The MacNeil/Lehrer Report; Brezhnev Dies

[Tease]

ROBERT MacNEIL [voice-over]: Leonid Brezhnev, only the fourth man to rule the Soviet Union since the Bolshevik Revolution, dies at the age of 75.

[Titles]

MacNEIL: Good evening. Leonid Brezhnev, the Soviet Communist Party leader and president, died yesterday morning of a heart attack, but the news was not announced until today.Black flags of mourning were hoisted all over Moscow today, but there was no public display of grief. After lying in state for three days, Brezhnev will be buried on Monday following a funeral in Red Square. Yuri Andropov, former chief of the KGB, or secret police, was named chairman of the funeral committee, possibly a sign that he could succeed Brezhnev as Party leader. President Reagan and other world leaders sent condolences. Mr. Reagan's message said his administration desired to work towards an improved relationship with the Soviet Union. Poland's military leaders, whom Brezhnev had backed in their crackdown on the Solidarity movement, chose today to announce that the movement's leader, Lech Walesa, would soon be released after 11 months of confinement. Tonight, a review of Brezhnev's 18 years in power, and with three top analysts of Kremlin thinking, who is likely to succeed Brezhnev and what does it mean for us? Jim?

JIM LEHRER: Robin, Leonid Brezhnev's life story is vintage Horatio Alger -- from humble beginnings to great power. He was born the son of a steel mill worker in the Ukraine, dropped out of school at 15 to join his father in the mills. He joined the Communist Party at the age of 25, his first government job being that of deputy mayor of his hometown. He attended a land surveyor college and then a local metallurgical institute, and became an army officer in World War II, where he was helped and encouraged by an older mentor named Nikita Khrushchev. After the war he began a rise through the party ranks, reaching the national level in 1950, all with the help of Khrushchev, whom he later turned on 14 years later. As a member of the Soviet Central Committee in 1964, Brezhnev and two other Committee members ousted Khrushchev. Brezhnev shared power and the limelight with his two conspirators for a while until he became clearly and completely number one. Tim Sebastian of the BBC tells the Brezhnev story from there.

TIM SEBASTIAN [voice-over]: Mr. Brezhnev gave the Soviet Union nearly 20 years of stable government and international clout. He's probably the first leader since Lenin that the Russians will want to remember. Nothing could show this more clearly than the killing of the Prague Spring in 1968. Alexander Dubcek had tried to liberalize Czechoslovakia; censorship was relaxed. Dubcek called it socialism with a human face. Early on August the 21st, Russian tanks rolled across the border. Within a few hours Czechoslovakia was an occupied country. Mr. Brezhnev was later to concentrate his energies on the West. In 1973, he visited West Germany, marking a dramatic improvement in East-West relations. Brezhnev and Chancellor Brandt signed many agreements.

Brezhnev's efforts at detente culminated in a meeting with President Carter in Vienna for final negotiations on the SALT II treaty.It was aimed at limiting long-range nuclear missiles and bombers. It took nine years to prepare. Both sides hailed the signing as a triumph. Brezhnev said they were defending the most sacred right of every man, the right to live. But the treaty was never ratified by Congress. East-West relations were moving into a difficult period, not helped by allegations of Soviet maltreatment of dissidents. The Nobel Prize winner, Andrei Sakharov, received most attention from the West. Harassment of him and his family brought repeated protests. He was sent into internal exile, but other dissidents received harsher treatment -- long jail sentences under rigid conditions. The opposition was systematically decimated.

In Brezhnev's final years, the West became increasingly suspicious of his intentions. The Soviet military build-up continued, outstripping NATO in a number of areas. The invasion of Afghanistan produced shock in the West, but no Russian remorse. Soviet troops stayed where they were, fighting an increasingly bloody war. Because of Afghanistan the Moscow Olympics were not the international spectacle the Russians had hoped for; 60 countries stayed away in protest, but the games were useful propaganda. Most of the world had, after all, finally come to Moscow. Poland is the major international problem that Brezhnev leaves his successor. Despite the imposition of martial law, the country remains unstable. It's there that his departure will be watched with some trepidation. Whoever succeeds him will want to assert himself quickly in that country.

Mr. Brezhnev's final public appearance was just a week ago, a military parade in Red Square marking the Soviet Union's 65th anniversary. Ironically, for a last engagement he was standing on Lenin's mausoleum, just in front of the Kremlin Wall where his remains will lie.

