The Last Empire (22 page)

News of the army's retreat was confirmed around 8:00 a.m. by a fax forwarded to the embassy by the Russian information service. According to the fax, the military authorities in Moscow had ordered the withdrawal of troops at “full speed.” One of the senior commanders stated that the military would not attempt to seize the White House “tomorrow or the day after tomorrow.” The coup seemed to be fizzling. The crowd that Collins had seen near Yeltsin's White House around 5:00 a.m. was shrinking as many of the defenders left for home. Collins told the American personnel who had spent the tumultuous night in the embassy's office building that it was safe to go back to their living quarters.
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While news of the troop withdrawal came as a complete surprise to most of the White House defenders, there are indications that Yeltsin and people around him learned of it earlier. It is known that at some point Kriuchkov, the KGB chief, personally called Yeltsin to inform him that the assault had been called off. Besides, Yeltsin apparently knew more about the plotters and their plans than they supposed. A few years after the events at the Russian White House, an American official told the Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative journalist Seymour M. Hersh that President Bush had ordered American intercepts of telephone communications between the plot leaders and Soviet military commanders to be shared with Yeltsin.

“The Minister of Defense and the KGB chief were using the most secure lines to reach the military commanders,” wrote Hersh, quoting his source. “We told Yeltsin in real time what the communications were. The bulk of the theater commanders weren't taking the calls.” According to Hersh, a communications specialist was sent from the American embassy to Yeltsin's White House to set up secure communications with the Soviet military commanders. “Yeltsin was able to warn them to steer clear,” said Hersh's unnamed source.
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Neither Bush nor members of his administration mentioned the transfer of intelligence to Yeltsin in their memoirs. If it actually happened, then it contravened a law signed by the president four days before the coup that made it illegal to authorize covert operations in foreign countries without informing the Senate. With most
intelligence-related materials of the Bush administration still classified and unavailable for research, one can only speculate whether such sensitive information, revealing American capacity to eavesdrop on the most secret communications of the Russian military brass, was indeed transferred to Yeltsin and, if so, whether it influenced his behavior and the outcome of the coup. There is no hint of secret deals in the transcripts of Bush's telephone conversations with Yeltsin.

On August 21, Bush reached Yeltsin by phone from his compound in Kennebunkport, to which he had returned after his short visit to Washington. It was 8:30 a.m. in Maine and 3:30 p.m. in Moscow. As Bush later recalled, Yeltsin sounded more confident than he had the previous day. He had survived the night and, in the words of Robert Gates, had turned into “a key figure as never before.” Bush asked the Russian president whether he could do anything at that point to assist him: “We are anxious to do anything helpful, not counterproductive. Do you have any suggestions?” Yeltsin had no additional requests: “Unfortunately, other than propagandizing our plight and moral support and statements I can't see anything for you, technical or any other way, to help us at this point.” Referring to his plans to arrest the plotters, Yeltsin said, “I can't give you the details about it over this phone.” Bush replied, “I understand.”
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The Russian president's main worry now was not a possible assault on the White House but the political maneuvering of his opponents. He told Bush that a Russian delegation had been sent to the Crimea along with two of Gorbachev's loyal aides to meet with the imprisoned president. “Unfortunately,” continued Yeltsin, “forty minutes before our group departed, 5 of the junta including Yazov flew out before us. What they want to do is intercept Gorbachev and either force him to sign a paper or take him to points unknown. What I'm trying to do is work with Kravchuk [[head of Ukraine]] to intercept them and have them land in Simferopol in the Crimea and not let them get to him [[Gorbachev]] first.” Yeltsin also reported that his opponents were lobbying members of the USSR Supreme Soviet, which would go into session on August 26, to provide legal foundations for the actions of the Emergency Committee. The coup, it appeared from Yeltsin's analysis, might fail militarily but succeed politically. The key figure deciding the fate of the coup might again be Mikhail Gorbachev.

