Rise of a Secret Policeman

By Patricia Blake

The KGB's Andropov becomes a favorite to succeed Brezhnev

By midmorning, the black limousines had begun nestling side by side in front of the faded blue and green Central Committee building in Moscow. Arriving in small groups, nearly 300 members of the Communist Party's ruling body filed into the auditorium for a closed-door conclave. Ostensibly, the main object of the special meeting was to discuss a plan to increase agricultural production. But shortly after the start, Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev, 75, in his role as General Secretary of the Communist Party, made an announcement that added a new element to the most popular pastime in Moscow: speculating about who will eventually succeed the ailing leader.

Looking pale but fit, Brezhnev nominated Yuri Andropov, 67, the tall and somewhat stooped leader of the Committee for State Security (KGB), for election to the ten-man Secretariat of the Central Committee, a powerful body that runs the day-to-day affairs of the party. The Central Committee promptly elected him. Two days later, the government announced that Andropov had been relieved of his position in the KGB "because of his assignment to other duties." The promotion made Andropov one of only four contenders who hold the combination of posts thought necessary for a potential party chief: membership in both the Politburo, the 13-man council that makes all major policy decisions, and the Central Committee Secretariat. His three most prominent rivals are Economic Expert Andrei Kirilenko, 75, Administrator Konstantin Chernenko, 70, and Agricultural Specialist Mikhail Gorbachev, 51.

Andropov's elevation surprised Kremlinologists, who had ruled out his candidacy on the ground that his public image had been tarnished by 15 years of service as chief of the Soviet secret police. "It is the most important personnel appointment in decades," says William Hyland, a senior fellow of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and one of Washington's most respected Sovietologists. The promotion of Andropov, says a Western diplomat in Moscow, shows that "he has a lot of support in the army, the Foreign Ministry and the party." According to Hyland, the Central Committee may have given Andropov some of the vast policymaking powers that were long held by Mikhail Suslov, the party ideologist whose authority was second only to Brezhnev's until Suslov's death last January. A Soviet historian agrees: "Andropov is definitely the No. 2 man now."

The son of a railway worker from the northern Caucasus, Andropov was a telegraph operator and Volga boatman before he joined the Young Communist League. He served as political commissar on the Finnish front during World War II and eventually joined the Foreign Ministry in Moscow, rising rapidly to the rank of ambassador. While Ambassador to Budapest in 1956, he helped supervise the brutal Soviet repression of the Hungarian uprising. Though not previously a professional secret policeman, Andropov was named top cop of the Soviet Union in 1967. He quickly became known for the efficiency with which he repressed all forms of political, religious and national dissent in the Soviet Union during the 1970s. A specialist in Eastern European affairs, Andropov was able to consolidate his position in the Soviet hierarchy following the imposition of martial law in Poland last December. "It made him look good," says the University of California's George Breslauer. "This was not because of any direct role he might have played, but because the crackdown in Poland showed that the function of the secret police remains important."

The seemingly self-effacing Andropov is considered by many Kremlin watchers to be a skilled and experienced administrator. "In some ways he is the most capable guy they have," says Helmut Sonnenfeldt, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's longtime adviser on Soviet affairs. Andropov is also believed to be something of an intellectual, with an interest in rare books and modern art. This did not deter him, however, from dispatching bulldozers to roll over and destroy a 1974 unofficial exhibition of modern painting in Moscow.

Ever since Stalin's police chiefs conducted mass purges of government and party officials in the late 1930s, Soviet political leaders have regarded any overly ambitious security chief with suspicion. Still, if there is anyone who could persuade the Kremlin elite to put aside their apprehensions, Andropov may be the man. The reason: in his 15 years as KGB chief, Andropov has prevented the secret police from terrorizing the leadership as it did during the Stalin years.

Andropov's odds are enhanced by the fact that each of the other three leading contenders for Brezhnev's mantle has a major handicap. Kirilenko, who has rarely been seen in public in recent months, is believed to be ill. Chernenko, though a Brezhnev protege, has no power base of his own. Gorbachev, who runs Soviet agriculture, lacks broad experience. Still, he is young and aggressive enough to accumulate power within the next few years as the elderly Politburo members die out.

Some Sovietologists speculate that Andropov was foisted upon Brezhnev by members of the Politburo who opposed Chernenko. "I think Brezhnev has been hurt," says a Western diplomat in Moscow. "The safest course for Brezhnev was to build up Chernenko, who was his creature. But now there's a fox--Andropov--in the chicken coop." Cornell University's Myron Rush believes that in spite of Andropov's move upward, Chernenko can still make it to the top if Brezhnev survives and is well enough to exercise power for a year or two. Says Rush: "Brezhnev is wary of Andropov. Like J. Edgar Hoover, the KGB man knows all the dirt about the leaders--all the secrets of the Politburo members."

As convincing as the arguments in favor of Andropov seem, Western experts are far from unanimous in their interpretation of last week's move. Columbia University's Seweryn Bialer considers it unlikely that the Kremlin hierarchy will ultimately choose a former KGB chief as its head. "The political and military leaders do not want to live under the shadow of the secret police as they did under Stalin," he says. Dialer believes that if Andropov is selected, it will be a sign that the leaders believe that the Soviet Union and its empire are in deep trouble. "It will mean that they feel obliged to turn the screws tighter at home because of economic difficulties and in Eastern Europe because of challenges to Moscow's authority."

To replace Andropov as head of the KGB, the Central Committee chose Vitali Fedorchuk, 63, the first professional secret policeman to serve in that post since 1958. Fedorchuk joined the secret police in the Ukraine in 1939, and served in military counterintelligence during the war. Right after the war he was transferred to occupied Austria and Germany. Following his appointment as head of the Ukrainian KGB in 1970, his branch of the secret police gained a reputation for particularly brutal repression of dissidents and religious groups. Fedorchuk is now expected to be elevated to the Central Committee and possibly even to the Politburo.

Some analysts believe that the selection of Andropov's successor from the Ukraine, instead of from the central KGB apparatus in Moscow, resulted from Andropov's effort to retain much of his authority. Says Rush:

"It will be difficult for a man who has been in the sticks as long as Fedorchuk to take control of the KGB. Meanwhile, Fedorchuk will be kept under close supervision by the Central Committee Secretariat, perhaps by Andropov himself."

The least controversial of last week's promotions was the elevation of Central Committee Secretary Vladimir Dolgikh, 57, to alternate, or nonvoting, membership in the Politburo. A Siberian by birth, he has run Soviet heavy industry for the past six years. Considered a mere stripling by the ruling gerontocracy, Dolgikh will be a strong candidate for high office when the next generation of leaders emerges.

Andropov's rise totally overshadowed the new agricultural program introduced by Brezhnev. Designed to remedy the inefficiency of the collective system, the scheme calls for increased capital investment in agriculture from a current 27% of the national budget to 33 1/3% by the mid-1980s. But such large expenditures are unlikely to be carried out in the long run, experts believe. Like Brezhnev's plans for the succession, his extravagant program for agriculture may be shelved by the victors in the battle for the vast power he Still commands. --By Patricia Blake. Reported by Erik Amfitheatrof/Moscow and Bruce W. Nelan/Washington

With reporting by Erik Amfitheatrof/Moscow, Bruce W. Nelan/Washington

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