THE ANDROPOV FILE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000100170028-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 23, 2010
• Sequence Number: 28
• Publication Date: February 7, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/23: CIA-RDP90-00552R000100170028-4
'TN
71
77,
c::
STAT
THE NEW REPUBLIC
7 FEBRUARY 1983
THE ANDROPOV FIE
STAT
BY EDWARD JAY EPsTEIN
WHEN Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov was merely
head of the K.G.B., his image was that of the
stereotypic hard-line "police boss." His major accom-
plishment, according to C. L. Sulzberger, writing in The
New York Times in 1974, was "a fairly successful cam-
paign to throttle the recent wave of liberal dissidence."
Nor was he viewed as much of an admirer of foreign
culture. In 1980 Harrison E. Salisbury wrote in the Times
that Andropov "has been working for three years on
schemes to minimize the mingling of foreigners and
natives.... Now Andropov's hands have been freed to
embark on all kinds of repressive measures designed to
enhance the 'purity' of Soviet society." Completing this
picture of a tough, xenophobic, wave-throttling cop,
Andropov was physically described, in another Times
story, as a "shock-haired, burly man."
Andropov's accession to power last November was
accompanied by a corresponding ennoblement of his
image. Suddenly he became, in The Wall Street journal,
"silver-haired and dapper." His stature, previously re-
ported in The Washington Post as an unimpressive "five
feet, eight inches," was abruptly elevated to "tall and
urbane." The Times noted that Andropov "stood con-
spicuously taller than most" Soviet leaders and that "his
spectacles, intense gaze and donnish demeanor gave
him the air of a scholar." U.S. News & World Report, on
the other hand, reported that "he has notoriously bad
eyesight and wears thick spectacles."
His linguistic abilities also came in for scrutiny. Har-
rison Salisbury wrote, "The first thing to know about
Mr. Andropov is that he speaks and reads English."
Another Times story took note of his "fluent English."
Newsweek reported that even though he had never met a
"senior" American official, "he spoke English and re-
laxed with American novels." Confirmation of his com-
mand of English appeared in Time, The Wall Street
Journal, The Christian Science Monitor, and The Washing-
ton Post. The Economist credited him with "a working
knowledge of German," and U.S. News & World Report
added Hungarian ' to the growing list. And this quadra-
lingual prodigy was skilled in the use of language, too:
Edward Jay Epstein is the author of The Rise and Fall of
Diamonds: The Shattering of a Brilliant Illusion (Simon
and Schuster), and is currently completing a book on
international deception.
Time described him as reportedly "a witty conversa-
tionalist," and "a bibliophile" and "connoisseur of mod-
em art" to boot. The Washington Post passed along a
rumor that he was partly Jewish. (Andropov was rapidly
becoming That Cosmopolitan Man.)
Soon there were reports that Andropov was a man of
extraordinary accomplishment, with some interests and
proclivities that are unusual in a former head of the
K.G.B. According to an article in The Washington Post,
Andropov "is fond of cynical political jokes with an anti-
regime twist.... collects abstract art, likes jazz and
Gypsy music," and "has a record of stepping out of his
high party official's cocoon to contact dissidents." Also,
he swims, "plays tennis," and wears clothes that are
"sharply tailored in a West European style." Besides the
Viennese waltz and the Hungarian czarda, he "dances
the tango gracefully." (At a press conference within
hours of Andropov's accession, President Reagan, asked
about the prospects for agreement with him, used the
unfortunate metaphor, "It takes two to tango.") The Wall
Street journal added that Andropov "likes Glenn Miller
records, good scotch whisky, Oriental rugs, and Ameri-
can books." To the list of his musical favorites, Time
added "Chubby Checker, Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, and
Bob Eberly," and, asserting that he had once worked as a
Volga boatman, said that he enjoyed singing "hearty
renditions of Russian songs" at after-theater parties. The
Christian Science Monitor suggested that he has "tried his
hand at writing verse-in Russian, as it happens, and of
a comic variety."
The press was less successful in ferreting out more
mundane details of his life. Where, for example, was he
bom? The Washington Post initially reported that he was
"a native of Karelia," a Soviet province on the Finnish
border. The New York Times gave his birthplace as the
"southern Ukraine," which is hundreds of miles to
the south. And Time said he had been born in "the
village of Nagutskoye in the northern Caucasus." His
birthplace was thus narrowed down to an area stretch-
ing from Finland to Iran. There was also some vagueness
with respect to his education. The Wall Street journal
reported that he had "graduated" from an unnamed
"technical college," but U.S. News & World Report had
him "drop out" of Petrozavodsk University, while
Newsweek awarded him a diploma from the Rybinsk
Water Transportation Technicum, a vocational school
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/23: CIA-RDP90-00552R000100170028-4 ` `=~?'~