THE NEW SOVIET LEADERSHIP

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01070R000100440006-1
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 15
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 21, 2007
• Sequence Number: 6
• Publication Date: November 15, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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RADIO TV REPORTS, INC.
4701 WILLARD AVENUE, CHEVY CHASE, MARYLAND 20815 656-4068
FOR PUBLIC AFFAIRS STAFF
PROGRAM N i g h t l i n e
DATE November 15, 1982 11:30 PM
The New Soviet Leadership
S T A T I O N W J L A T V
ABC Network
Washington, DC
TED KOPPEL: Even as Leonid Brezhnev was being laid to
rest today, world attention focused on his successor. Who is
Yuri Andropov, the new leader of the Soviet Union, and what does
the accession of a former KGB chief mean to the West?
We'll focus on those questions tonight as we talk with
former CIA chief William Colby, with former Soviet U. N. diplo-
mat Arkady Schevchenko, with Vladimir Posner, English language
commentator for Radio Moscow -- we'll talk to him, via satel-
lite, from Moscow -- and with Andre Marton (?), former API
correspondent who remembers Andropov as Soviet Ambassador to
Budapest at the time of the Hungarian Revolution.
KOPPEL: Good evening.
It is as though J. Edgar Hoover at the height of his
influence as Director of the FBI had suddenly become President of
the United States. And even that analogy is inadequate, because
the KGB has no real equivalent here in the United States. It is
the FBI and the CIA, and perhaps also the collective state and
municipal police forces of the entire country, so pervasive is
its presence and power. And the man who has just ascended to the
Kremlin's most powerful post, General Secretary of the Soviet
Communist Party, Yuri Andropov, was until six months ago the head
of the KGB. A recent profile in the New York Times takes note of
Andropov's fondness for Scotch whiskey and tennis, Western novels
and music. He is said to speak near fluent English. In short,
he is far more urbane than Brezhnev or Khrushchev or Stalin.
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But before we look more closely at the Soviet Union's
new leader, let's take a few minutes to examine the organization
he headed for nearly 15 years, the KGB. Here's Hilary Brown.
HILARY BROWN: When the Bolsheviks assumed power in
November, 1917, they said they wanted to erase all traces of the
Czarist era. But they kept one remnant of the bad old days, the
secret police. The Cheka, Communist Russia's first secret police
organization, virtually copied the Czar's security police. In
1918, Cheka's founder, Feliks Dzherzinski, laid it on the line
when he said "We stand for organized terror."
Under Stalin, the secret police became an instrument of
mass murder. Renamed the CPU in the '20s, it killed millions of
peasants opposed to the collectivization of farmlands. And later
in the '30s, it carried out Stalin's great terror campaign, ar-
resting and executing over 75?0' of the members of the Soviet
Union's vast military and political establishment.
The purges were presided over by the GPU's notorious
Lavrenti Beria, who, in the '40s, launched another general terror
campaign, this one aimed at so-called "rootless cosmopolitans,"
mainly Jews.
When Stalin died in 1953, Beria tried to use the secret
police as his base in a bid for power. His subsequent arrest and
execution led to a dramatic reduction in the power of the secret
police and to its subjection to tight party control.
In the mid '50s, its power further declined under
Khrushchev and his de-Stalinization policy, when, for the first
time, the Soviet people tasted a measure of freedom.
It was not until the mid '60s under Brezhnev that the
Soviet secret police, by then known as the KGB, or the Committee
for State Security, recovered its power and influence and
established itself in its prime role: espionage abroad and the
prevention of dissent at home. The man responsible for the KGB's
rehabilitation was Yuri A. Andropov.
Arnaud de Borchgrave is a former editor of Newsweek
magazine and a writer specializing in security matters.
ARNAUD de BORCHGRAVE: He has headed the world's most
extraordinary secret police and foreign intelligence service that
the world has ever known. It employes about 1,000,000 people.
Admittedly, out of those 1,000,000, you have about 450,000
frontier guards; you have all the people who guard the labor
camps, but you also have almost 400,000 employed in intelligence
work.
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BROWN: Ernest Volkman is writing a book on intelligence
operations and has made a specialty of the KGB.
ERNEST VOLKMAN: If you meet KGB agents in the United
States, you're immediately struck by the fact of how truly Ameri-
can they are. They look -- if you saw they walking down the
street, they look [like] typical up and coming, snappily dressed
American businessmen. And this was very important.
