Exit Shepilov
DENICKE, GEORGE P.
Moscow's Changing Scene exit shepilov By George P. Denicke The first authoritative comment on Dmitri Shepilov's replacement as Soviet Foreign Minister by Andrei Gromyko was provided by Nikita...
...But why was the decision taken so suddenly, two days after Shepilov had delivered a major foreign-policy speech at the Supreme Soviet and the latter had adjourned...
...when they must be altered, even reversed, this is never admitted...
...Moscow is highly nervous these days—primarily about Eastern Europe, but also about the Middle East...
...the Foreign Minister's task was merely to execute it...
...All this might seem rather puzzling...
...to the Central Committee Secretariat...
...Said Khrushchev: "Gromyko will carry out the policy set forth by Shepilov, because our policy does not depend on a man but is the policy of the Government...
...Why should the Presidium be dissatisfied...
...The following excerpt from the book Egypt's Liberation, Nasser's Mein Kampf, suggests why Moscow may not be very happy over the massive buildup of the Egyptian dictator: "When I consider the 80 million Moslems in Indonesia, and the 50 million in China, and the millions in Malaya, Siam and Burma, and the nearly 100 million in Pakistan, and the more than 100 million in the Middle East, and the 40 million in the Soviet Union [my italics—G.P.D...
...Nasser's words are potential propaganda dynamite among the Moslems of the Soviet Union...
...This would be in line with hallowed Soviet practice...
...But, if this is so, why was it necessary to change executors...
...There may, of course, be some truth in Khrushchev's explanation of the Shepilov-Gromyko shift...
...Soviet policy-makers may also feel that they have become too closelv identified with the aspirations of Egyptian President Nasser, who, with Soviet and American aid, has achieved startling successes and corresponding influence among the fanatical masses of the Arab world...
...Now the gravity of the situation is at last awakening the American public, the politicians, and even our President...
...The Soviet rulers cannot be pleased with such a program, nor are they likely to be deceived by Nasser's assurance that this cooperation among hundreds of millions of Moslems would not go "beyond the bounds of their natural loyalty to their own countries...
...Shepilov appears to have been made just such a scapegoat...
...Wouldn't it have been more logical to make the change before the speech and during the session of the legislature, which must confirm both Shepilov's removal and Gromyko's nomination...
...when I consider these hundreds of millions united by a single creed, I emerge with a sense of the tremendous possibilities which we might realize through the cooperation of all these Moslems...
...I would suggest that the chief reason was disGeoroe P. Denicke, a former Moscow University history professor, is a veteran observer of Soviet politics...
...Shepilov was Foreign Minister during an eight-and-a-half-month period in which Moscow apparently scored some notable successes, especially in the Middle East...
...In a subsequent interview with Joseph Alsop, Khrushchev was even more explicit...
...Hence, this is a logical moment to return Shepilov, a leading "ideological specialist...
...It is not without reason that Soviet "anti-imperialist" propaganda has reached such an hysterical pitch in recent months...
...The Party's efforts to provide ideological justification for the intervention in Hungary and the partial return to Stalinism throughout the satellites have been most unimpressive...
...In the USSR, the regime's policies are always correct...
...The collective dictators realize that their Middle Eastern successes are due less to their own shrewdness than to the foolishness of American policy...
...Khrushchev's explanation was: Only in order to make the best possible use of the available personnel...
...Indeed, Moscow has just suffered the humiliation of seeing Chinese Premier Chou En-lai come to Europe to take the lead in laying down a new line for the Communist world...
...Even in the Soviet Union, the demotion of an important minister two days after he has spoken authoritatively for the Government is an extraordinary event, and Khrushchev has not fully explained it...
...Each of these factors probably played a part in Shepilov's transfer...
...Part of the answer is that the Soviet rulers probably did not want relations with the West to return so quickly to bitter cold-war levels...
...Taken separately or together, they indicate unhappiness and uncertainty in the Kremlin...
...With Moscow's agents hard at work in the Middle East, this awakening America is the last thing it wants to see...
...instead, the individual identified with them is discarded...
...The Dulles era may be near-ing its end...
...Rather, they hoped to carry on their "penetration" of the Arab countries without provoking a major conflict, military or otherwise...
...satisfaction with the policy of which Shepilov was the executor...
...Moscow's Changing Scene exit shepilov By George P. Denicke The first authoritative comment on Dmitri Shepilov's replacement as Soviet Foreign Minister by Andrei Gromyko was provided by Nikita Khrushchev at a reception in the Bulgarian Embassy...
...Soviet foreign policy, he said, was made by the Communist Party Presidium...
...Indeed, it may be true that better use can be made of Shepilov as a Secretary of the Party Central Committee...
Vol. 40 • March 1957 • No. 9
