WI: Beria Defects

There have been several threads here about Beria taking over the Soviet Union after Stalin dies, but they all seem to run into the problem of Beria's immense unpopularity with the rest of the Soviet leadership.

So what if instead, Beria realizes just how unpopular he is and that he's a dead man if he stays in the Soviet Union, and decides to defect to the United States? Would it even be possible for him to do so? The man was not only head of the Soviet security apparatus but also the Soviet nuclear program, losing him would be catastrophic for the Soviets so they had to have kept an eye on him to make sure he didn't escape. But if he did manage to what would they do? What could they do? Would Beria be valuable enough to risk nuclear war over?
 
There have been several threads here about Beria taking over the Soviet Union after Stalin dies, but they all seem to run into the problem of Beria's immense unpopularity with the rest of the Soviet leadership.

So what if instead, Beria realizes just how unpopular he is and that he's a dead man if he stays in the Soviet Union, and decides to defect to the United States? Would it even be possible for him to do so? The man was not only head of the Soviet security apparatus but also the Soviet nuclear program, losing him would be catastrophic for the Soviets so they had to have kept an eye on him to make sure he didn't escape. But if he did manage to what would they do? What could they do? Would Beria be valuable enough to risk nuclear war over?

They stash him in a safe house someplace, but he gets killed anyway by a Stalin Agent (tm) because someone leaked his location.
 
Doubt it, I doubt anyone who isn't very senior would know where he is stashed. Beria would be THAT important.

The western allies were pretty damn thorughly infiltrated by the Soviets at the time. I am not saying that they would necesarrily go for a kill,but it sure as hell would be plausible.
 
The western allies were pretty damn thorughly infiltrated by the Soviets at the time. I am not saying that they would necesarrily go for a kill,but it sure as hell would be plausible.

That depends how high up you go. I am talking guys hand picked by J Edgar Hoover. For all his faults he was hard core anti-communist and so were his top people.
 
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