BROWN: Whereas you're saying pre-'65, they were the
classic, heavy-set guys in trenchcoats.
VOLKMAN: That's right. That's right. That's right.
BROWN: Which is not to say that there are still -- that
there are no thugs in the KGB.
VOLKMAN: No. But a lot of the thugs now work in the
domestic division of the KGB.
de BORCHGRAVE: It silences, suppresses any form of
opposition, dissidence. It has done that very effectively with
a man who is still a hero to every liberal in the Western world,
Dr. Andrei Sakharov, who invented the Soviet H-bomb, who was a
man at the top of the Soviet establishment for some twenty years
with every door to the Kremlin open to him, who is now in KGB
imposed exile in his own country in the city of Gorky.
VOLKMAN: In terms of the Jewish dissidents, for
example, the KGB accuses them of economic crimes as a means of
fanning Soviet anti-Semitism against these people. Shcharansky,
probably the most publicized dissident, was, in fact, arrested
on espionage charges. No doubt that it was a KGB operation.
Shcharansky is no more a CIA agent than you are. But it was very
carefully and very elaborately worked out so that the KGB could
discredit the dissidents whenever possible. And that's one of
the sophisticated operations they run.
de BORCHGRAVE: The head of a European intelligence
service put it to me this way yesterday. He said "Imagine J.
Edgar Hoover, plus Allen Dulles, multiplied by 1000 becoming the
new head of the Soviet Union." It is a rather frightening
prospect.
Andropov is very subtle and a very subtle operative, and
therefore I think far more dangerous than Brezhnev.
VOLKMAN: It's true to say that obviously Mr. Andropov
had access to information that was virtually unsurpassed. It's
like sitting in the middle of a spider's web. However, we tend
to judge the Soviets, particularly the KGB, very often in Western
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terms. It doesn't quite operate that way. In fact, what
Andropov knows is what the Politburo knows, because that's what
he was designed to do: to put that KGB under party control.
de BORCHGRAVE: I think that Mr. Andropov has a tre-
mendous advantage over his colleagues in that there is a special
section of the KGB in charge of spying on the high-ranking
members of the regime. During their trips abroad, some have
occasionally set up perhaps a secret bank account in Geneva for
a rainy day, or keep mistresses on the side, or happen to be
homosexuals, or have participated in orgies. He has all of the
information, which gives him enormous power over his colleagues.
BROWN: After 65 years, the Soviet secret police is now
a vast bureaucracy controlled by the ruling Politburo and exten-
sively involved in espionage, disinformation and the suppression
of internal dissent. That is thanks in part to Yuri Andropov.
It is no longer an autonomous, mad-dog organization that can,
with the snap of its fingers, execute millions. That, too, may
be thanks in part to Yuri Andropov.
For Nightline, this is Hilary Brown in New York.
KOPPEL: As a former head of the Central Intelligence
Agency, William Colby was the direct counterpart of former KGB
chief Andropov. When we return, we'll talk live with William
Colby, with Arkady Schevchenko, a former Soviet diplomat who
defected and now lives here in the United States, and with
Vladimir Posner, an English language commentator for Radio
Moscow.
KOPPEL: Joining us live now from Washington are William
Colby, former head of the CIA; Arkady Schevchenko, a former
senior Soviet diplomat who defected to the United States in 1978
when he was an Undersecretary-General at the United Nations. And
via satellite from Moscow, Vladimir Posner, an English language
commentator for Radio Moscow.
Vladimir, you have been a sometimes interpreter for us
on things Russian. Give us an insight into your new leader.
What can you tell us about him? You're giving a thumbnail sketch
to a large American audience.
VLADIMIR POSNER: Ted, are you talking to me at this
point?
KOPPEL: I am. I'm trying to, yes.
POSNER: I'm sorry. The phone just rang on the desk
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here, and while I grabbed it I missed your voice. If you don't
mind repeating that.
KOPPEL: No problem. I simply noted that you've been a
sometimes interpreter for an American audience into things
Soviet. Perhaps you can give us a thumbnail sketch of your new
leader.