LEHRER: More on Brezhnev and his 18 years of leadership for the Soviet Union from William Hyland. As an official in the Nixon and Ford administrations, Mr. Hyland met with Brezhnev about a dozen times. His positions included deputy national security adviser and director of the State Department's bureau of intelligence and research. He was a staff analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency before that. He is the author of a book. The Fall of Khrushchev, and is now a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. What kind of man was he personally, first, Mr. Hyland?

WILLIAM HYLAND: Well, when I first met him in 1972, he was a very strong man, dynamic, restless, boisterous, jovial -- he liked to tell jokes, got along well, I think, with President Nixon and the Nixon party, and later with President Ford. Later, when I last saw him, in March of '77, he had declined and was much more reserved, and I think that already then the decline of his health had begun.

LEHRER: I read today that the big joke about him was that he was incapable of ad-libbing anything, and if it wasn't written down he just simply didn't say it. Is that correct?

Mr. HYLAND: Well, not really, because we had long sessions where he would ad-lib and negotiate, and he would tell stories to illustrate a point, and jump up in the middle of a conversation and pace the room and continue talking. So he was not wedded to his briefing paper, though he usually followed it rather scrupulously in the beginning, with red pencils and blue pencils, and underlining various parts. But he was capable in those early days of considerable ad-libbing.

LEHRER: Was he a tough negotiator?

Mr. HYLAND: Very tough. He always had a general idea of where he wanted to come out, and he would persistently come back to the points he wanted to make, but then occasionally, in some exasperation or frustration, he'd throw up his hands and say, "All right, I agree," and would make an actual genuine concession.

LEHRER: We just heard the BBC reporter say that he may be the first leader since Lenin that the Soviets will want to remember. Do you agree with that?

Mr. HYLAND: Well, to some extent. I think the circumstances of his departure -- he has died with his boots on, so to speak. He will be given an honorable funeral, an honorable burial. Unlike Khrushchev, who was thrown out by Brezhnev; unlike Stalin, who was subsequently denounced, I think there is some pressure now to make this a legitimate succession, and not to constantly revise their own history. But revision is part of Soviet politics, so some years from now we may find that Brezhnev too is joining Khrushchev and the others.

LEHRER: Well, assuming for a moment that the history is not revised, and from your perspective, looking at Leonid Brezhnev, what do you think was his best accomplishment, or his most memorable accomplishment, from the Soviet Union's point of view?

Mr. HYLAND: Oh, from the Soviet standpoint, I think it's clear that his accomplishment has been to build the Soviet Union into a truly global superpower with great military force, a formidable adversary of the United States and China and other countries. I think that is fairly clear that he set out to do that in '64, '65, and that he accomplished it.

LEHRER: And you believe he personally set out to do it and it happened because of -- if he hadn't been there it wouldn't have happened?

Mr. HYLAND: Well, I don't know if you can say that, that someone else wouldn't have followed the same course, but I think he was dedicated to it. He was very close to the military; he was very proud of his own military career. As far as we can tell, the military got just about what they wanted from Brezhnev. Even a few weeks ago, near the end of his career, he was still promising the military a build-up and so forth. I think he played a personal role in this affair, and that's where he will stand in Soviet history, the man who presided over this great build-up of their power.

LEHRER: If they were to revise the history down the line and look back on these 18 years for serious flaws, what would they probably find, from your perspective?

Mr. HYLAND: Well, I think, first of all, they will find that the price they paid for this build-up in terms of the economy slowing down, becoming less efficient, running out of -- possibly running out of energy, and so forth, will be a high price. The failure to modernize this economic plant will be held against him. Also, the failure to deal with agriculture in a rational way. He simply put a lot of money into it, but it didn't really produce. And then finally there's the whole question of the Soviet empire in Eastern Europe and Poland. Certainly the returns are not in on Poland, and until they are, it will be difficult to judge Brezhnev.

LEHRER: Finally, back to the personal, why is it, as Robin said, that there was no public display of grief in the Soviet Union today over this man's death after he'd been ruling the country for 18 years?

