Oct. 15, 1964 - In a drastic move that caught the world by surprise, the Soviet Union’s Communist party has stripped Nikita Khrushchev of his posts as premier and party chief.
He was replaced by Leonid Brezhnev, 57 years old, as First Secretary of the Communist party and by Aleksei Kosygin, 60, as Premier.
Khrushchev, who is 70, even lost his seat in the Presidium of the Central Committee of the party, the third most important position he held in the leadership.
This indicated that he had fallen into disgrace.
The changes were announced by Tass, the Soviet press agency, a few minutes after midnight, Moscow time. The Tass statement did not contain a single word of praise for the ousted leader.
Western diplomats believe the changeover had been made peacefully. Moscow’s streets were quiet. There were no signs of movements by either the army or police. Western diplomats also said they did not expect the new leaders to change basic Soviet policy toward the West.
Brezhnev and Kosygin can be expected to continue Khrushchev’s policy of “peaceful coexistence” with the United States, diplomats said.
The Johnson Administration was surprised but not alarmed by the change of leadership in Moscow today. In New York, President Johnson said the shift in the Kremlin “may or may not be a sign of deep turmoil or a sign of changes to come.” He commented at the end of his prepared remarks at a Liberal party rally.
“For ourselves, the need is clear — we should keep steady on our goals,” he said. “Peace is the mission of the American people, and we are not about to be deterred. We will be firm and restrained. We can meet any test, but our quest is always for peace.”
Although Khrushchev has given Washington many a scare and headache over the last decade, officials of the Johnson Administration are not inclined automatically to cheer his retirement.
He was a vigorous adversary but a familiar one, and this is often preferable to the unknown. His retreat in the 1962 Cuban missile crisis and subsequent acceptance of a treaty banning most forms of nuclear testing led U.S. officials to believe that Washington and Moscow were finally approaching a period of mutual respect and understanding.
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