The day dawned gray and ordinary. As Muscovites looked outside at streets dusted with fresh snow, they could at least take comfort from the fact that it was Friday. Many turned on their radios, expecting the usual mix of news, pop music and light entertainment. What they heard instead were the melancholy strains of Chopin, Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky. Only 15 months before, such symphonic tributes had signaled the death of Leonid Brezhnev. Now the music was playing again. A Soviet office worker said it all: "Someone has died up there."
Foremost in everyone's mind was the distressing knowledge that Soviet Leader Yuri Andropov had not been seen in public since Aug. 18, however often his name had been evoked in print and over the air waves. But in a nation where political successions have brought both terror and hope, the idea that another change in command was under way after little more than a year seemed hard to believe. Soviet citizens knew Andropov was ill, but many, uneasy with the prospect of a new transition, believed reports that he was convalescing. So a guessing game began. Some Soviets thought that Vasili Kuznetsov, the oldest member of the ruling elite, might have died on the eve of his 83rd birthday. Others figured it was Defense Minister Dmitri Ustinov, 75, who had canceled an official visit to India a week earlier. But a worried Moscow housewife gave voice to the fear she shared with many of her compatriots: "It would be terrible if Andropov has died. We don't need another change."
The announcement finally came at 2:30 p.m. on Friday. Seated in an unadorned studio, Newscaster Igor Kirilov solemnly began to read the official text: "The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R., and the Council of Ministers . . ." At that point the screen went blank for a moment, and then the outlines of a familiar face with heavy spectacles appeared. Kirilov continued to intone offscreen: ". . . with deep sorrow inform the party and the entire Soviet people that Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, died after a long illness at 16:50 on Feb. 9,1984." The face on the screen was Andropov's.
As accustomed as the world may have grown to the idea of Andropov's illness, the news of his death hit with exceptional force. It is always, of course, a dramatic event when one of the world's two superpowers loses a leader. But when that country is a totalitarian state, the event evokes a special combination of hope and fear, not only within its own borders but around the world. Awakened at his Santa Barbara, Calif., ranch with the news at 3:20 a.m., President Reagan dispatched a message of condolence that expressed his wish for "genuine cooperation with the Soviet Union to make the world better." Said former Secretary of State Cyrus Vance: "A change of leadership in Russia is always a political turning point, and our policies and actions toward them can affect the direction in which the Soviets move."