Short answers, pulled from the story.
Alexei Kosygin was a Soviet statesman who served as Chairman of the Council of Ministers from 1964 to 1980. Following Nikita Khrushchev's removal, he briefly co-led the Soviet Union as part of a triumvirate with Leonid Brezhnev and Nikolai Podgorny. He was considered one of the most capable administrators in Soviet history.
The Kosygin reform, initiated in 1965, aimed to modernize the Soviet economy by introducing limited market measures such as profit incentives, reduced central bureaucracy, and increased autonomy for enterprise managers. It was tested across 336 enterprises in light industry. Real wages rose by almost 2.5 times and refrigerator production grew from 109,000 units in 1964 to 440,000 by 1973, but the reform was undermined by political opposition following the 1968 Prague Spring and was never fully implemented.
Kosygin was sent to his home city of Leningrad to manage the construction of an ice road and a pipeline across Lake Ladoga during the German siege. The ice road enabled the evacuation of approximately half a million people from the besieged city and supplied fuel to its factories and power plants. He also oversaw procurement of firewood for the civilian population.
The Glassboro Summit Conference was a 1967 meeting between Kosygin and United States President Lyndon B. Johnson, held following the Six-Day War. The two leaders failed to reach agreement on limiting anti-ballistic missile systems, but the summit's open and friendly atmosphere became known as the "Spirit of Glassboro". The meeting arose after Kosygin addressed the United Nations and the US extended an invitation.
Brezhnev eroded Kosygin's authority through a combination of constitutional changes, personnel moves, and suppression of the 1965 reform. The 1977 Soviet Constitution made the Council of Ministers subordinate to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. Brezhnev appointed the conservative Nikolai Tikhonov as First Deputy Chairman, reducing Kosygin to a standby role. He also published memoirs claiming sole credit for major economic decisions and had information about the 1965 reform suppressed.
Kosygin's survival of the Leningrad Affair purge of the late 1940s remained unexplained even to his contemporaries. Nikita Khrushchev wrote in his memoirs that Kosygin's life "was hanging by a thread" and that he "must have drawn a lucky lottery ticket." Kosygin took precautions including discarding weapons and searching for listening devices in his home, and lived for two years in constant fear before concluding Stalin would not move against him.