The party's overseer of the power ministries who organized Khrushchev's removal
KGB chairman Semichastny later recalled: "The KGB chairmanship I held was being prepared for Nikolai Romanovich Mironov… I could feel it."
A product of the Dnepropetrovsk party network and Brezhnev's close friend since youth, he oversaw the KGB, MVD, military, procuracy, and courts as head of the CC Administrative Organs Department (1959–1964), and in the 1964 anti-Khrushchev conspiracy personally recruited Central Committee members and security officials to organize the coup. Slated to become KGB chairman under Brezhnev, he died in the Avala mountain plane crash near Belgrade days before taking office.
Career Timeline
- 1940–1945Political commissar and propaganda instructor, 255th Rifle Division on Southern and Southwestern Fronts; wounded, ended war as major
- 1945–1951Party posts in Ukraine: Dnepropetrovsk propaganda department, secretary of Kirovograd Oblast Committee
- 1951–1956Deputy chief of MGB/KGB 3rd Main Directorate (military counterintelligence); promoted Major-General 1956
- 1956–1959Chief of KGB Directorate for Leningrad Oblast
- 1959–1964Head of CC Administrative Organs Department, overseeing KGB, MVD, armed forces, procuracy, and courts