Former KGB chief lifts lid on Kremlin intrigue

Leonid Brezhnev considered ordering the assassination of supreme Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in 1964, the former head of the KGB disclosed in an interview on Russian NTV on Sunday night.

"He had become by that time an overripe fruit for our society and out country, and without his removal problems would have been compounded," Vladimir Yefimovich Semichastnyy, the head of the KGB from 1961 to 1967, said of Khrushchev.

Asked if there was any truth in the story that the options discussed before Khrushchev's removal from his post included his "physical elimination" or arrest, Semichastnyy said: "Brezhnev tried to sound this out - whether it was possible to settle the matter in some other way." "The fact is, Brezhnev was not a particularly brave man," Semichastnyy continued.

"He was already willing to become the top leader, but he still wanted someone else to sort things out with Khrushchev, without being involved himself.

After all, he was still rather afraid of Khrushchev, to quite a large extent, so he did not have enough courage to go about it.

So he wished this to get sorted out somehow, you see." "When this matter was raised, I flatly refused, saying there would be no physical action and no arrest, nothing like that.

You have a Central Committee plenum, you have the Central Committee, I said, so go on and make a decision, but we are not going to do this - at least the KGB will not play any part." The NTV interview with the Semichastnyy was broadcast a day after the 80th anniversary of the KGB.

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