Gromyko New Soviet President : Gorbachev Departs From Usual Practice

MOSCOW —  Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko, 75, was elected president of the Soviet Union today by the Supreme Soviet, and newly named Politburo member Eduard A. Shevardnadze was selected to replace him.

Communist Party leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev, 54, in a departure from the usual practice of having the party leader also hold the title of chief of state, nominated Gromyko before the 1,500-member body, which is the Soviet Union’s nominal Parliament. The action capped two days of leadership changes.

On Monday, Grigory V. Romanov, once Gorbachev’s chief rival, was dropped from the ruling, 13-member Politburo in a display of Gorbachev’s firm control of the Kremlin leadership.

Romanov, 62, also lost his post as one of the party’s powerful nine secretaries who serve under Gorbachev, the general secretary.

His replacement as a full member of the Politburo was Shevardnadze, 57-year-old leader in the Soviet Republic of Georgia, an ally of Gorbachev’s. Shevardnadze, who had been a candidate (non-voting) member since 1978, has earned a reputation as a stern disciplinarian who cracked down on the endemic corruption in Georgia.

Two other men believed to be Gorbachev allies--Lev N. Zaikov, 62, who succeeded Romanov as Leningrad party chief in 1983, and Boris N. Yeltsin, 52, an industrial construction specialist and party leader in Sverdlovsk--were named party secretaries on Monday.

One filled the post vacated by Romanov, the other took over Gorbachev’s post as secretary, vacated when Gorbachev became party leader. It was not disclosed which of the new men will take over Romanov’s secretarial responsibilities covering heavy and defense industries.

Gorbachev’s Stamp

Monday’s moves follow the elevation of three Gorbachev associates to the Politburo in mid-April, expanding its membership to 13.

“All the changes seem to have Gorbachev’s stamp on them,” a senior analyst at a major Western embassy said. “He is moving very fast for someone who has been in power for less than four months.”

Gorbachev became party leader upon the death of Konstantin U. Chernenko in March. He had been expected to be named to Chernenko’s post as president at today’s meeting of the Supreme Soviet. Monday’s changes were approved by the 300-member party Central Committee.

Romanov’s removal from the Politburo and the party secretary post was announced by the Tass news agency. It said he was retired, at his own request, for unspecified health reasons. Western diplomats noted, however, that Soviet tradition indicated that he was ousted, since members of the ruling body almost never leave it except when they are forced out or die.

Romanov, a Politburo insider since 1973, has not been seen in public for seven weeks. While he has no obvious health problems, Western diplomats said that he has a reputation as a heavy drinker.

Promoted Heavy Industry

Romanov was regarded as a hard-line champion of Soviet military supremacy with strong anti-Western views. In Leningrad, he promoted heavy industry, partly at the expense of the consumer sector.

During Chernenko’s 13-month tenure as party chief, Romanov was considered as Gorbachev’s chief rival to succeed the ailing leader, who died at the age of 73. However the Politburo chose Gorbachev as the new party chief several hours after Chernenko’s death.

Shevardnadze, one of the youngest party members to be appointed to the Politburo, became first secretary of the party in Georgia in 1972, at a time of a resurgence of corruption in the republic.

Holding at the same time the rank of general in the police, Shevardnadze dismissed scores of officials in a campaign based on “an uncompromising struggle against such negative phenomena as money-grubbing, bribe-taking, misappropriation of socialist property tendencies, theft and other deviations from the norms of Communist morality.”

Shevardnadze was born in the Georgian village of Mamati and had spent his entire political career in the republic that started when he joined the the party’s Komsomol youth league. From 1964 to 1972 he served as the republic’s minister for the maintenance of public order, which was later renamed the ministry of internal affairs.

He has traveled widely in Europe and other parts of the world.

New party secretary Zaikov is an engineer who started as a sheet-metal worker in Leningrad during World War II. He is considered a protege of Chernenko’s predecessor, Yuri V. Andropov.

Yeltsin has spent most of his career in Sverdlosk and became head of the Central Committee’s construction department last April.