Rare in Soviet Russia is a living ex-chief of the political police. Last week Russia had onetough, professorial Marshal Lavrenti Pavlovich Beria, 46. He stepped out as head of the N.K.V.D,, but was apparently still in Stalin's high command.
To succeed Beria, Stalin chose Colonel General Sergei Nikolaevich Kruglev, a baby-faced leviathan (6 ft. 2 in., 245 Ib ) who looks like a cop and is one. Kruglev bossed the police detail that guarded Stalin at Yalta and Potsdam, chaperoned Molotov to San Francisco and London. At Potsdam he chain-smoked, enthusiastically bummed chewing...