Edward Jay Ep- stein, in The New Republic (Feb. 7, 1983), 1220 19th St. N.w., Washington, D.C. 20036.
Does Soviet Communist Party leader Yuri Andropov play tennis? Lis- ten to Glenn Miller records? Write comic verse?
Yes, U.S. newspapers told the American public in describing the former KGB chief last November when he succeeded Leonid Brezhnev. Yet virtually none of these piquant details can be verified, says Epstein, author of Between Fact and Fiction.
When he was head of the Soviet secret police,...