The Soviets: Also-Rans Who Still Have Clout

Brezhnev's heir will have to work with, and watch, these men

If Yuri Andropov happens to glance over his shoulder, he will see a dozen or so men who thought they too had a shot at the top job.

Indeed, a number of them could still have a chance. Probably not Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, 73, a career diplomat who may have to be content with the largely symbolic post of Soviet President. Or Boris Ponomarev, 77, a onetime historian, who seemed the ideal candidate to fill the role of party "theologian" before Andropov took the job held by the late Mikhail Suslov. Not elder statesmen like Brezhnev's Premier, Nikolai Tikhonov, 77, a man with more experience in government than in the party apparatus, or the widely traveled and urbane Central Committee Secretary Konstantin Rusakov, 72, who lacks a vital prerequisite: Politburo membership. One contender seems to be on the way out. Party Secretary Andrei Kirilenko, 76, used to be Brezhnev's understudy, but apparently lost out on a chance for the starring role because he is in poor health or political disgrace. But the new man could have cause for concern about the ambitions of tough Ukrainian Party Boss Vladimir Shcherbitsky, 64. Half a dozen others figured in the handicapping for the succession to Brezhnev and still wield great power. Five of them are voting members of the Politburo. The six:

Political Valet: When Konstantin Chernenko, 71, won East Germany's highest honor in 1979 (the Order of Karl Marx), Party Chief Erich Honecker described him as Brezhnev's "closest comrade-in-arms." Others have had less kind things to say of the stocky, silver-haired bureaucrat, labeling him Brezhnev's "briefcase carrier." "page turner" and "political valet." No one else on the Politburo owed his position so completely to Brezhnev.

Born to a Russian peasant family in the Krasnoyarsk region of Siberia, Chernenko was trained as a party propagandist. After a meeting in postwar Moldavia with Brezhnev, then local party boss, Chernenko was brought to Moscow in 1956. By the time Brezhnev took over the party in 1964, he had made Chernenko his chief of staff. Chernenko arranged Brezhnev's appointment schedule and kept close watch on the daily operation of the party bureaucracy.

Chernenko traveled widely with Brezhnev, giving rise to speculation that the Soviet President had picked him as his heir apparent. But without his patron's protection, Chernenko was apparently unable to win votes from Politburo members who remembered all too well how he had opened mineral-water bottles for his boss during Kremlin meetings.

Dark Horse: With his puffy face and bulbous nose, Viktor Grishin, 68, is a ringer for Chicago's late mayor Richard Daley. He resembles him in more than just appearance. As First Secretary of the Communist Party apparatus in Moscow, Grishin can deliver the Soviet equivalent of the Cook County vote to anyone vying for the top party slot. Like onetime Moscow Party Boss Nikita Khrushchev, he could use his post to help himself.