RULERS OF SOVIET

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27463, 24 September 1954, Page 13

RULERS OF SOVIET

Three-Man Junta In Control

NEW YORK, September 23. After the execution of Lavrenti Beria, the secret police no longer had a direct policy voice in the Soviet Government, Harrison Salisbury, the recently-returned “New York Times” correspondent in Moscow, said today. The new chief of the M.V.D., Sergei Kriglov, and the security chief. Colonel General I. A. Serov, were old-line, non-political-style police workers, whose principal duties for many years had been in the so-called "industrial”-sec-tion of the M.V.D., the correspondent said.

“Power is now in the hands of the three-man junta consisting of the Premier (Mr Georgi Malenkov), Mr Nikita Khruschev, First Secretary of the Communist Party’s Central Committee, and Mr Vyacheslav Molotov, the Foreign Minister. “The triumvirate, with the strong support of Marshal Georgi Zhukov’s Army group, and assisted by a secondstring line-up of Marshal Nikolai Bulganin, Mr Anastas Mikoyan, and Mr Lazar Kaganovich, is now running Russia.” Salisbury says that the more often the top figures have come In contact with Westerners, the stronger has grown the impression that the most important factor about the junta is how well it works together—now that Beria has been eliminated—rather than any question of rivalry. Malenkov’s Charm

There are many contrasts between Mr Malenkov and Mr Khrushchev. The Premier Is eight years younger and has a grace and charm that belies the impression given by his photograph. “He has a boyish smile and is such a Little Lord Fauntleroy in his manners that it startles Westerners,” says Salisbury. “He captivated Dr. Edith Summerskill, one of the recent British Labour Party visitors, first by picking her a bouquet from his own garden, second by the -warmth of the feminist sentiments he expressed, and third by the fact that when he proposed a toast to ‘The Ladies,’ he rose and walked to one end of the table to clink glasses with Lady Hayter, wife of the British Ambassador, and then to the other to clink glasses with her.” Salisbury says that one Briton who has often seen the Soviet Premier said: “Mr Malenkov has a very attractive personality. In fact, he worries me rather more than the rest because he is so pleasant. “Mr Malenkov has other winning mannerisms,” the correspondent says. “It has been noted that when the discussion began to get tense or sharp it was Mr Malenkov who cut in with a little joke or deft change of subject. “Diamond in the Rough” “In contrast with Mr Malenkov’s suavity, Mr Khrushchev presents himself as a diamond in the rough. He is a bluff, open, frank, one-time miner, who blurts out things that Mr Malenkov is too tactful to mention. “Where Mr Malenkov proposed a few toasts and drank most of them :n. white wine, Mr Khrushchev proposed many and drank them in vodka. “Members of the junta frequently interrupt, correct, and contradict each other,” says Salisbury. “Mr Mikoyan makes rather a speciality of this. Both he and the heavy-handed Kaganovich cut in on Mr Khrushchev when, as often happens, the secretary overstates or misstates himself. “In this company Mr Molotoy is the quietest, most reserved and dignified.

However, he has thawed out notably since Stalin’s death, and there is no doubt that at long last he has become an initiator of foreign policy and not merely an instrument for carrying out orders. He is treated with marked respect by his colleagues.”