ABSTRACT
Gorbachev was the candidate of the Andropovite, reformist forces; Chernenko, of the Brezhnevite old guard. Gorbachev yielded, becoming second secretary and receiving a commitment from the old guard to approve Andropov's reformist line. In December 1987 came Gorbachev's most outstanding success in foreign relations thus far, when, at the Washington summit, the Intermediate Nuclear Forces agreement was signed, calling for destruction of 1,752 Soviet and 852 United states missiles and providing for strict verification procedures. The reformers thought they might be in the saddle, and in September Gorbachev endorsed a "500-day plan" for "shock therapy" in the economy, proposed by academician Stanislav Shatalin. Gorbachev was now without a party or a country. One assessment was that he "was a great man with great promise that was never fulfilled. In the end he was too weak, too ambitious, and too indecisive to make big political decisions.".
