Sergei Gorshkov Dies at 78; Admiral Built Soviet Navy
LEAD: Adm. Sergei G. Gorshkov, who transformed the Soviet Union into a global sea power during 29 years as chief of the Soviet Navy, died on Friday in Moscow, the official Tass press agency said on Saturday. He was 78 years old.
Adm. Sergei G. Gorshkov, who transformed the Soviet Union into a global sea power during 29 years as chief of the Soviet Navy, died on Friday in Moscow, the official Tass press agency said on Saturday. He was 78 years old.
Admiral Gorshkov served as commander in chief of the Soviet fleet from 1956 until his retirement from active duty in 1985.
Tass said Admiral Gorshkov died after a long illness. It said the Kremlin saluted him in an official obituary as a talented organizer who displayed ''courage, will and fortitude'' in combat.
Admiral Gorshkov, who served five Soviet leaders, is believed to have been the driving force behind the Kremlin's decision to build a fleet of submarines and surface ships to rival that of the United States. Forged a Nuclear Force
He is also credited with bringing the Soviet Navy into the nuclear era, shaping its emergence as a potent nuclear strike force and serving as a strong and early advocate of submarine-based nuclear weapons.
In March 1985, the month that Mikhail S. Gorbachev became the Soviet leader, Mr. Gorbachev lauded the Soviet fleet as potent enough to confront enemy targets on a global scale.
Many American military officers and analysts regarded Admiral Gorshkov as an important contributor to modern naval strategy. In an interview in the Washington Post in 1975, Adm. Elmo R. Zumwalt, a former Chief of Naval Operations, described the Russian as the most effective naval leader of modern times.
''He was a unique individual,'' said Eugene J. Carrol Jr., a retired rear admiral and deputy director of the Center for Defense Information in Washington. ''He took a nation that had never been a naval power and had never placed much stock in naval power and built a modern navy.'' Coastal Force in 1950's
When Admiral Gorshkov took command of the Soviet Navy in 1956, at the age of 45, the fleet was little more than a collection of small coastal river vessels that rarely strayed far from base. By 1970, the Soviet Union had 385 submarines, 2 aircraft carriers and hundreds of surface ships, making it the world's second-ranking naval power.
Soviet vessels today patrol the world's oceans from bases in the Pacific, the Baltic, the Arctic and the Black Sea as well as from the naval installations of allied nations. Submarines bearing nuclear missiles form the second most important strategic arm of the Soviet military.
A prolific writer, Admiral Gorshkov tirelessly argued that a powerful fleet played a unique role as an instrument of political influence in peacetime.
His thinking was seen behind the development of the Soviet Union's large merchant marine and fishing fleets, which Western analysts say play a vital role in assisting the military. Wrote Book on Sea Power
His book, ''The Sea Power of the State,'' is regarded by many Western military experts as a seminal work in Soviet naval thinking, elaborating the view that, in his words, ''naval warfare aimed directly against land targets will play an ever greater part in any future major conflict.''
In speeches and other writings he discounted the value of surface vessels in modern naval warfare. ''The pride of our navy is the atomic submarines that are fitted out with missiles of various types, which can be launched from under water,'' he said in an article in Pravda in July 1970. ''The submarines, together with naval missile-firing ships and antisubmarine aircraft, are the basis of the striking might of the navy.''
Western military officials said the admiral's retirement, in 1985, was apparently for reasons of age rather than a result of personal or political differences with other Soviet leaders. He was replaced as the naval commander by his former chief of staff, Adm. Vladimir N. Chernavin.
Sergei Georgiyevich Gorshkov was born on February 26, 1910, in the Ukrainian city of Kamenets-Podolski, but was Russian by nationality. He attended the Frunze Naval Academy from 1927 to 1931, and advanced through a series of naval commands during the 1930's, when the top ranks of the military were thrown into disarray by Stalin's purges. Black Sea Commander
During World War II, he distinguished himself as a commander in the Black Sea Fleet and rose to the rank of rear admiral. He became a member of the Communist Party in 1942.
Taking command of the Soviet fleet under Khrushchev, he reversed Stalin's plans for a mainly surface fleet and argued the merits of submarine strength.
He is believed to have used the embarrassment suffered by the Soviet Navy during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis to persuade the Kremlin that it needed to project Soviet might onto the world's oceans.
Although few details about Admiral Gorshkov's relations with other Kremlin leaders were available to the Soviet public or to Western observers, the length of his career at the highest levels of Soviet power suggested that he possessed unusual political as well as military skills.
One rare moment when his bureaucratic prowess was visible to outsiders came in November 1957, when Admiral Gorshkov was one of several Soviet military leaders to publicly support the dismissal of Marshal Georgi K. Zhukov, the World War II military hero, as Minister of Defense. Admiral Gorshkov was believed to have been a key figure in promoting the Zhukov ouster.
Admiral Gorshkov was named a candidate member of the Communist Party Central Committee in 1956, and became a full member in 1961. During his career, he was awarded the Order of Lenin five times, the Order of the Red Banner four times and was named a Hero of the Soviet Union.
