RYBKIN REVIEWS SECURITY COUNCIL APPOINTMENTS.

Russian Security Council secretary Ivan Rybkin told Russian TV on November 1 that Russia’s ambassador in London, veteran diplomat Anatoly Adamishin, is among the candidates for the post of deputy secretary of the Security Council. Rybkin also said that Nikolai Mikhailov will carry on as deputy secretary of the Council and that economist Sergei Glazyev, a close ally of former Security Council secretary Alexander Lebed, also remains on the staff, although in a less influential post than before. Lt. Gen. Leonid Maiorov, who was appointed deputy secretary last week, had served as Rybkin’s aide for military matters from 1994-1996, when Rybkin was Duma Speaker. Rybkin said that Vladimir Denisov and Sergei Kharlamov, who last week lost their posts as deputy secretaries, had declined an invitation to work as deputies to Rybkin in his capacity as presidential envoy to Chechnya.

Rybkin asserted that he had been involved in–and approved–the controversial decision to appoint Boris Berezovsky as Security Council deputy secretary. Rybkin said, moreover, that he thought the strong objections to the appointment voiced by Duma Speaker Gennady Seleznev had more to do with internal Communist party politics than with Berezovsky’s suitability for the post. Party leader Gennady Zyuganov is believed to have resented Seleznev’s nomination to the "council of four," a group that is to run the state during Yeltsin’s hospitalization. Zyuganov apparently interpreted the nomination as a de facto elevation of Seleznev to leader of the Communist party, and pressured Seleznev to find a pretext not to take part in the council’s meetings. (NTV, Interfax, November 1)

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