In the previous few days, Yeltsin had managed to expose the illegality of the coup and establish his own legitimacy by demanding Gorbachev's release. As far as he and those around him were concerned, it was a gamble. Many in Yeltsin's entourage still believed that Gorbachev was not a victim of the plotters but the instigator and puppet master of the coup. What would happen if the plotters got to Gorbachev first and convinced him to join them? The Russian delegation had to head them off. Yeltsin sent his vice president, General Aleksandr Rutskoi, with a group of officers armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles to the Crimea. He also wanted the commander of the Soviet air force, Air Marshal Shaposhnikov, who had supported him throughout the coup, to divert the plotters' airplane from its route or force it to land and allow the Russian plane to arrive first. But Shaposhnikov was powerless, as no one but the head of the General Staff could order the presidential plane to land.

For the plotters and their opponents alike, the position that Gorbachev would take under the new circumstances was of paramount importance. Those who managed to “save” Gorbachev first would determine the success or failure of the coup and the political—perhaps even physical—survival of the main players on the Soviet political stage. “Now there are three aircraft flying in that direction, trying to get there first,” said Yeltsin to President Bush about the planes racing to the Crimea. The third plane belonged to the Speaker of the Soviet parliament, Anatolii Lukianov, who had backed the coup but was now eager to show his independence from the plotters. In Washington, James Baker received a report that James Collins of the US embassy in Moscow had tried to fly to the Crimea with Rutskoi but was late for the departure.
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MEANWHILE, SHORTLY AFTER
1:00 p.m. Moscow time, Marshal Yazov hugged his wife, Emma, and headed for the airport. He was finally ready to follow the advice she had given on the first day of the coup: to abandon the plotters and go talk to Gorbachev. When Yazov told members of the Emergency Committee that he was not only ordering the troops out of Moscow but also going to the Crimea to see Gorbachev, Kriuchkov tried to stop him. This attempt failed, and the KGB chief changed his mind and said that he would go along. Kriuchkov wanted to be the first to talk to the president they had betrayed and make an alliance with him against their now even more
powerful and threatening rival, the president of Russia. During the flight they learned that Yeltsin had ordered their arrest. Gorbachev was now their only hope. Kriuchkov told his colleagues, “Gorbachev can't be so stupid as not to understand that without us he is nothing.”
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Late in the afternoon, a procession of limousines carrying Kriuchkov, Yazov, and a number of Gorbachev's former aides approached the Soviet president's compound in Foros. Like the delegation that had come three days earlier, this one was accompanied by the head of the KGB bodyguard department, General Yurii Plekhanov. At about 5:00 p.m. the gates of the heavily guarded compound opened to admit the visitors from Moscow. But then something unexpected happened. Two of Gorbachev's bodyguards, armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles, suddenly emerged from nearby bushes and ordered the cars to stop. General Plekhanov jumped out of his car and ordered them to let the vehicles pass: “What, aren't you letting the head of security through?” But the guards did not react. They would follow only Mikhail Gorbachev's orders. Raisa Gorbacheva, disturbed by the noise from the driveway, came out of her bedroom. The entrance to Gorbachev's office was blocked by one of his guards. “Will you allow no one to pass here?” she asked in an exhausted tone. “No one else will come through here,” came the answer.

Raisa Gorbacheva was visibly shaken by the experience of the previous days. Exhausted by sleepless nights, she had suffered a stroke and lost partial control of one of her arms. Although the family appeared calm after the messengers from Moscow left the villa on August 18, pressure had begun to mount the next morning once the plotters announced that Gorbachev was ill. It became almost unbearable after the Gorbachevs watched the Emergency Committee's press conference on the evening of August 19. If others had reacted with guarded optimism, thinking that such people were incapable of holding power for very long, the Gorbachev family had become even more anxious. The reporters' persistent questions about Gorbachev's health and Yanaev's repeated assurances that what he most wanted was to have his boss return to Moscow triggered suspicions that the plotters would try to change the reality to match their statements—in other words, to make Gorbachev sick. That night Gorbachev taped an address to the country, condemning the coup and exposing the
plotters' lies about his health. The four small tape cassettes had to be smuggled out of the heavily guarded compound—not an easy task by any measure. And now, after three days full of concern and anxiety, came the news that a delegation was arriving to see for itself what had happened to Gorbachev.