POSNER: Well, there's very little I can add to what I
think you already know. Mr. Andropov has occupied a variety of
posts. He was born in the southern part of Russia. He went to
a school for the merchant marine. He was a sailor on the Volga
River. Then he moved up into Komsomol work as a Young Communist
Leaguer, and then into party work. He was also a diplomat, being
the Soviet Ambassador to Hungary. And then later he was ap-
pointed -- he was in the Central Committee. He was Secretary
of the Central Committee. Then he was Chairman of the State
Committee for State, the KGB. And then again as Secretary of
the Central Committee, and now he's been elected the General
Secretary of the Central Committee.
KOPPEL: Vladimir, I'm not sure what surprises an
American audience most, the fact that someone who could have
been, or who was the head of the KGB for 15 years would now
suddenly become the leader, or that someone who was not an
intelligence officer all this life would become the head of the
KGB.
POSNER: Well, I think we have there, perhaps what
you're describing, is a kind of a stereotype picture of what
we're supposed to be like. The State Committee is one of many
state committees. Granted, it has been blown into a certain
image. But nevertheless, it is one of the committees that exists
in the Soviet Union, and it does not necessarily have to be
headed by a professional intelligence man, as we have now seen.
On the other hand, it is a job, like another job. And
there's nothing really surprising. If you look back over Soviet
history, you have to begin by saying that it's a very short
history. Actually, it's 65 years. And so it's very hard to find
comparisons. It's easier if you look back, say, 200 years and
say, well, there's a certain pattern. We're still rather young,
and it's still difficult to find any definite patterns to say,
look, this is the way it's supposed to be.
So I don't think there's really that much to be
surprised at.
KOPPEL: I'll come back to you in a moment.
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Mr. Colby here in Washington, he was -- I'm talking now
about Yuri Andropov -- he was your counterpart for a while. Did
you make it your business, as head of the CIA, to find out about
your counterpart? Can you add something to this profile that
we're trying to put together here?
WILLIAM COLBY: Well, I tried to understand his role,
of course. And I think his role was not so much that of a pro-
fessional intelligence or security officer. It was rather the
role of a dedicated and loyal party apparatchik, who was placed
in the KGB to make sure that it behaved itself and followed party
directives and party orders, and in the process to impose disci-
pline upon the Soviet population, to make sure that they followed
party control.
KOPPEL: Do you accept what Mr. Posner said a moment
ago, namely that we tend to have a rather one-dimensional view of
the KGB, and that, in point of fact, it is an organization that
has been in some flux over the past few years and perhaps has a
much more moderate image today than the one we carry?
COLBY: Well, I think it has had some changes over the
years. It's had some different leaders in the past. Something
like almost half of the former leaders were executed for their
activities running that particular organization and its pre-
decessors.
I think that the function of the organization has
changed as Soviet life has changed. But its main function is
still the imposition of discipline on the Soviet people and the
assurance that no substance dissidence arises there.
KOPPEL: It was perhaps in that role -- and let me turn
now to Arkady Schevchenko -- it was perhaps in that role that Mr.
Andropov was most influential. And that is in more subtly
wiping out the dissenters in the Soviet Union.
Can you shed any light on what kind of a man this is?
ARKADY SCHEVCHENKO: I think that, in general, Andropov
is an intelligent man, and he's much shrewder than Brezhnev was.
But I would say that he's typical party apparatchik. That's
true. Before his appointment as chief of the KGB, he served for
a long time in the party.
KOPPEL: Forgive me for interrupting. Apparatchik is a
term that both you and Mr. Colby have used now. Define it, would
you?
SCHEVCHENKO: Yes, I will define. Apparatchik is a man
who served all his life in some kind of the party job. It's made
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his profession, the party, serving in some party position all his
life.
COLBY: A rough translation would be a bureaucrat.
SCHEVCHENKO: A bureaucrat, a party bureaucrat,
something of the kind.
KOPPEL: Does it have a slightly negative connotation as
bureaucrat does sometimes when we use it?
SCHEVCHENKO: It does have a little negative connota-
ation, and the Soviets themselves, they don't call themselves
party apparatchik. So that it's an identification that has a
little negative connotation. But it's the same with the bureau-
crat.
KOPPEL: Forgive me for interrupting. That also has a
somewhat one-dimensional sense to it. Are you suggesting that
Mr. Andropov is one-dimensional in that regard?