Mr. HYLAND: Well, I imagine the average Soviet citizen has learned to keep his own counsel or her own counsel, to be careful. While they are mourning Brezhnev today, six months from now there may be a secret speech; they certainly remember Stalin and Khrushchev being up and down. So I suspect that the tradition of the Soviet citizen is tobe reserved and not make a public committal of opinion one way or another.

LEHRER: Thank you. Robin?

MacNEIL: Jim, the United Press International quoted one woman in Moscow today as saying, "Oh, well, what does it matter?It'll just be another member of the Politburo who will follow him." And that brings us to the succession. Two men have been most frequently named as possible successors to Brezhnev. They are Yuri Andropov, the former KGB chief who heads the committee for Monday's funeral, and Konstantin Chernenko, a close associate of Brezhnev's. Another possibility is Viktor Grishin, a Politburo member and head of the Communist Party in Moscow. For more on the post-Brezhnev leadership we have Marshall Shulman, one of the foremost American Soviet watchers. Dr. Shulman was special adviser on Soviet matters to Secretary of State Vance during the Carter presidency.He is now director of the W. Averill Harriman Center for Advanced Study of the USSR at Columbia University. First of all, do you think that the other leaders, having anticipated Brezhnev's decline and death, have already worked out the succession?

MARSHALL SHULMAN: It doesn't look like it, Robin. It looks as if they faced this problem, thought about the importance of having the regularizing of the process, as Bill said, but that they hadn't been able to do it. It may be that they would have retired earlier if they could safely have provided for the succession without jeopardizing their own futures.

MacNEIL: Mr. Hyland used the word, some desire for a "legitimate" succession this time. How does the process work, and how will a new leader, if one does, emerge?

Dr. SHULMAN: It's largely -- it reminds me of the song, see what the boys in the back room will have. That is, it's largely a back-room, smoke-filled room, power-brokering.

MacNEIL: But is it a question of one man, one strong man thrusting himself through and clawing his way over other people?

Dr. SHULMAN: Not necessarily. At least our impression is that what is involved is a matter of who has the stronger power base, who has the patronage network. It is ward politics carried to its extreme in many ways.

MacNEIL: Now, you heard the three names that I gave. Would you add any to that list of Andropov, Chernenko and Grishin?

Dr. SHULMAN: You know, the truth is we don't really know. And the fact is, we know relatively little about the back-room politics of the Kremlin. Now, these are names that have been mentioned in Western discussions, and indeed, I suppose some of my Soviet friends have mentioned them at various times. But we're not really in a position to know, and it is a well-kept secret which I will divulge here now that for those of us who hang out a shingle as Kremlinologists, we often pretend to know more than we really do.

MacNEIL: But suppose President Reagan rang you up and said, "Dr. Shulman, I really would like to know what's your best bet on who might succeed him"? What would you say?

Dr. SHULMAN: I'd say this is a serious mistake, Mr. President. Well, if he were to ask who it is going to be, or, "What shall I do about it," which is your question, Robin, I don't think, first of all, that we can influence the choice of who it's going to be. I think if we had any illusions that we had a favorite, it would probably be a mistake and we should keep quiet about it anyway. What we can do is to affect somewhat the options that any new leadership that emerges may be thinking about.

MacNEIL: What are those options, first of all in domestic policy?

Dr. SHULMAN: The most important one, and, I would guess, if there's anything that will keep the new leadership from its peacetime sleep at night, it is the economy. It is at the heart of many problems, including those that Bill Hyland mentioned awhile ago. The problems of maintaining a very large allocation of resources to the military sector, which may have to be higher if the competition continues. The problem of sustaining Eastern Europe at a time when Western credits are diminishing and the load grows stronger. The problem of handling the availability of foodstuffs for the various nationalities, whose national consciousness may fluctuate in accordance with the problem of the marketplace. This is the key problem, I think, that he has to face. And the difficulty is that at every point when the regime has moved to do what their own economists have suggested needs be done, they run into bureaucratic political friction. It's been very difficult for them to move in that direction of a more rational management of the economy.

MacNEIL: What about in foreign policy, briefly? What are the options there?

Dr. SHULMAN: I suppose the main question in foreign policy is, will their relations with the United States require them to spend more or the same, or can they spend less in the military sector?

MacNEIL: Do you have any guesses?

