* * * IT IS a pleasant novelty for Londoners
to see a new face as Soviet Foreign Minister. But those who have been in contact with Mr. Shepilov have, I am told, already begun to regret Mr. Molotov, who, however hostile in principle and often infuriating in public conference, was always polite, accessible and fully briefed. Shepilov's reputation in Moscow is that, almost alone among the younger generation of officials, his horizons really are limited to the worn old pastures of Com- munist ideology: I was amused to see that the Observer, in its recent 'Profile' of him, imagined that the nickname 'Dmitri the Progressive,' by which he is referred to by the Moscow smart set, is a complimentary one. I am told that, in reality, it is a particularly sardonic smack at his combination of hearty orthodoxy, endless ambition and mediocre ability. All in all he seems typical of the new generation of second-raters which is springing up under that super-second-rater Khrushchev.
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