This time Gorbachev learned of his former aides' imminent visit before they entered the premises. Raisa noted in her diary that her daughter and son-in-law had heard a BBC broadcast claiming that Kriuchkov had agreed to let a delegation fly to the Crimea to check on Gorbachev's health. This was worrisome news. “We consider this a sign that the worst is to come,” wrote Raisa in her diary. “Within the next few hours actions may be carried out to translate the infamous lie into reality. Mikhail Sergeevich had ordered the guards to block the drives leading up to the house as well as its entrance and not let anyone in without his permission; to be ready for action and to use force if necessary.” All hope now rested in the remaining members of the security detail. The day after the plotters had paid their unexpected visit to Gorbachev, the guards had promised to stand by their commander in chief to the end. They were now intent on showing how serious they were about defending the president whom they had failed to protect when he was first threatened.

The guards' decisive actions had the desired effect on the visitors: Plekhanov held back his men, telling them that the guards were indeed prepared to shoot. The plotters then told the guards that they wanted to see the president and peacefully retired to the guesthouse, waiting for a summons from him. Gorbachev's loyal aide Anatolii Cherniaev, informed about the plotters' arrival by his secretaries, rushed to tell Gorbachev not to receive the visitors. Gorbachev assured him he would not: “I . . . gave them an ultimatum: if they do not turn on the communications, I will not talk to them. And now I will not do so anyway.” When the plotters restored the communications system, Kriuchkov was first on the line. Gorbachev refused to talk to his former aide. He got in touch with the chief of the General Staff, General Mikahil Moiseev, and ordered him to ensure that the plane carrying the Russian Federation's delegation landed safely in the Crimea—the plotters were making preparations to ambush it on landing. The commander of the Kremlin garrison was informed that
he could take orders from no one but Gorbachev. The minister of communications was ordered to cut the plotters' lines. The president was again in charge.

After the plotters gave in to Gorbachev's demand and restored his communications, his main goal, apart from regaining control over the military and security forces, was to assess the new political situation and decide on a further course of action. Gorbachev's aide Vadim Medvedev, who reached him by phone from Moscow late in the afternoon of that day, later remembered, “The president said that he had already made a number of calls to Moscow and to several republics and that he would now be speaking to Yeltsin.” By the afternoon of August 21, Gorbachev had fully reemerged as a powerful force in Soviet politics. Not only the plotters but also the Yeltsin democrats felt that they needed him and his political clout. Gorbachev was now prepared to pick winners and losers. Theoretically, he could try to make a deal with the plotters, as they hoped he would do. Instead, Gorbachev threw his weight behind Yeltsin.
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Then, most unexpectedly, came a call from Washington. On Brent Scowcroft's orders, the US military had tried over and over to reach Gorbachev, and finally they succeeded. Once Gorbachev was on the line, they rushed to find George Bush. “There is a God!” said the chief communist of the Soviet Union to the American interpreter Peter Afanasenko. “I have been here four days in a fortress.”

Bush also referred to the Almighty when he heard Gorbachev's voice: “Oh my God, that's wonderful, Mikhail.”

“I have to congratulate you and the position you took from the first minute. You have been stalwart,” Gorbachev told Bush generously (or, rather, on the basis of insufficient evidence, given Bush's statements immediately after hearing of the coup). “Thanks for taking [[time]] off from your vacation. You affected everyone with your strong statements, except Gaddafi”—the eccentric Libyan dictator had not been reticent about expressing his support for the coup.

Barbara Bush soon joined her husband. “Barbara is here and sends her love to Raisa,” announced Bush.