From 1945 through 1953, Kruglov served as minister of internal
affairs, with the rank of colonel general. Joseph Stalinpromoted him
to Communist Party Central Committee membership as a reward for
his work. Immediately following Stalin’s death, Beria demoted
Kruglov and took the position as chief of both the MVDand the
MGB. In response, Kruglov conspired with Nikita Khrushchevand
took part in the coup against Beria. He was rewarded with a promo-
tion to head the MVD, a position he held until 1956. Khrushchev re-
portedly disliked and feared Kruglov and demoted him to a post in
economic management. Kruglov retired in 1958 at age 51 on a gen-
erous pension. See alsoSEROV, IVAN.KRYUCHKOV, VLADIMIR ALEKSANDROVICH (1924– ).Dur-
ing World War II, Kryuchkov worked in a factory and in the Kom-
somol in his native Stalingrad. He served several years in the procu-
racy, and then entered the diplomatic academy, and from there was
assigned to the Soviet embassy in Budapest. Kryuchkov came to the
attention of then Soviet ambassador Yuri Andropovduring the Hun-
garian revolutionof 1956. Kryuchkov’s opposition to the “counter-
revolution” and his tireless support of a hard line won Andropov’s ad-
miration and later his patronage. When Andropov went to the KGB
in 1967, he made Kryuchkov head of his personal secretariat, and in
1971 made him the number two person in the KGB’s foreign intelli-
gence component, even though he had no previous experience in for-
eign intelligence. In 1974 Andropov promoted Kryuchkov to head
the First Chief Directorate (FCD).
Kryuchkov was not a popular foreign intelligence chief. Some of
his staff thought too much time was spent on the pursuit of dissidents
within the Soviet bloc and active measuresagainst the West. Other
critics believed that during his tenure the FCD became overbureau-
cratized and plagued with defectors. Nevertheless, during
Kryuchkov’s 14 years as chief of foreign intelligence, the service had
major triumphs in gathering technical intelligence and managed to
penetrate American intelligence and counterintelligenceservices.
One evaluation of Kryuchkov’s worth to his political masters was his
rise inside the party leadership and his close association first with An-
dropov and then Mikhail Gorbachev. In 1981 he became the first
Soviet foreign intelligence chief to be made a member of the Com-140 •KRYUCHKOV, VLADIMIR ALEKSANDROVICH (1924– )06-313 G-P.qxd 7/27/06 7:56 AM Page 140