RYAN was a real program, brought on by Reagan's rhetoric and foreign policy positioning (Pershing, KAL 007 reaction, no compromise 'evil empire' stiff upper lip bit, etc.). Overall it was a well-thought out program, and relatively safe; by the time the Soviet intelligence community took a breath of relief, not even half of the criteria for preparedness for nuclear war were met, so there was never any chance of jumping the gun. I think as the 80s wore on Reagan himself changed his opinions on the possibility of winning a nuclear war, having done so at least in part, according to some publicists, after seeing 'The Day After' (!?!)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_After#Effects_on_policymakersEdvardK wrote:I thought he was *the* Soviet man in Hungary when it happened, and what happened wouldn't have happened without the USSR's consent, would it?
Yes, Andropov was the Kremlin's man in Hungary in his position as ambassador. He had warned Khrushchev about what was brewing some time before the events, with the latter, and the rest of the Soviet government paying insufficient attention to the warnings. As for Soviet control over the situation, as in other countries in the Eastern Bloc, the Soviet Union had the ability to heavily influence governments -through aid or ideological calls to action or diplomatic coercion. There were limits to their power however, with the events of 1953, 1956 and 1968 showing this to be the case in varying ways.
EdvardK wrote:I thought that Gorbachev was his protege and he marked him for his successor. If that's the case, then this power-juggling you mentioned is incomprehensible - wouldn't he want to clear the way for his protege to govern easier?
It's complicated. Early on, while he was still First Secretary of Stavropol Krai, he did his best to gain favor with Andropov, Suslov, and other leading figures that came to his region on vacation. First hand testimony from a variety of resort staff, KGB guards, etc. showed that Gorbachev and Andropov got along well on a personal level, Gorbachev doing his best to show the right face to his senior. It's well known in Russia that Gorbachev is an insincere personality, constantly changing his tune depending on who he's talking with. He obviously did the same with Andropov who, even if he was a reformer, was also a conservative at heart, and would not have tolerated a social democrat within his ranks in the Politburo.
Politically, after Gorbachev rose to the upper echelons of power (with the help of Fedor Kulakov and Mikhail Suslov, not so much Andropov), he did become one of Andropov's allies in inter-Politburo affairs. There is first hand testimony, this time from people including other Politburo members such as Anatoly Lukyanov, that during Andropov's short time at the helm his relationship with Gorbachev faltered. It's not clear what the basis for this was -whether it was a matter of Gorbachev's general inertness, disagreement on policy, personal conduct, or something else. Many political figures who lived into the 1990s and the present noted that in 1984, upon Andropov's death, it was not at all clear that Gorbachev was his intended successor. Their recollections may be a matter of hindsight however, and cannot be trusted completely.
Andropov did 'clear the way' for Gorbachev by removing his only potential rival in 1985, Grigori Romanov, another young, albeit conservative member of the Politburo. Andropov destroyed Romanov's chances of becoming General Secretary after Brezhnev's death in an attempt to solidify his own power, spreading the rumor (only later proven false) that Romanov's daughter had held her wedding in a palace and that during a toast they broke some Czarist crystal.