The Soviet Premiers from the time of Kennedy's attempted assassination until the present have carefully moved the nation to mimic certain western forms, just as they did with aircraft and other military technology. In 1985 Grigory Romanov was elected General Secretary of the Communist Party. Vladimir Alexandrovich Kryuchkov recognized a threat in Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, and had personally groomed Romanov for the position. Many in western society suspect that the hard party line held by Romanov was Kryuchkov using him as a puppet.