EXECUTION OF POLICE CHIEF

Press, Volume C, Issue 29673, 17 November 1961, Page 15

EXECUTION OF POLICE CHIEF

‘Khrushchev Told Congress Story’

(N.Z. Press Assn. —Copy rig M) LONDON, November 16. Mr Khrushchev has revealed for the first time how he took part in the execution of Stalin’s feared secret police chief. Lavrenti Beria, the “Daily Express’’ reported today in a copyright story from Colin Lawson, in Warsaw. He said Mr Khrushchev revealed the facts at the Communist Party congress last month. Until then all that had been known was the public announcement on Christmas Eve, 1953, that Beria had been executed for treason after a six-day trial in a closed court.

Mr Khrushchev’s story at the congress was that after Stalin died it was decided that the State would be governed by Beria with the now disgraced former Prime Minister, Mr Malenkov, and the former Foreign Minister, Mr Molotov. Mr Khrushchev was to be in charge of party affairs. But Beria had the others closely watched and began putting his own men in important posts. Those who refused to be his tools were branded as saboteurs, the newspaper said. It was decided to get rid of Beria and a special meet-

ing of the party presidium was called under the pretext of discussing military matters. said Mr Khrushchev. At the meeting, Beria was reminded of the charge that he had been a British spy, and was also accused of never having joined the Communist Party itself. In that case, it was pointed out, he had no right to be at the meeting. Beria began fumbling for his gun which was in a brief case, but Khrushchev grappled with him. Malenkov pressed a secret bell in the floor and Marshal Moskalenko burst in and shot down Beria with a sub-

machine gun. Mr Khrushchev said, according to the newspaper. Vincent Buist. formerly Reuters' correspondent in Moscow and now in Warsaw, said tonight that Beria's execution was probably one of the biggest mysteries of 20th Century politics. An official announcement at the time said only that Beria had been executed after being convicted of high treason at a secret session of the Soviet Supreme Court. It gave no details of the execution. and there has been complete official silence ever since. The first whispered account in Moscow which followed the 20th congress in 1956 when Mr Khrushchev began his debunking of Stalin—said that Beria had been killed by a bullet in the head in a cellar of the Kremlin. Later, Communist sources in Eastern Europe maintained that the sallow-faced Beria was killed by Marshal Georgi Zhukov, who was said to have been allotted the task by Mr Khrushchev. Mr Malenkov, Mr Molotov, and Lazar Kaganovich. Marshal Zhukov later quarrelled with Mr Khtwshchev and rejected party control over command units throughout the Soviet Army. The latest report that Marshal Moskalenko was in fact the executioner was a new version of a Kremlin thriller which probably would never be fully unravelled. There was no doubt that Marshal Moskalenko suddenly gained high favour with the Kremlin In the 1955-56 period. The one man who might be able to confirm the correctness of the latest report of Beria’s execution was Marshal Zhukov himself, who had been living in retirement near Moscow. All accounts available in Moscow in 1956 and later agreed on one point This was that Beria had been taken by surprise in the Kremlin by a group including Messrs Khrushchev, Malenkov, Kaganovich and Molotov. These accounts made it plain that Beria was public enemy No. 1 at that time and that the threat was great enough to bring together men like Khrushchev and Malenkov. who even in 1953 must have had widely diverging views about the future of Soviet policy.