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Meanwhile, relations with the U.S. rapidly deteriorated. Andropov may have had success in persuading Samantha Smith, the fifth-grader from Manchester, Me., who wrote to him, that the Soviet Union was interested in improving relations "with such a great country as the U.S." But the Reagan Administration was quick to voice skepticism about the sincerity of those sentiments. Following the Korean-airliner disaster, President Reagan accused the Soviet Union of committing "a crime against humanity." Moscow responded by taking the offensive. After Reagan unveiled new arms-control proposals last September, Andropov issued a statement with the most comprehensive denunciation of a U.S. Administration since the chilliest days of the cold war. Said the Soviet leader: "Even if someone had any illusions about the possible evolution for the better of the policy of the present Administration, the latest developments have finally dispelled them."
Reagan sought to bring about a thaw in the superpower chill when he acknowledged in a speech last month that "our working relationship with the Soviet Union is not what it must be." By that time, all hope for a summit between Reagan and Andropov had passed. A final interview published under Andropov's name in Pravda offered no new counterproposal for breaking the deadlock. Instead, it repeated earlier calls for the U.S. and its NATO allies to "display readiness" to return to the situation that had existed before missiles were deployed in Western Europe.
Andropov's time in power may have been marked by failures at home and abroad, but important, if measured, steps were taken to overhaul and rejuvenate the gerontocratic party machine. Brezhnev holdovers who hoped to retain cherished sinecures at the middle and lower levels of the bureaucracy found their jobs going to younger men. At least 34 of an estimated 150 provincial party posts changed hands during Andropov's 15 months in power. It was the largest turnover of party officials around the country in two decades.
Even if Andropov was too physically frail to attend last December's party plenum, he appeared to come out of the meeting politically stronger. The balance of power in the Politburo seemed to tilt in his favor by the appointment of two new men whose careers had been stalled under Brezhnev. Politburo Newcomer Vitali Vorotnikov, 58, joined a number of younger leaders who appeared to owe their growing prominence to the ailing leader. They included former Azerbaijan Party Chief Geidar Aliyev, 60, who was the first Andropov appointee to the party's inner circle, and two technocrats, Nikolai Ryzhkov, 54, and Yegor Ligachev, 64, who were assigned to key posts in the Central Committee.
Whether these changes can be counted as personal triumphs for Andropov is another question. The push to pump younger blood into the aging body politic during Andropov's time in power would certainly have promoted the interests of his supporters throughout the security services and the military. Indeed, Defense Minister Dmitri Ustinov was believed to have been instrumental in helping Andropov secure the top party post. But if the late Soviet leader made some moves to shake up the party, he did nothing to challenge a defense establishment grown so large under Brezhnev that no one man could control it.