Dr. SHULMAN: That depends on what we do, I think, Robin. I think that's what they've been looking to us for, and my impression is that for quite a while they were reserved in their judgment about what this administration would do. They tended to draw an analogy from President Nixon and think maybe they should just wait out the tough rhetoric, and maybe that logic would bring the American President around. Now, within the last two weeks we've had some speeches which seem to suggest that they're upping the rhetoric. They decided to say to us very clearly, "If you are thinking that you can bring us to our knees; if you're thinking that you can outspend us, and that that will have a salutary effect from your point of view, you're making a mistake. That if you go up the scale of military expenditures, we will, too." That was the main thrust of what they told us.

MacNEIL: Well, thank you. Jim?

LEHRER: A third perspective now, that of Dimitri Simes, executive director of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies' Soviet and East European reseach program. He was born and raised in the Soviet Union, and graduated from Moscow University. He emigrated to the United States in 1973 and is now an American citizen. What kind of succession scenario do you see unfolding now?

DIMITRI SIMES: Well, I think that initially they will select somebody like Mr. Andropov, like Mr. Chernenko, Mr. Grishin -- somebody who is a senior Politburo member, somebody who is rather old, experienced, and who would be a caretaker. And then, after they make this initial choice, there will be a real power struggle and several people will be maneuvering for better position in the leadership. In short, I am trying to suggest that when they will select a new General Secretary, they will select somebody --

LEHRER: General Secretary of the Party?

Mr. SIMES: Yes, General Secretary of the Party. -- they will select somebody to succeed Brezhnev in his formal position, but this person will have to work very, very hard to establish his legitimacy. After all, Lenin was succeeded by Mr. Kamenev. Stalin was succeeded by Mr. Malenkov. A year later, both of them were defeated politically.

LEHRER: So, if in the next few weeks any one of these three men or anybody else gets one of those jobs, don't sit back and think, well, that's what it's going to be for the next 18 years.

Mr. SIMES: Not at all. Obviously, a man who would become next General Secretary would be well positioned to take part in this power struggle, but an outcome of this power struggle will not be assured yet.

LEHRER: Is the power struggle, as you see it, that would exist for leadership down the line -- is there any way to characterize it? Is it hard-line versus soft-line, liberal versus conservatives, or any kind of guideline? Is it a political struggle or is it personalities, or what?

Mr. SIMES: Well, obviously it is going to be a struggle between personalities, and I have to say that very much will depend on personalities because when Politburo members will decide whom to pick, they will ask first "How this fellow is going to treat me? Will he promote me?"

LEHRER: You mean me personally.

Mr. SIMES: Me personally, absolutely. "Would he promote me or would he send me to Siberia? Would he destroy me?" This is the first question. Then he --

LEHRER: That's understandable.

Mr. SIMES: Then he would think about this candidate for power and political use. But views do matter, and I think there are important nuances. I think, for instance, Mr. Grishin clearly --

LEHRER: Now, Grishin is now head of the Party in Moscow, right?

Mr. SIMES: Grishin is currently head of the Party in Moscow. He sounded more hard-line than, for instance, Mr. Andropov or Mr. Chernenko. He sounded more hard-line and mean boss on foreign and domestic issues. Now, I do realize that --

LEHRER: Excuse me, let's define hard-line. Hard-line, meaning on military matters toward the United States; hard-line toward dissidents and that sort of thing internally? Is that what you mean?

Mr. SIMES: He was one of the most hardest critics of the Prague Spring.

LEHRER: Of the what?

Mr. SIMES: The Prague Spring in 1968. He was one who was suggesting earlier than others that the Soviets have to do something decisive to put this experiment down. He was an early critic of detente with the United States. He earlier than others began talking about American military strength. He always emphasized ideological struggle rather than a cooperative aspect of the U.S.-Soviet relationship. No, don't misunderstand me. You cannot predict -- at least, you cannot reliably predict -- how a man would behave once a supreme leader on the basis of his statements when he was a subordinate. But these people are different; they have different views, and I do believe that personalities matter. Stalin is a perfect example, of course.

LEHRER: What about the other two? Are there any specific -- you've given us the rundown on Mr. Grishin. What about the other two? Do they have any distinctive views that might -- here, again, I know what your caveat is: it may not be reflected if they do get the job, but anything now, as we sit. Do they have a distinctive view on any major matter?