SCHEVCHENKO: No, I don't think so. It's just the
contrary. He's not only party apparatchik, but in his position
of being a chief of the KGB, he of course become a head of the
really -- of one of the biggest organizations in the whole world,
surely non-existent in the Free World, a spying mechanism and the
mechanism of repression in the Soviet Union, and which is not known
to the whole history [sic]. And I would say that during the
period when Andropov was the Chairman of the KGB, he really
restored its power almost to the level when it used to be under
Beria or in Stalin's time.
KOPPEL: In the same way, are you suggesting?
SCHEVCHENKO: I would say certain -- not exactly in the
same way, of course. But I would say that the foreign operations
of the KGB were increased. And even I would say that neither in
Stalin's time nor in Khrushchev's time, let's say abroad had
never been like during the period when Andropov was Chairman of
the KGB, that more that half actually of the Soviet personnel in
the major embassies were the KGB professionals occupying the
senior posts in the Soviet embassy. It's never happened before.
Actually during Andropov's period of time, all dissident move-
ments which had been initiated, especially started in the
Khrushchev period of time, was crushed. And it was crushed
not by such a nice way, because here he actually institution-
alized the system of the mental institution.
KOPPEL: All right. Let's hop back to Moscow for a
moment and Vladimir Posner.
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disagree?
Have you heard anything so far with which you would
POSNER: Well, Ted, I'd like to say, and I'd like you
to understand me quite clearly, I'm perfectly willing to speak to
you and to Mr. Colby. I am not willing at all to discuss with
that gentleman anything, first of all because I see the man as
a traitor to his own country. He's a man who left behind his
daughter, incidentally, who went to school with my son; left
behind his wife, and a man who's being paid to say what he's
saying now. I totally cannot even imagine discussing anything,
even the weather, with a person like that....
KOPPEL: All right. Paid -- when you say paid....
POSNER: And I do not wish to discuss it.
KOPPEL: ...paid by whom?
POSNER: Well, by someone in your country, obviously.
And I simply do not want to discuss anything with him. So I'm
perfectly willing to talk to you and to Mr. Colby and to any
American citizen, but not to the man, to any man, for that
matter, who would betray his country, regardless of what that
country is.
KOPPEL: All right, fine. I can't force you to talk to
anyone. But the question still holds: is there anything you've
heard so far with which you'd like to take issue?
POSNER: Insofar as what Mr. Colby said, in a general
way, I can agree. I feel that the word "apparatchik," again, is
one of those words that's used by people, by professionals, but
they're given a very negative connotation, as you've mentioned.
And the man in the street just doesn't know what it is, but he
parrots the word. If you want to say bureaucrat, if you want to
use it as somebody who's working in a certain -- in the party, in
this case, that is a possibility.
Broadly, I would certainly disagree with Mr. Colby as to
the role of the State Security Committee. I do not see it as one
of oppressing or disciplining the Soviet people. I see it as
state security primarily. And also, I would strongly suggest
that it is not an independent organization that takes its own
decisions. It is part of the government, and it takes its orders
from the government and from the political bureau of the Com-
munist Party.
KOPPEL: All right, Mr. Colby?
COLBY: Oh, I think that's absolutely right. It is the
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organ through which the party imposes its control on the Soviet
people and insures the continued rule of the party.
I think in recent years the KGB has become more subtle,
but subtle for the same ultimate end of imposing that kind of
control. They are considerably more sophisticated in their
operations abroad than they were ten, twenty years ago, because
it's more efficient. They buy materials. They collect open
material from our Congress, from our press to a degree that in
previous years they didn't do, because they've learned that the
really important issues in America are public ones.
KOPPEL: All right, forgive me, Mr. Colby. I'd like to
take a break right now and, when we come back, direct our cover-
sation a little more toward a further discussion of Mr. Andropov.
When the Hungarian uprising broke out in 1957 -- or in
'56, rather, Yuri Andropov was there as the Soviet Ambassador to
Budapest. When we return, we'll be joined by a man who was there
also and who recalls Andropov, Andre Marton, former Associated
Press corespondent in Hungary, in Western Europe and in the
United States.
KOPPEL: Joining us now here in Washington, Andre
Marton, who was with the Associated Press as a correspondent for
some 30 years and now teaches at the Georgetown University School
of Foreign Service. Mr. Marton was the AP correspondent in
Budapest at the time of the Hungarian uprising when Yuri Andropov
was the Soviet Ambassador to Hungary.
years?
