Inauri continued service as a commander of a cavalry division till 1946. In 1948 he graduated from the Voroshilov General Staff Academy and took charge of the 18th Mechanized Division as part of the Soviet occupation forces in Germany. In 1951 he commanded the 9th Rifle Division and in February 1953 he took command over the 3rd Mountain Rifle Corps of the Carpathian Military District. In 1954, Inauri was made head of the Georgian KGB, a post that he retained until 1986. Later in 1957, he was promoted to Lieutenant General. His tenure coincided with a series of upheavals, including the 1956 uprising, and rise of anti-Soviet dissident groups in Georgia to which Inauri was able to respond vigorously due largely to a strict discipline imposed by him within the KGB and a large web of espionage through which Inauri's agents infiltrated dissident groups and even the Georgian Orthodox Church. He played a key role in a palace coup against Nikita Khrushchev in October 1964, escorting the Soviet leader from his datcha at Pitsunda to a special meeting of the Presidium of the Central Committee in Moscow where Khrushchev was to be ousted. Inauri was promoted to the rank of Colonel-General in 1967 and awarded the title of the Hero of the Soviet Union in 1985, shortly before his retirement later in 1986. From 1984 to 1989, Inauri was a member of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union.