Actually, I remember many articles in the US press, including a piece in TNR, by a Russian couple (Vladimir Solovyov, Elena Klepikova ?) surmissing that Andropov was a reformist.Lover of Western Jazz.
--- Well, Andropov was certainly a reformer. His anti-corruption campaign was very popular. I asked his grandniece if the jazz-loving rumors were true, and she said no. She never knew him personally though. She's only 28.
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...pay no attention to the fact that [Andropov] and those like him are the products of a history quite alien to our own and are the exemplars of a polit- ical psychology hardly seen in the West outside small sects of millenarian psychopaths...
--- Like Bush? :) I thought the following was pretty funny: --- Soon there were reports that Andropov was a man of extraordinary accomplishment, with some interests and proclivities that are unusual in a former head of the K.G.B.
--- How on Earth would the writers know what is unusual and what is unusual in a former head of the KGB? ---
According to an article in The Washington Post, Andropov "is fond of cynical political jokes with an antiregime twist.... collects abstract art, likes jazz and Gypsy music," and "has a record of stepping out of his high party official's cocoon to contact dissidents." Also, he swims, "plays tennis," and wears clothes that are "sharply tailored in a West European style."
--- Lots of people in the USSR liked Gypsy music. Gypsy entertainers were quite popular. I will say that Andropov stands out among post-Stalin Soviet leaders in actually having been good-looking. :)
Since the KGB was probably the most liberal wing of the Soviet government, having as it did full access to information, I don't see why any of this would be surprising.
I find the whole "dissident" angle amusing. The dissident movement was close to microscopic, and not every "dissident" was a "liberal." Limonov certainly wasn't. There was one, yes, one "prisoner of conscience" in the entire history of post-Stalin Soviet Belarus.