Andre, what can you tell us about this man from those
ANDRE MARTON: Well, we have seen him several times,
because he was a regular visitor of the Hungarian Parliament
building where the main offices of the government were. You
know, Bill Colby called the NK -- or the KGB -- I'm sorry -- a
subtle organization. And I think this is a good description of
Andropov himself. We in Hungary, Hungarians and foreign cor-
respondents -- there were hundreds of them then during the
revolution -- we thought that there are two Andropovs really, but
there was no point in asking would the real Comrade Andropov
please stand, because both were genuine. One was an amiable,
urbane, suave diplomat. The other was a man who carried faith-
fully the instructions of Moscow and played a major part in the
perfidious deception of the leaders of the Hungarian Revolution,
who, by the way, were Communist Party members, as Andropov
himself.
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He's an interesting character, we thought. We saw him
several times. We didn't talk to him, or he didn't -- better to
say he didn't talk to us. But we could observe him. He was a
smiling, unflappable, if you will, diplomat who was lying for his
country. And he was lying constantly. He was -- he was -- he
had a major role in deceiving the Hungarian government of the
revolution by telling them, "Oh, don't worry. Don't be con-
cerned. The agreement with Mikoyan and Suslov that the Russian
troops will withdraw from Hungary stands." And when he was
accused of bringing in new troops, he said "Oh, they only came
to relieve the old ones, the tired ones, and to protect the
civilians who will be evacuated."
KOPPEL: It's almost, though, Andre, an occupational
requirement for a good diplomat, isn't it, to be able to lie in
behalf of his country?
MARTON: It sure is. You may remember that Stalin once
said that a sincere diplomat is as impossible as dry water or
[words unintelligible]. Well, Andropov was certainly not a
sincere diplomat.
On the other hand, he was an amiable man. And he never
concealed the fact that he liked the Hungarian culture, which is
Western culture; he liked Hungarian food; he liked Hungarian art,
and he liked Hungarian women.
KOPPEL: All right. What I would -- well, maybe we
should stop on that last point. What do you mean "he liked
Hungarian women?" I'm not going to let you get away with that
without explaining it.
MARTON: Well, I don't know names, and if I would, I
wouldn't tell you. But that was no secret. You know, he was the
only Russian diplomat I know of who never made a secret of any-
thing. He told us that he speaks English. Now Mark Toon, a
great friend, former Ambassador to Moscow, was asked Sunday on
the Brinkley show, how do you know that he speaks English? And
Toon said I don't; I read it in the newspaper.
Well, we not only knew in Budapest that he speaks
English, but he told us how he learned English and why he learned
English. During World War II, he was a little cog wheel in the
party apparatus. But he was sent up to Archangel to supervise
and expedite the delivery and the unloading of Lend/Lease goods,
which led to the question of life and death for the Soviet Union
then. And of course they came in in English and American
freighters, and he had to have daily contact with the skippers,
the sailors. So he had to learn English. He never concealed it.
He spoke also Hungarian, a very rare thing and very unusual.
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Now the interesting thing is I said he didn't conceal
that he liked Hungarian life, which means Western life. After he
left Hungary, he came back several times as a private man, or he
had some job in the party. That was before he was named head of
the KGB. Why did he come back? It was no secret. Because he
liked the easy-going, irreverent, if you will, life in the
Hungarian capital.
KOPPEL: Andre, forgive me for interrupting for a
moment. I 'd like to warn our stations we're going to be running
just a little bit long, a few minutes over, and we appreciate
their indulgence.
I'd like to skip back to Moscow for a moment. Vladimir,
give us a sense of what we can expect in terms of foreign policy
changes, if any, and if indeed you have any reason to suspect
that there will be any changes.
POSNER: Well, Ted, quite frankly, I have no reason to
suspect any major changes in Soviet foreign policy. I think that
was made very clear by Mr. Andropov in his statements up till
now. And I have no reason at all to doubt those statements. I
think we're going to see a continuation of Soviet foreign policy
in all its basic manifestations.
KOPPEL: Well, then maybe you'd be good enough to define
for us what you think that foreign policy is in terms of U. S.-
Soviet relations at the moment.
