/23: CIA-RDP90-00552R000100170033-8