World Notes Soviet Union

The most dreaded institution in the country, the KGB security service, is being whittled down to manageable size. Its former chairman, coup plotter Vladimir Kryuchkov, is in prison, and its 230,000 uniformed troops have been transferred to the regular armed forces.

Last week President Mikhail Gorbachev took yet another chop at the monster. He appointed his close adviser Yevgeni Primakov to head the foreign intelligence division, which will become a separate organization.

Primakov, an Arabist and a member of the Academy of Sciences, is the first civilian to head the KGB's spy network. He vows to civilize intelligence gathering and make it "scientific." The days of "people in gray coats standing on corners," he says, will be replaced by a focus on fighting terrorism, the drug traffic and the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

"Where it is possible," says Primakov, he will try for glasnost and international cooperation. But spooks will still be spooks. Primakov does not plan a major purge of his espionage operatives, and they are likely to keep working secretly out of Soviet embassies around the world.