Telltale Clues

New mysteries in the Kremlin

After several months of relative inactivity following the death of Leonid Brezhnev, the Moscow rumor mill last week was once again grinding away. The first major items of interest concerned the state of health and whereabouts of Communist Party Leader Yuri Andropov, 68. Then, as if tales of an Andropov illness were not intriguing enough, the official Soviet news agency TASS set off a new round of speculation with a terse two-line communique announcing the promotion of Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, 73, to the post of First Deputy Premier.

Drawing on years of experience in monitoring the decline of Brezhnev, Kremlin watchers were quick to pick up telltale clues that something might be amiss with Andropov. During his first four months in office, the onetime KGB chief has lost weight. He has kept to a rigorous daily schedule, but after meeting with a delegation from Mozambique on March 2, he seemed to adopt an even lower profile than usual. Curiosity grew when TASS failed to print a summary of the weekly meeting of the ruling Politburo, as has been the custom recently, a possible indication that the gathering had been called off. But it was only after Defense Minister Dmitri Ustinov returned to Moscow after an unusually short, 24-hour visit to Budapest last week that the speculation began in earnest.

Rumors began to spread that the new man in the Kremlin had been hospitalized. Some Westerners suggested that Andropov was suffering from nephritis, a chronic kidney ailment. Others hinted of heart trouble and possibly the flu, a common illness this time of year in Moscow. There was of course no official confirmation that Andropov had been either ill or in the hospital. Stories that he might be suffering from some life-threatening malady were quickly scotched when Andropov reappeared last Friday at a meeting with Nicaraguan Leader Daniel Ortega, and when he gave Pravda an interview that vigorously criticized President Reagan's speech on defense. By then, however, there were new mysteries to be unraveled in the Kremlin.

In a move that took the diplomatic community by surprise, Gromyko was given the additional responsibilities of a First Deputy Premier. The veteran diplomat, who after 26 years in the post has come to personify Soviet foreign policy abroad, had been mentioned as a possible contender for the office of Soviet President, which is still vacant following Brezhnev's death. Instead, he will now assume a post on the governing Council of Ministers as one of three top deputies to Premier Nikolai Tikhonov.

For the time being, Gromyko intends to keep the job of Foreign Minister. Indeed, informed Soviets suggested that the move upstairs would actually make him a "superminister," with much broader control over foreign policy decisions. But the shift could also be the first step toward bringing in a younger man. One potential successor is Anatoli Dobrynin, 63, who has been Ambassador to Washington since 1962.

Gromyko is the second top-level deputy to Tikhonov who has been appointed under Andropov. At a meeting of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet last November, onetime Azerbaijan KGB Chief and Party Leader Geidar Aliyev, 59, was also moved into the government's ruling inner circle. Gromyko's elevation to the same rank as Aliyev may have been intended to check the ambitious Azerbaijani.

In a week full of confusing signs and portents, the concern about Andropov's health revived doubts about the stability of the Kremlin leadership in the post-Brezhnev era. Said a Western diplomat in Moscow: "The fact that Andropov could come out as a strong successor just a few days after Brezhnev's death gave a lot of people confidence that the leadership was functioning smoothly and that it had everything under control. If Andropov died tomorrow, does anyone think it would go as smoothly?" This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.