11. MIKHAIL GORBACHËV
Gorbachëv’s chance to jemmy open the doors of Soviet and global
politics came with the death of Chernenko on 10 March 1985. He
called a Politburo meeting for the following day, at which Minister of
Health Yevgeni Chazov reported a diagnosis of emphysema and acute
hepatitis. Prime Minister Tikhonov delivered a statement of condo-
lence. Gorbachëv turned to Gromyko, who had agreed to propose his
name for the general secretaryship.^1
The alliance with Gromyko was a recent creation. After Gor-
bachëv’s British trip, Gromyko chided those ambassadors who
reported warmly about the impact that the younger man made on
Western public opinion;^2 and he may also have been responsible for
the inattentiveness of the Soviet media to the visit.^3 But Gromyko, the
Kremlin survivor, was soon plotting about how to be on the same side
as the likely successor to Chernenko. His son Anatoli sounded out
Yevgeni Primakov at the Institute of the World Economy and Interna-
tional Relations. The idea was to ask Primakov to approach Alexander
Yakovlev, whom Gorbachëv had brought back from Canada to become
the institute’s director in mid-1983, for the purpose of discovering how
Gorbachëv would respond to an overture from Gromyko senior.^4
Gorbachëv made an eager response. He had lost his patron Ustinov,
but now with Gromyko on his side he became a virtual certainty as the
next General Secretary. Upon hearing the news that Chernenko was
no more, he called Gromyko and they had a conversation on a closed
telephone line as Gromyko’s limousine brought him into Moscow
from Sheremetyevo airport. They met to lay their plans before the
Politburo gathered. Gorbachëv told him: ‘People expect changes.’
Gromyko agreed. The pact was sealed.^5
The Politburo gathered at 11 p.m. on the day of Chernenko’s death.
The meeting was of short duration and, surprisingly, Grishin proposed
Gorbachëv as head of the funeral commission. Gorbachëv reckoned
that his rival Grishin was attempting a last probe of the political