POSNER: Well, Ted, U. S.-Soviet relations at the moment
are not at a very god stage, and they haven't been. I recall
when we were talking on November 5th, 1980 with you, and you
asked me about the future of Soviet-American relations after the
election of Mr. Reagan. And at that point I said if Mr. Reagan's
rhetoric is what his actions are going to be, those relations are
going to plummet, which is indeed what has happened.
But it is my feeling, and in fact my certainty, that the
Soviet Union all throughout this period, the two years since
then, has constantly wanted improved relations with the United
States. And I do feel that it is the U. S. government that has
acted in a way to make those relations extremely difficult.
Now we know that yesterday Mr. Andropov received Vice
President Bush and that they spoke for half an hour.
KOPPEL: What are those bells in the background? Is
that at your end?
POSNER: Are you talking to me?
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KOPPEL: Yes. We're hearing bells, and I wasn't sure if
they were coming from Moscow, Washington or New York.
POSNER: Well, I heard no bells here.
KOPPEL: You raised an interesting point, and that is
you reminded me of election night in 1980. And indeed the
conclusion you drew then was that the election of Ronald Reagan
versus the incumbency of Jimmy Carter would make a difference in
U. S. foreign policy. It's in that context that I'm asking you
why you don't think that the ascension of Mr. Andropov to the
leadership of the Soviet Union will have any effect on your
country's foreign policy.
POSNER: Well, the reason I say this, Ted, is that I
believe the principles of our foreign policy, as outlined at the
party congresses, are basic. They're not going to change from
man to man. When I'm speaking now of the basics, I'm speaking
about the view on war and peace, on peaceful coexistence, on
relations with all the countries of the Third World, the
developed nations of the world, and so on. These are not things
that have been defined by one man over the past decade. As a
matter of fact, they have been consistently part of Soviet
policy, and I do not see these basic things changing at all.
I think that there's going to be a continued effort in
the pursuit of peace, a continued effort in the pursuit of dis-
armament and limitation of strategic weapons, a continued effort
to improve relations with the United States, as one country, and
not only with the United States. And therefore, I do not see
any kind of change.
And frankly, the discussion so far that I've been
listening to and participating in as much as possible in my
opinion is a bit jumping the gun in the sense of its trying to
give a certain image of what Mr. Andropov is like. I would say
that it's a negative image that is being drawn. And therefore,
there's already apprehension as to how bad he will be. And I
frankly don't think that that's the way to approach a new
President. Rather, I would adopt a wait and see policy at the
minimum. And at the maximum, I would adopt a kind of benefit-
of-the-doubt policy. I think that would be much better.
KOPPEL: Well, you know us well, Vladimir. You've lived
in this country; you've studied in this country, and you know
that we tend to go on the basis of a track record. And here
we're looking at a track record that involves 15 years as the
head of the KGB. And you know what the perception is in this
country of the KGB.
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KOPPEL: Yes. So one reason we've asked you to parti-
cipate in this program tonight is precisely so that you will give
us perhaps something more to go on. What else is there that we
should be looking for in this man?
POSNER: Well, I think that you should be looking, first
of all, at a man who is representing the Soviet Communist Party,
who was elected its leader at a meeting of the -- a full-scale
meeting of the Soviet Communist Party, the plenary session of the
Soviet Communist Party, and that therefore this is not a case of
one man who had great power seizing it. It is the choice of the
party itself. And that's the first thing that should be under-
stood.
As for the qualities of Mr. Andropov, I have not met
him. But I think that the record speaks for itself. He's a man
who has been very capable in many different fields that he's worked
in., be it diplomacy, be it in state security, be it in pure party
work. And this in itself I think is a good -- soemthing to go
by.
KOPPEL: All right. One of the characteristics that we
have heard described is that he is somewhat more urbane, perhaps,
than his predecessors, certainly seems to know more about Eastern
Europe and perhaps even the West because of his linguistic
ability. Is it possible that therefore we can expect a man who
will reach out more to the West?
POSNER: Well, Ted, I think, in all fairness, that the
late President Brezhnev reached out very much to the West, that
there was a sincere desire on his part to improve relations. And
if we go back to 1972 and the period when detente began, I think
that was an exceptional example of reaching out to the West.
Therefore, I don't think that things such as knowledge
of a foreign language, or the fact that a person has lived in
the West or in the West, or somewhere, are really basic, are
principal things. They can be important. They can be of no
importance whatsoever.
