VISITOR FROM THE KREMLIN

Arrived in the U.S. this week: the U.S.S.R.'s First Deputy Premier Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan, 63.

Early Years. A carpenter's son, Mikoyan says that he "came from a long line of Armenian traders." According to his fiction-varnished official biography, he studied at an Armenian seminary in Tiflis (where Stalin studied for the priesthood at a Russian Orthodox seminary two decades earlier), showed daring as a youthful Red leader in the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, was wounded at the barricades, narrowly escaped execution when captured by anti-Bolshevik forces. Escaping execution proved to be a special Mikoyan talent, highly useful for a man who managed to survive for a quarter-century as a high official under the insanely suspicious Stalin.

Official Career. Sharing the legendary Armenian gift for trading, Mikoyan became Stalin's chief trade commissar at 30, overseeing not only Soviet foreign trade but also domestic distribution of goods. After World War II, he set up the Soviet economic apparatus for milking the captive nations of Eastern Europe. During the shifting struggle for power and survival after Stalin's death. Mikoyan shrewdly sided with Nikita Khrushchev when the other schemers from the old Stalin gang joined forces against the upstart. When Khrushchev won out, the wily Armenian emerged as No. 2 man, with the title of Deputy Premier. Khrushchev's apparent trust, and growing authority over foreign relations.

Personality & Family. Mikoyan is a fluent talker (but speaks little English), likes dancing, cooking Armenian dishes and horseback riding, is more amiable--or at least more ingratiating --than most Soviet chieftains. After three decades as a foreign trade specialist, and numerous trips abroad, he is also more knowledgeable about the West than most of his fellow commissars. "Unlike the others," a veteran Western diplomat says of Mikoyan, "he has a rational image of the U.S." Mikoyan has four children, numerous grandchildren. His brother Artem is one of the U.S.S.R.'s top airplane designers (the MI in MIG stands for Mikoyan).

Reasons for Trip. On his one previous visit to the U.S., in 1936, Trader Mikoyan studied U.S. consumer industries, took back with him instructions for manufacturing such U.S. novelties as breakfast cereals and ice cream. This time he is interested in more momentous matters. Officially, he will be visiting the U.S. as the guest of Soviet Ambassador Mikhail A. ("Smiling Mike") Menshikov, but the guessing in Washington is that Khrushchev sent his right-hand man to talk to President Eisenhower and top U.S. officials, to sound out the firmness of the U.S.'s determination to stay on in Berlin. Mikoyan may try to arrange a U.S.-U.S.S.R. Big Two parley (the U.S. has insisted that Britain and France must take part in any summit conference), possibly a Khrushchev visit to the U.S. Besides spending four or five days in Washington, Mikoyan may make a fast fortnight's tour of major U.S. cities--reportedly including Philadelphia, Boston, Cleveland, Chicago, Detroit, Dallas, Los Angeles. San Francisco--to get the feel of U.S. opinion.

"If he doesn't come back," Boss Khrushchev joshed last week at the Kremlin New Year's ball, "he has to promise that he won't work against us there." Then Khrushchev added jovially: "We can't let Mikoyan stay in the U.S., because he would soon be the richest man there."

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