the Soviet Union's status as an adversary and super- power, and severely constrained Moscow's tight controls on foreign journalists. Typically, daily news stories focus on politi- cal ups and downs in the Kremlin, on a handful of Soviet dissi- dents, on Soviet economic gains and losses, on Moscow's diplomatic coups and setbacks around the world. So familiar have the big issues become that a shorthand list suffices to bring some particulars of each to mind: "Poland," "detente,"...