greater surveillance of dissidentauthors and artists. He allowed the
party and the KGB to persecute dissident intellectuals.
Khrushchev—like every Soviet leader—depended on the KGB to
maintain power. KGB Chair Serov supported Khrushchev when Stal-
inist members of the Politburo tried to wrench power from him in- During his years in power, Khrushchev received memoranda
from the KGB on political developments in the country every week.
During those years, Khrushchev ensured that the KGB remained in
friendly hands by appointing seasoned party bureaucrats to the Ad-
ministrative Organs Departmentof the Central Committee, which
oversaw the KGB. He also appointed loyalists such as Aleksandr
Shelepinand Vladimir Semichastniyto head the service.
In 1963 Leonid Brezhnev, Shelepin, and party ideological watchdog
Mikhail Suslov began to plot against Khrushchev. They recruited sen-
ior KGB officials chaffing under the party leader’s tutelage, who in turn
subverted Khrushchev’s bodyguard detail. In October 1964 the KGB
played a key role in removing him from political power. Khrushchev
spent the last years of his life under modified house arrest, dying in - He was able to smuggle his memoirs out to the West, where they
were well received. The Russian people owe Nikita Khrushchev a great
deal for reducing the power of the security police and opening up soci-
ety. While guilty of some of the most horrible crimes of the Stalin era,
he took steps as national leader to prevent a new terror.
KING, JOHN HERBERT (c. 1905–?).Captain John King was a
British code clerk with an expensive American mistress to support
when an OGPU illegalapproached him in 1933. King, who thought
his Soviet case officer was a European banker, said that he was Irish
and deeply disliked all things English. For the next four years, King
provided the Soviets with British code material and diplomatic dis-
patches, apparently believing they were being used by an interna-
tional cartel. In 1939 Walter Krivitskyinformed the British security
service (MI5) about King’s treachery. King was arrested and sen-
tenced to 10 years in prison. See also CONSTANTINI,
FRANCESCO; SIGNALS INTELLIGENCE.KIROV, SERGEI MIRONOVICH (1880–1934). Born Kostikov,
Kirov rose quickly in the Bolshevik Partyas one of Joseph Stalin’s132 •KING, JOHN HERBERT (c. 1905–?)06-313 G-P.qxd 7/27/06 7:56 AM Page 132