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It is far too early to guess if Mr. Andropov will ever qualify to sing with such a group, pleasant light tenor or no pleasant light tenor. He would probably add Little Things Mean a Lot, neither a Chubby Checker nor a Glenn Miller hit, but a fitting theme song for a man whose life is being appraised from small angles. Alas, as the world unhappily discovers, little things do not always mean as much as the bigger ones, especially when one of the big things is the Soviet Union. But not to worry. For the moment it is enough to relish the portrait of a leader of half the world lounging in his modern Hungarian easy chair, dipping into Valley of the Dolls, sipping Scotch, chuckling over KGB jokes, pondering China in his amateur way and dreaming of the day when he and the gypsies can get down to some serious fiendish tennis in Afghanistan.
—By Roger Rosenblatt