Throughout his career, he was known to play all sides, at times threatening his resignation, only to stay on – or accusing enemies of assassination plots, only to stay alive. In the 1970s, he would flatter Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev with spectacular displays of fealty to the Kremlin, only to meet with protesting Georgian students in support of their right, in opposition to the Kremlin’s wishes, to speak Georgian, not Russian, as a state language.