Volume 29, Number 3 · March 4, 1982
Brezhnev and After
By Simon Head
For the past six years the uncertain health of Leonid I. Brezhnev has been the wild card of world politics. Every time that thick, wooden figure ventures forth beyond the Kremlin walls, the outside world looks carefully for symptoms of decay. With the recent death of Mikhail Suslov, the other pillar of the Soviet regime, this macabre scrutiny can only intensify. The evidence on Brezhnev tends to vary from onè excursion to the next. During his November meeting with Helmut Schmidt, as he tottered from one engagement to the next, it sometimes looked as though he might not last the day. During previous meetings with Lord Carrington and Willy Brandt he looked better, the tensions of the Polish crisis notwithstanding.
Feature, 8953 words
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