"What will the West think?" That timeless refrain, heard so often throughout Russian history, was voiced by a puzzled Soviet official last week as he pondered the remarkable political comeback of Konstantin Ustinovich Chernenko. The official's words were tinged with irony and embarrassment over what he considered to be the advanced age and limited qualifications of the man who had been selected by the Communist Party Central Committee to succeed Yuri Andropov. But they also betrayed a deep sense of uncertainty, even misgiving, that was felt around the globe as one of the superpowers went about its secret rite of political passage for the second time in just 15 months.
Only five times before has the world tried to peer through the Kremlin's wall of secrecy to witness a changing of the guard.* The sixth transition, which brought Chernenko to the forefront, was announced at 1:57 p.m. Moscow time last Monday. It was as full of imponderables as any that had gone before. Why, for example, had the tiny circle of men who rule the Soviet Union risked another short-term regime and picked Chernenko, 72, the oldest man ever selected to hold the country's most important position? How would that choice affect the lives—and indeed the spirits—of 274 million Soviets, who had watched Andropov begin to energize a cumbersome economic system only to leave the task undone?
For a world anxious about the arms race, could the appointment lead to a thaw in relations with the U.S. and the resumption of the nuclear arms negotiations that were ruptured when the Soviets walked out of the Geneva talks late last year (see following story)?
Because of the new Soviet leader's long career as chief administrator of the Central Committee and as Leonid Brezhnev's appointments secretary, many Western analysts had dismissed Chernenko as a faceless bureaucrat who would always be everyone's second choice for the job. Now he was being seen as the last-gasp leader of a gerontocracy intent on keeping the younger generation from moving too quickly into the corridors of power. Said a Western diplomat in Moscow: "If Andropov had lasted another four months, I don't think Chernenko would have made it."
Much about Chernenko suggested that he had stepped into history straight from the Siberian village where he was born on Sept. 24,1911, only seven months and 18 days after Ronald Reagan. His open, almost cherubic face, with frosted brows that slant upward and icy blue eyes set in high Asiatic cheekbones, seemed unpretentious. As the new Soviet leader went through his paces last week, his dark suit appeared to hang awkwardly from his broad, slightly hunched shoulders. He seemed almost relieved after a Kremlin reception to enjoy a few private moments of male camaraderie with his elderly Politburo comrades, revealing a glint of gold as he smiled once or twice.
No sooner had Andropov been buried near the Kremlin wall last week than rumors began to circulate that Chernenko was not in the best of health. It was widely noted that he had disappeared for two months last spring, reportedly because of illness. As the new Soviet leader read a eulogy for Andropov from atop the Lenin Mausoleum, he spoke in short, icy gasps.