A Portrait in Light and Shadows

There are few tales to be told about most of the men who rule the Soviet Union from splendid isolation in the Kremlin, but Yuri Andropov is a curious exception. As onetime Ambassador to Hungary, he has had more contact with foreigners than many of his comrades who have spent their careers at home. Now that he has stepped into the international limelight, scattered details and vignettes from his past have begun to emerge, adding both light and shadow to the Andropov portrait.

Retired Austrian Diplomat Walther Peinsipp became friendly with Andropov when both were serving as ambassadors in Budapest in 1956. The first time they met, the two immediately became embroiled in an ideological debate. At one point, Andropov turned to Peinsipp and said: "Look, I am a Communist. You represent the opposite world view, but that does not prevent us from understanding each other on a human level. Every person must have convictions, and people without convictions don't count. It would be beautifully simple if all the people in the world had the same convictions, but believe me, it would also be dull."

During his time in the Budapest embassy, Andropov displayed a zest for the better things in life, many of them Western. French wine is said to have flowed freely, and salads were served punctiliously after the main course, Continental-style. Other comrades may have patriotically downed vodka, but Andropov apparently preferred to sip Johnnie Walker Scotch. Sandor Kopacsi, a former Budapest chief of police who now lives in Toronto, was frequently on the Soviet Ambassador's guest list and recalls how Andropov used to borrow the police force's gypsy band. With a clear tenor voice, Andropov would join in song fests. He was especially fond of a sentimental Hungarian ballad about a crane leaving its beloved mate to fly to foreign lands.

Bela Kiraly, now a professor of history at Brooklyn College, saw another side of Andropov during the 1956 Hungarian uprising. On Nov. 2, the day after Hungarian Premier Imre Nagy announced his government's intention to withdraw from the Warsaw Pact, Kiraly was sent to the Soviet embassy to check out a protest from Andropov that "Hungarian hooligans" had besieged the diplomatic compound. In the growing tension, the Nagy government feared that the Soviets might use any incident to send in troops. When Kiraly arrived with a security unit to be sure the Soviet embassy was not being besieged, he found everything strangely quiet. He banged on the heavy oak door and was finally received by a tall, handsome man in tailor-made evening clothes. It was Ambassador Andropov. Standing behind him, as if on dress parade, was the entire embassy staff. Andropov brushed aside the protest as a misunderstanding and joked that the only Hungarian harassment that day had been from "two old ladies looking for a warm place to stay."

Kiraly, a commander of the Hungarian freedom fighters, was as tall as Andropov and could look him straight in the eye. He found Andropov's stare mesmerizing and began to wonder whether he had "found the right man" to work out a deal. The two went upstairs to Andropov's office, where the Soviet Ambassador proposed that negotiations start the next day on Soviet troop withdrawals from Hungary.

According to Kiraly, an agreement to withdraw Soviet troops was signed at 6 p.m. the following day. But early the next morning the Soviet invasion of Hungary began. As the sound of rifle fire crackled in the streets outside Nagy's study, a betrayed Kiraly met for the last time with Andropov. Recalling Andropov's "cold, cool eyes and artificial smile," Kiraly says: "You knew immediately he could smile at you or kill you with the same effort."

Kopacsi had one last vivid encounter with Andropov during the Hungarian uprising. While heading for shelter in the Yugoslav embassy, he was picked up on the street by a Soviet patrol and taken to the Soviet embassy. Andropov greeted his former singing companion cordially and explained that Janos Kadar, who was then forming a new Soviet-backed government, wanted to see him. As Kopacsi headed off to a Russian armored car, Andropov waved goodbye, smiling broadly from the top stairs of the embassy. The meeting with Kadar never took place. Kopacsi was immediately arrested.

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