structural:reformatting
Death

Khrushchev died of a heart attack around noon in the Moscow Central Clinical Hospital on 11 September 1971, at the age of 77. He was denied a state funeral with interment in the Kremlin Wall and was instead buried in the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow. Fearing demonstrations, the authorities did not announce Khrushchev's death until the hour of his wake, held in a morgue in the southern suburbs of Moscow, and surrounded the cemetery with troops. Even so, some artists and writers joined the family for the interment.

Pravda ran a one-sentence announcement of the former premier's death; Western newspapers contained considerable coverage. New York Times Moscow correspondent Harry Schwartz wrote of Khrushchev, "Mr. Khrushchev opened the doors and windows of a petrified structure. He let in fresh air and fresh ideas, producing changes which time already has shown are irreversible and fundamental."