Head of State and Coup Involvement
On 15 July 1964, Mikoyan was appointed as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, replacing Leonid Brezhnev, who received a promotion within the Party. Mikoyan's new position was largely ceremonial; it was noted that his declining health and old age were being considered.
Some historians are convinced that by 1964 Mikoyan believed that Khrushchev had turned into a liability to the Party, and that he was involved in the October 1964 coup that brought Brezhnev and Alexei Kosygin to power. However, William Taubman disputes this, as Mikoyan was the only member of the Presidium (the name for the Politburo at this time) to defend Khrushchev. Mikoyan, however, did vote to force Khrushchev's retirement (so as, in traditional Soviet style, to make the vote unanimous). Alone among Khrushchev's colleagues, Mikoyan wished the former leader well in his retirement, though he never spoke to him again. Mikoyan laid a wreath and sent a letter of condolence at Khrushchev's funeral in 1971.
Due to his partial defense of Khrushchev during his ouster, Mikoyan lost his high standing with the new Soviet leadership. The Politburo forced Mikoyan to retire from his seat in the Politburo due to old age. Mikoyan quickly also lost his post as head of state and was succeeded in this post by Nikolai Podgorny on 9 December 1965. Brezhnev officialised Mikoyan's retirement by awarding him an Order of Lenin.
Read more about this topic: Anastas Mikoyan
Famous quotes containing the words head of, head, state and/or involvement:
“The most advanced nations are always those who navigate the most. The power which the sea requires in the sailor makes a man of him very fast, and the change of shores and population clears his head of much nonsense of his wigwam.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“A man whose mind feels that it is captive would prefer to blind himself to the fact. But if he hates falsehood, he will not do so; and in that case he will have to suffer a lot. He will beat his head against the wall until he faints. He will come to again and look with terror at the wall, until one day he begins afresh to beat his head against it; and once again he will faint. And so on endlessly and without hope. One day he will wake up on the other side of the wall.”
—Simone Weil (1909–1943)
“Oh, the holiness of always being the injured party. The historically oppressed can find not only sanctity but safety in the state of victimization. When access to a better life has been denied often enough, and successfully enough, one can use the rejection as an excuse to cease all efforts. After all, one reckons, “they” don’t want me, “they” accept their own mediocrity and refuse my best, “they” don’t deserve me.”
—Maya Angelou (b. 1928)
“It may be tempting to focus on the fact that, even among those who support equality, men’s involvement as fathers remains a far distance from what most women want and most children need. Yet it is also important to acknowledge how far and how fast many men have moved towards a pattern that not long ago virtually all men considered anathema.”
—Katherine Gerson (20th century)