What I think is important, though, is the policy in
general of this particular country over the past years. It has
been a policy of rapprochement with the West, a desire to trade
with the West, to cooperate with the West, to find ways of
scaling down on arms with the West. And therefore, I don't
think -- although you do have this particular kind of penchant
for it, I don't think you should over-emphasis [sic] the in-
dividual each time. It's always that, you know: Brezhnev as an
individual; Andropov as an individual. Certainly they are human
beings with their own particular qualities. But in this case
we're speaking about people who are representing a country and
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a party. And I think that is what should be looked at first, and
not the individual qualities.
KOPPEL: Mr. Colby?
COLBY: I think the problem here is that we're not
saying that the policy is going to change 1000, that there are
certain fundamentals in Soviet policy and doctrine. One of them
is an insistence on control of Eastern Europe. One is suppres-
sion of the Afghan revolution. One is the extension of Soviet
power through its proxies around the world.
But I think with the change of Mr. Andropov, let's not
overdue this subtlety and urbaneness, because this is a man who
has shown that he is perfectly willing to suppress the Hungarian
revolution in support of the interests of the Soviet Union. It's
a man who has steadily avoided travel abroad so that he looks at
the world from a very isolated point of view in the center of the
Soviet Union, receiving his reports, yes, but not with any kind
of personal experience of the great wide world and its marvelous
complexity.
I think that in this respect, we have to say that in
the years ahead, Mr. Andropov will be consolidating his position
as the head of the party, if he succeeds in doing so. And in
order to do so, he will probably wrap himself in an ideological
flag, insisting on greater discipline, greater adherence to
Marxism-Leninism and discipline in the Soviet people, and that we
are in for a very cold period in terms of the relationship with
the West.
There'll be a little surface talk about the interest in
peace, and all that sort of thing. But underneath it, the cold
steel of control will very much be there, because he needs that
in order to maintain the leadership of the other members of the
party who are concerned about their future and their stability.
KOPPEL: Mr. Schevchenko, a closing comment from you.
SCHEVCHENKO: Yes, I would say that it's a little bit
too early to say that Andropov become a leader of the Soviet
Union, because, oh, he replaced Brezhnev as a General Secretary
of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. But it doesn't
mean in any way that he also has the same authority or power
as Brezhnev had.
So I consider that it would be very premature to think
that he himself even would be able to change a basic element of
the Soviet foreign policy or domestic policy. We have to wait
and see. And I would say that still, at least now, it's a sort
of a collective leadership which is in the Soviet Union. Actu-
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ally it's the same group which had been under Brezhnev, because
they're all "Brezhnevees." And as far as I know, Andropov never
departed from the policy of Brezhnev in the past, and I never
heard that he has any kind of disagreement with Brezhnev on any
issue of policy of the Soviet Union.
KOPPEL: All right, forgive me for interrupting. I'd
like to give Andre Marton an opportunity for a couple of closing
comments, if you could in just a few seconds, Andre.
MARTON: Yes. I very much agree with whatever Bill
Colby said. You said, the fact that he liked what Khrushchev
described as "goulash communism" doesn't mean a thing. After-
all, for 15 years he was head of the KGB. And he who was head
of the KGB for such a long time can't be a nice guy.
KOPPEL: All right. And we have about 30 seconds left.
Vladimir, educate us for the last 30 seconds then. What's the
closing word from Moscow?
POSNER: I can only say that being a nice guy or not
being a nice guy is of no importance whatsoever. I'm sure that
he's a very competent man. And if Mr. Colby's assessment of the
role of Mr. Andropov is the assessment of the United States
government, which I hope it isn't, then, indeed, we're in for
some rather cold times. However, I hope that that is not the
case, and I look ahead with optimism, notwithstanding Mr. Colby
in this particular case.
KOPPEL: All right, gentlemen, we've certainly had some
interesting times together, and I thank all of you for joining
us. I'll be back in a moment.
KOPPEL: Coming up next on The Last Word, more on Yuri
Andropov, including an interview with a former intelligence
officer for Czechoslovakia. Also, a look at the problem of
alcholism and news ways to deal with it, including a chance to
talk with a physician who specializes in treating alcoholics.
That's our report on Nightline for tonight. For all of
us here at ABC News, I'm Ted Koppel.
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