Enigma Variations

Three months ago, as Nikita Khrushchev sailed toward U.S. shores, he was accompanied by Russian vessels specifically equipped to track space hardware. Sharpening the mystery of the ships' mission were persistent rumors, encouraged by the Russians, that a man would be fired into space soon and brought 'back. It would make a grand accompaniment to Khrushchev's arrival in Manhattan.

But the expectations were never fulfilled. Then on Oct. 25 came a curiously noncommittal announcement that Khrushchev's hand-picked chief of Soviet Missile Forces. Marshal Mitrofan I. Nedelin, had died in an "airplane accident." Last week two reports from Europe offered different versions of what had really happened. ^ The first report, sent from Switzerland by the Chicago Daily News's veteran correspondent Paul Ghali and attributed to "foreign diplomats in Bern," said the Russians had actually rocketed a manned capsule into space sometime in early October. "But the Russian scientists on the ground were unable to separate the container from its vehicle," the report went on. "Disintegration of the vehicle and the passenger followed." Marshal Nedelin was called on the carpet by Khrushchev some time after the Soviet Premier's return to Russia from the U.S. on Oct. 15 and given a savage dressing down. As a result, Nedelin committed suicide. The state funeral demonstratively accorded him on Oct. 27, said Ghali, was merely part of the same subterfuge as the "airplane accident." P:Italy's 100 killed when a "new Russian rocket," scheduled to be launched as a part of the anniversary celebrations of the Bolshevik revolution Nov. 7, blew up prematurely on Oct. 21. Killed in the accident along with Nedelin, according to Continentale. were Colonel General Nikolai 0. Pavlovsky, assistant to the army chief of staff, and Professor Dmitry V. Efremov, deputy chairman of the Soviet Atomic Energy Committee.

On Oct. 24, Pravda announced that Pavlovsky had died "while carrying out his duty" and on Nov. 28, that Efremov had passed away after "a grave illness."

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