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Andropov's compatriots barely had time to form much of an impression of their leader—not, at least, in his latest role. They knew him well enough as chief of the dreaded KGB for 15 years and as a man accustomed to having his own way. Whatever misgivings they might have had about him, after watching Brezhnev's painful, protracted decline, many had hoped that Andropov, at 69, would project an image of strength and vigor. But soon after taking office, he too displayed the telltale signs of serious illness and completely disappeared from public view for his final 175 days in power.
Muscovites who strolled in the streets last weekend appeared pensive and subdued as they paused to watch workmen drape red and black banners from public buildings and hang hammer-and-sickle flags trimmed in black from lampposts. There were few open displays of grief. Andropov was neither loved nor hated by most of his countrymen, and would be remembered less for what he had done than for what he had left undone.
He was unable to carry through his modest efforts to revive the economy. Though he had made some headway in invigorating the party bureaucracy, he may have left behind a Politburo divided along generational lines. The late Soviet leader had kept his nation's military strong, but his countrymen now felt more threatened than ever. At their bluntest, Muscovites reflected that in death Andropov had at least spared them further months in which they would wait and wonder how long the Soviet Union could be governed by a shadow leader.
Andropov's lingering illness, it was thought, had given his comrades in the Politburo ample time to plan for the succession. But at week's end the transition did not appear to be proceeding as smoothly or swiftly as it did following Brezhnev's death. Then it had taken only 52 hours for Andropov to emerge as the Central Committee's choice for General Secretary of the Communist Party. But newsmen watching the streets around the huge Central Committee building in downtown Moscow on Saturday afternoon saw no sign of unusual activity. If the Central Committee, which must elect the new Party leader, was not even meeting, what drama might be unfolding behind the Kremlin's walls? "Our feeling is that they are horse trading," suggested a U.S. diplomat in Moscow. "Someone will get General Secretary. Someone else the presidency." Andropov's two most important titles, in other words, would be parceled out to two contenders. In addition, there was speculation that Premier Nikolai Tikhonov, 78, would be asked to make way for the final member of a new troika.
The key question was whether the septuagenarians in the Politburo would choose the top man from their own ranks or would boldly pick a younger man. The two likeliest young candidates: Grigori Romanov, 61, and Mikhail Gorbachev, 52. With few clues to go on, Kremlin watchers seized on the appointment of Konstantin Chernenko, 72, a onetime Brezhnev protégé, to head the funeral committee as an indication that the old guard had triumphed. Although Andropov had been chosen for the same position when Brezhnev died, the signal was not as clear this time. As Andropov's nominal deputy, Chernenko was the logical choice for the ceremonial job, and his selection conformed fully to the rules of protocol.