News Causes Surprise To State Department

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28321, 5 July 1957, Page 11

News Causes Surprise To State Department

(Rec. 8 p.m.) WASHINGTON, July 3. Senior officials at the United States State Department conferred earnestly tonight on the surprise ousting of three top Soviet leaders from the Communisi Party hierarchy, and on the realignment of the Presidium in Russia.

Mr Dulles, the Secretary of State, did not take part in the conferences as he had left by plane earlier for an extended holiday week-end. But many of his senior advisers on Soviet affairs consulted on the news as it was broadcast by Moscow Radio.

Shortly before the dismissals were announced by Moscow Radio President Eisenhower met the National Security Council. There was speculation that the council had discussed the expected Moscow move.

State Department officials said the dismissals marked a new victory for the Communist Party leader, Mr Khrushchev, as top man in the Soviet Union. They said it undoubtedly would increase his personal power and l diminish the influence of the collective leadership which had ruled the Soviet Union since 1955.

Diplomats were reported to believe the shake-up did not presage any significant shift in Soviet foreign policy. If anything, they said, the changes might herald a more lenient policy toward the Soviet satellites.

United States Congressional, leaders were cautious in their comments, but Senator Mike Mansfield (Democrat, Montana), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said it was an “indication of the weaknesses now beginning to inflict the leaders of the Communist Party” everywhere. “It is to be hoped,” he said, “that the Western world will be able to take advantage of these weaknesses to do what it can to bring about a further decrease of power in the Soviet Union.”

There was no formal State Department comment on the surprise Moscow development. Officials said they were “just trying to figure out what has caused this upset”—the dismissal of Mr Molotov, Mr Kaganovich and Mr Malenkov.

One official expert in Soviet affairs commented: “It certainly seems as though Mr Khrushchev is tightening the reins of leadership and emerging as an even more dominant leader in the Kremlin. The news caused tremendous interest m the State Department. Privately, some experts said they regarded today’s “Pravda” leading article warning every member of the Communist Party to toe the party line “no matter what post he occupies” as being a direct criticism of Mr Molotov. Considerable interest was aroused in Washington by the elevation to the party’s governing body of Marshal Georgi Zhukov, the Defence Minister, and war-time friend of President Eisenhower.

Mr James Hagerty, President Eisenhower’s Press Secretary, declined to comment on the Soviet changes but replied “certainly ’ when asked whether the White House had any advance indication regarding the development. Mr Hagerty said indications of the developments had been the leading article in today’s “Pravda,” the cancellation of a scheduled visit to Czechoslovakia by the Prime Minister, Mr Bulganin, and Mr Khrushchev, and postponement of an aerial review which had been planned for a few days ago. In an official statement released in response to numerous questions from correspondents, the State Department said: “It has long been known that the Soviet system operates under stresses and strains. Arbitrary and abrupt dismissals without public discussion of the issues are also characteristic of the system.

“The official Soviet press has at various times suggested there have been disagreements over basic policies in such fields as government organisation, agriculture, heavy industry, consumer goods and satellite affairs.

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