Mr. SIMES: Mr. Chernenko was probably the Politburo member closest to Brezhnev, and he sounded like Brezhnev-plus. He was even more pro-detente than Brezhnev. When Brezhnev, as Marshall Shulman mentioned, denigrated the United States the other day, Chernenko followed with a speech that was more hard-line than Brezhnev's speech. He was a very loyal follower. As far as Andropov is concerned --

LEHRER: Now, he's the former head of the KGB.

Mr. SIMES: He's the former head of the KGB, former Central Committee secretary in charge of relations with ruling Communist parties. He's a remarkable man. I read his speeches very carefully. He manages always to be a centrist. Whatever it meant to be a centrist at that particular moment. A great master of political maneuver.

LEHRER: Thank you. Robin?

MacNEIL: Mr. Hyland, do you want to add to these Little portraits we've had of the three?

Mr. HYLAND: I have nothing specific other than I would be prepared to bet something on Andropov. I think Andropov has already emerged at least a nose ahead by being put in charge of the funeral committee, and as Dimitri said, he has this background, this ability to be a centrist and to co-opt support. Otherwise he would certainly not have been promoted last May.

MacNEIL: Mr. Shulman, there seems to be some controversy about Andropov. There's a suggestion that some of his political aides leaked through the Western press what some are calling disinformation about his being a closet liberal, a man who likes Western art, is a very urbane intellectual. What is your view of him?

Dr. SHULMAN: Part of it is the complexity of the man himself, I think. You know, Robin, I think probably as far back as, perhaps, 10 years, some of my Russian friends were saying to me, "Watch Andropov," and it astonished me because in the West we thought of him primarily in his KGB connection --

MacNEIL: As a policeman?

Dr. SHULMAN: Yes. And what they were saying to me was he is really a very bright man and a very well-educated man, relatively speaking, among the Politburo people. And that may be a factor. Now, obviously, there's a lot of sniping going on. There have been curious things about corruption and people brought to trial -- backstage stuff, obviously. But this --

MacNEIL: Some negative advertising going on among his opponents?

Dr. SHULMAN: I think they were some people who were not his friends.

MacNEIL: Could I ask each of you, very briefly, starting with you, Mr. Simes, in a few sentences, what do you think the posture of Mr. Reagan and the U.S. should be in this period of uncertainty ahead?

Mr. SIMES: I think we have to be realistic. As Marshall mentioned, we have a very limited influence in Moscow at this juncture. Obviously we cannot influence choice of personalities. It would be rather difficult to influence their choice of policies simply because detente with the United States was sufficiently discredited in Moscow. And it is hard to imagine a Soviet leader who would be maneuvering for power and yet would be willing to be associated with some major arms control initiative or some other cooperative agreement with the United States.I think we should be careful. We should make some peaceful-sounding noises. Most importantly, we should wait and should not say something threatening, and should not put too much pressure on the Soviet leadership to be more forthcoming in the relations with the United States when they are trying to put their own political house together.

MacNEIL: What's your view, Mr. Hyland?

Mr. HYLAND: I agree in general that we should be somewhat relaxed and cool, but I would tilt towards conciliation, towards making those gestures which might test Soviet willingness to respond or reciprocate, rather than try to put on a tough confrontational posture. I cannot see that we will have any decisive influence in the near term, but I think we ought to re-examine now almost every aspect of our relations with the Soviet Union because I think this is a major watershed, and it could be an unparalleled opportunity for President Reagan, who has already, I think, sounded the right note in the statement that he read today.

MacNEIL: Do you agree with that, it was the right note today?

Dr. SHULMAN: Yes, I think so. But behind that, Robin, I think lies a question and it has to be clarified. I'm not sure yet whether the President personally or the administration has really made clear, perhaps even to itself, what it wants, what its objectives are. If its objective is confrontation -- that is, to maximize the Soviet troubles, as it has sometimes said -- then that leads to one course of action. If, on the other hand, it has come to the conclusion that what it wants is to moderate the nuclear competition and to have a relationship of moderate tension, then the time has come to do what Bill Hyland and Dimitri have just been saying.

MacNEIL: Well, thank you. Mr. Hyland and Mr. Simes in Moscow, thank -- in Washington, thank you very much for joining us; Marshall Shulman in New York. Good night, Jim.

LEHRER: Good night, Robin.

MacNEIL: That's all for tonight. We will be back tomorrow night. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.