“Come off it!” replied Aliyev. “We can’t conceal this!” Others at the table argued that they didn’t have enough information yet to tell the public and feared causing panic. If they released any news at all, it had to be strictly circumscribed. “The statement should be formulated in a way that avoids causing excessive alarm and panic,” said Andrei Gromyko, chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. And by the time they took a vote, Ligachev had apparently prevailed: the Politburo resolved to take the traditional approach. The assembled Party elders drafted an unrevealing twenty-three-word
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