Announcer (of still): The ceremony was attended by comrades Brezhgnev, Andropov, Greehko, Grishin, Kirilenko, Kulakov, Mazurov, Pelshe, Podgorny, Polyansky, Suslov, Shelepin, Dyemichev, Ponomaryev, Dolgykh and Katushev.



Nikolai Viktorovich Podgorny addressed the hero of the ceremony.



Dear Alexei Nikolaevich! Comarades! Today we are marking an outstanding date in the life of our respected comrade and friend Alexei Nikolaevich Kosygin--his seventieth birthday.



A proper assessment of your major services to the party and people has been made in the message of greetings of the Soviet Communist Party's central committee, the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet and the Soviet Government and in the decpee on awaking you alexi Nikolaevich, the Order of Lenin and the second gold medal "Hammer and Sickle".



Al of us, gatheed here, have closely worked with you for many years, have lived with common troubles, have solved common tasks. And every one of us knows you s a fighter for the triumph of our great cause, as a principled person demanding from yourself and others. These splendid traits have won you respect in our party and among our people.



The path you have traversed in life to a great extent as it were, reflects the glorious history of the Soviet State, born into a worker's family, you have always linked your life with the cause of the working class, of all working people, with the great cause of out Leninist, party, in whose ranks you have been for nearly half a century.



In your youth you volunteered to the Red Army. After being demobilized you worked in the consumer cooperative system of Siberia. During the first five-year plan periods you actively worked in the national economy, traversing the path of factory foreman to people's commissar. During the stern years of the struggle against nazism, the party entrusted you with responsible and complicated tasks, including those of aid to blockaded Leningrad, of evacuating industry and reshaping the country's economy for defensive needs.



For many years you have belonged to the Political Bureau of the party's Central Committee--the party's militant headquarters.



For nearly ten years now you have headed our Soviet Government. These years, marked by the historic decisions of the twenty-third and twenty-fourth party congresses have been outstanding for the enormous scale of the efforts of the party and the entire Soviet people, directed towards further promoting the country's political, economic and defensive might, towards further strengthening the international positions of the Soviet Union. It was precisely this period that the active and purposeful activities of our party's central Committee, of the political bureau, headed by the Central Committee's General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev, led to especially significant results in the development of the Soviet economy, in the promotion of the well-being of soviet people, resulted in major successes in the struggle to improve the international climate, to strengthen peace and the security of the peoples.



The consistent implementation of the internal and foreign-political policy, marked out by our party, is being warmly approved and supported by all Soviet people.



The knowledge of this support is extremely dear to all of us. It arouses enormous satisfaction, and the wish to work still more persistenly, to devote all our energy to our common cause.



Dear Alexei Ivanovich, you meet your seventieth birthday full of energy and creative strength. Presenting you today with the country's highest awards, on behalf of all those present allow me to sincerely congratulate you with your glorious jubilee, to wish you good health, good spirits and new fruitful activity. We are positive that your enormous experience in party and state work will continue to serve the cause of the building of communism.



Announcer (off screen): Nikolai Viktorovich presents Alexei Kosygin with the country's high award...



...Alexei Nikolayevich Kosygin makes speech in reply.



Respected and dear comrades.



Allow me to express my most profound and heartful gratitude to the Central Committee, to the Political Bureau, the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, the Soviet Government for greetings, and also for the kind words that the high awards, the letter of Nikolai Viktorovich Podgorny has said about me.



Seventy years is a watershed in the life of a person, when he involuntarily has to assess the years gone by. And to briefly say about the main thing, for me, like for all members of our Great Leninist party, it boils down to serving the interests of our socialist country, to constantly trying to be useful to people in the struggle to put into practice the ideals of communism.



For a Soviet person supreme happiness is not restricted to his or her personal interests, supreme happiness accords with the consciousness of one's social role, of one's unity with the interests of socialist society.



During the last decade our country has achieved fresh outstanding successes in the political, social, economic fields, in implementing the Leninist peace programme and the building of communism, adopted at the twenty-third and twenty-fourth party congresses.



These successes are mainly due to the atmosphere of ideological unity, of comradely trust, of high demands and party principles which have emerged during the last ten years in our party, in its Central Committee and Political Bureau, headed by Comrade Brezhnev General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party.



Allow me, alongside with expressing my gratutide and thanks for the high assessment of my work to stress once more that I deeply appreciate all the responsibility put on me by the party, by the confidence of our great people.




Initials



Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: Hero of Socialist Labour Alexei Nikolaevich Kosygin, prominent functionary of the Soviet Communist Party and the Soviet State, member of the political Bureau of the party's central committee, and Soviet Prime Minister is seventy years old today, the twenty-first of February.

Under a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union Comrade Kosygin has been awarded the Order of Lenin and the second gold medal "Hammer and Sickle".

This evening in the Kremlin Alexei Kosygin was presented with the country's high award.