The scene in the Great Kremlin Palace amounted to an anticlimax before the show had even begun. On the rostrum before 1,517 obedient delegates to the Supreme Soviet, Russia's puppet parliament, Party Chief Leonid Brezhnev and Premier Aleksei Kosygin huddled and chatted with studied amiability. Then Brezhnev rose and nominated Kosygin for another term.
Thus was dissipated a wave of speculation about the possible retirement of the dry, dour Kosygin, regarded as a leading exponent of reform at home and restraint abroad. In recent months, Kremlinologists have professed to divine signs that...