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Chernenko visited Paris in 1982 to attend the 24th Congress of the French Communist Party. Afterward, he was given a rather grim reception by the French government, which was upset about the Soviet-inspired imposition of martial law in Poland only seven weeks earlier. But in Chernenko's talk with French Premier Pierre Mauroy, says a French official who attended the meeting, the Soviet visitor came across as "a man of conviction and even punch." At one point, Mauroy referred to "heaven" as he described the importance of the Roman Catholic Church in Poland. This remark elicited a flash of that rarest of Chernenko's known qualities, a sense of humor. "Heaven," he quipped, "is already inhabited—by our cosmonauts."
People who have known Chernenko say that his most impressive attribute is his prodigious memory. In presenting him with the Order of Lenin on his 70th birthday three years ago, Brezhnev is supposed to have told his loyal deputy, "I can think of no case in which you have ever forgotten anything, even when it dealt with things that seemed negligible at first glance." That accolade earned Chernenko the potentially alarming sobriquet "the man who never forgets." Stored in his capacious memory are countless files, names, incidents, favors given and favors received. In the view of many Soviet analysts, he is far from a fool. As Alexander Rahr, a Soviet-born expert at Radio Liberty in Munich, puts it, "He is a quiet Siberian, a man who can be quite cunning, a man who knows what power is." But he is also said to have a common touch in dealing with subordinates. As a Soviet journalist who has seen him on numerous occasions observed, "He treats unimportant people like human beings."
Though the trip was scarcely noticed at the time and is barely remembered, Chernenko has visited the U.S. One day in 1974, retired U.S. Diplomat Nathaniel Davis recalls, Soviet Ambassador Anatoli Dobrynin called him at the State Department and asked whether he could bring around a "personal guest" from Moscow. The guest turned out to be Chernenko, who had come to Washington to see his daughter. She was then either an employee or, more likely, the wife of an employee of the Soviet embassy. Chernenko was interested in discussing the State Department's experience with computers in handling personnel matters. Beyond that, he wanted to talk about how the department made its assignments, decided on transfers and dealt with other personnel business. After arranging the proper security clearance, Davis showed the white-haired visitor around the department and talked with him at some length. "It was clear that he was a man of some importance, because he was not lacking in presence," Davis recalls. "He was quiet but attentive, and he asked good questions."