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Behind the formality, observers detected a skillful diplomatic technician, in this respect second only to Molotov. He could not change the U.N. majority against him, but he could and did bog it down in technicalities and delays, until fine hot outrage was largely dissipated and the vote anticlimactic. His own bosses, slow to give him high rating, only last year made him a full member of the Central Committee. Later he accompanied B. & K. on their laughing-boy journey through India and Burma, and was seen on occasion to smile himself.
Amid all the onrush of speculation over whether Gromyko's appointment means a revival of the old hard-face Molotov policies, the basic fact remains that Russian Foreign Secretaries are not of the top circle of Kremlin leadership these days: they make the faces, but they do not make the policies. As if to underline this fact, and incidentally to acknowledge the abruptness of the change of ministers, the Kremlin announced that the "definitive" foreign-policy speech made four days earlier by Shepilov was still definitive, even though he had already lost his job.