Baku's Brightest

Azerbaijan Party Chief Geidar Ali Rza ogly Aliyev, 59, has been largely ignored by many Western observers, who assumed that a non-Russian would have difficulty rising to the top. His double promotion last week changed that by putting him in line to become the Soviet Union's first Premier from a Muslim republic. Aliyev joined the Soviet security force at 18, and headed the Baku branch of the KGB from 1967 to 1969. As Azerbaijan party leader, he has at tracted attention by cracking down on corruption and making his tiny Caucasian mountain fief into an agricultural success story. Aliyev has also kept Azerbaijan free of infection from Islamic fundamentalism in neighboring Iran.

Westerners who have met Aliyev find him personable, polished and not one to duck a question. Earlier this year, when a visiting diplomatic delegation in Baku asked him to explain how Brezhnev's new agricultural policy would work, he cockily replied, "These are things we already did months ago in Azerbaijan."

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