Soviet Switch

Very few Americans knew his name or were aware that Nikolai Vasilievich Novikov had been, for the last 19 months, the Soviet Ambassador to the U.S. Very few Americans knew that he had been called to Moscow in July for consultation and had not been back since. Very few Americans noticed that, last week, Ambassador Novikov had been relieved of his duties. His mission to Washington -- whatever it was, and however well he had done it -- was over. His successor: Alexander Semyenovich Panyushkin, 42.

U.S. diplomats, at least, knew who Alexander Panyushkin was. He had been the Soviet Ambassador to China from 1939 to 1944. At that point, chronic stomach trouble -- that was the story, and it was a likely story -- forced him to return to Russia. A tall, slouching man with a pale face, Panyushkin covers his Communist inflexibility with a manner that, compared to Novikov's, is affable and friendly. Like most younger Russian diplomats, his English is poor and he frequently submits to interpretation. He is a member of the revision committee of the Communist Party's Central Executive Committee, a body of highly trusted party members headed by Stalin himself.

Why the change? Washington's best guess was that Novikov was needed else where, and that it didn't much matter who was the Kremlin's office boy in Washington. Novikov speaks good Arabic. He was Minister in Cairo during the war, and he got behind the scenes in the Arab states. With the Arab hive buzzing over Palestine the Kremlin might well have a new job for Novikov.

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