Collection of Assorted Newspaper and Magazine Clippings: Jfk Assassination, Conspiracy Theories, Etc

## THE KREMLIN:

## Too Clever by Half

For a few years, he was the Kremlin's minister equivalent of J. Edgar Heaver, a secret police chief whose nimble political footwork—and collection of dossiers on some of his high-ranking colleagues—kept him at the top of the Soviet structure. But Alekvandr Shelepin, 56, had lost his touch. Early this month, he made an all-acknowled visit to London, where anti-Communist demonstrators bound him and forced him to leave early. Back in Moscow, his opponents turned that embarrassment to their own advantage, and last week Shelepin was dumped from the Soviet Union's ruling body, the Communist Party Politburo.

## 21 APRIL 1975

Officially, Shelepin's removal from the sixteen-member body came "in connection with his own request." In fact, he was muscled out after a long feud with Communist Party General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev. Shelepin had been the youngest serious contender for Brezhnev's job, but he was a maverick who owed the Secretary little personal allegiance. At a day-long party plenum, Brezhnev used the London debacle to paint Shelepin as an impediment to detente with the West. And although Shelepin retained, for the time being, his present post as head of Soviet trade unions, it seemed clear that his once-promising career was over.

In the end, Shelepin may have been too clever for his own good. After rocketing to prominence as head of Stalin's Komsomol, the Communist youth organization, Shelepin executed a well-timed switch of loyalties to Nikita Khrushchev, who made him head of the KGB, the secret police. Khrushchev eventually moved him out of the KGB, but Shelepin switched sides again and shouldered his way onto the Brezhnev-era Politburo. Although he invariably echoed the party line in public, Moscow insiders described him as the first to criticize Poli- failures that could be laid at someone's door.

During Brezhnev's extended illness early this year, Shelepin once again maneuvered for the limelight and was suspected by some of initiating reports

that the bear's disease was a fatal case of cancer. Such till death and amputation became common among helpless and in Fellows. Western diplomats witnessed graphic evidence of Sholepin's unpopularity. At a Kremlin reception for visiting British Prime Minister Harold Wilson, Sholepin tried to engage his colleagues in smiling chatter. They gave him the cold shoulder.

Jest: Shelepin's removal appeared to improve Brezhnev's chances of picking his own successor—although there was still no definite sign who that would be. The party plenum endorsed Brezhnev's accommodation with the West and set a firm date—Feb. 24, 1976—for the 25th congress of the Communist Party. "By that time," remarked one State Department expert, only partly in jest, "Shelepin will most likely be a school principal someplace."

Nonetheless, the months ahead may still prove turbulent for the 68-year-old Brezhnev. Kremlin watchers noted that the party named no replacement for Shelepin or for a key party secretary transferred to new duties four months ago. A growing number of vacancies in other top party jobs appeared to suggest that the Soviet hierarchy was biding its time on the succession issue. Rumors that Brezhnev was suffering from jaw cancer also continued to circulate. A British doctor who accompanied Wilson to Moscow had detected signs that Brezhnev's jaw was undergoing radiation treatment. Last week, when he arrived late for a meeting with U.S. Treasury Secretary William Simon, the Soviet leader rubbed his chin and explained: "I'm sorry, but I've just come from the dentist." If Brezhnev's health is indeed declining, the political maneuvering in the Kremlin will surely intensify. "Getting rid of Shelepin was the last shot in an old battle," a European diplomat in Moscow said last week. That was true, but it also could have been the first barrage of a new war.

FAY WILLEY with ALFRED FRIENOLY JR. in Moscow and BRUCE van VOORST in Washington