Four On the Road

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But Brezhnev, who is anxious to lay the groundwork for a European security conference in 1972, still wanted a formal friendship pact with the French and, like a stumping politico, he oozed graciousness to get it. He began by granting a rare personal interview in Moscow to the Paris Communist newspaper L'Humanité, that was timed for publication last week. French readers learned that Brezhnev still lives modestly in the same apartment house at 26 Kutuzovsky Prospekt that he moved into in 1952 when he arrived in Moscow; the only difference is that Brezhnev, his wife and his mother now occupy five rooms instead of three. Brezhnev customarily works late at the Kremlin, sometimes has difficulty sleeping without a sedative. To cut down on his smoking, he is trying a time-lock cigarette case (made in France, he thinks) which opens only after a preset number of minutes or hours has passed. "Yesterday," Brezhnev told L'Humanité, "I smoked only 17 cigarettes." He is too busy to pursue the sports of younger days—skating, skiing, cycling and even parachute jumping —but he still hunts, and away from Moscow, likes to drive. "When I am at the steering wheel, I am actually taking a rest."

Excellent Mood. In person, Brezhnev was the personification of charm and amiability. He said he wanted to speak "for over an hour" from a balcony at the house in Paris' rue Marie-Rose where Lenin lived from 1909 to 1912. When the French complained that such a lengthy speech to 2,000 hand-picked French Communists would be "inconvenient," he scaled it down to five minutes.

A formal press conference was also eliminated, but Brezhnev's lighter moments were conveyed to newsmen. Touring the Louvre he asked dutifully about the missing arms of the Venus de Milo and worried about the extent of feminine nudity in art. He praised Picasso and said he particularly liked the artist's 1949 peace dove. "Tell him," said Brezhnev, thumping a meaty fist into his palm, "that this is a great work. Very strong. Very powerful."

Finger-Licking Good. The performance was impressive. TIME Correspondent Jerrold Schecter, who, as Moscow bureau chief from 1968 to 1970 followed Brezhnev, cabled from Paris: "He is a political man. He has all the juices of power and they flow easily. When he is not pushing the political-military power buttons, he is full of charm, humor, small talk and energy. When he is bored he taps his foot, mops his brow or smooths back his full gray hair. The earlier Brezhnev who licked his fingers at banquets has faded. He is sure of himself. He times his motions carefully."

But Schecter also noted other new aspects of Brezhnev as No. 1 Soviet leader. "This may be the era of diplomatic confrontations. With the Russians, that means long, hard and painful bargaining over every specific with a carefully advanced and prepared design. For this, Brezhnev is the front man, virile, steely, stony if necessary. He has bigger-than-life qualities that the Russians respect, and the West worries about. He does not construct ideas with Kosygin's scope, but he knows the gospel and he is dogged."

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