Behind the High Kremlin Walls

Like all gossip, this is hard to credit with certainty, especially since many of the sources relied on by Solovyov and Klepikova, former Russian journalists now living in Manhattan, are in the Soviet Union. Still, the authors, whose freelance articles appear in major newspapers in this country, seem to have access to reliable informants and there is much here to intrigue Eastern Europewatchers. Their audacious opinions asidefor one, Solovyov and Klepikova claim that Jaruzelksi has Walesa trailed to protect him (from the KGB)their eavesdropping in the cloakrooms of the Kremlin provides insights into the governance of the empire. Personalities of the rulers since Khrushchev as depicted here may be familiar, but the authors' reading of their styles and of Russian tradition raises the alarm that liberalization is not on Gorbachev's agenda. Vox populi is heard by the Kremlin, they argue cynically, meaning that totalitarianism serves the needs of the populace. Photos. (May)