Michael Dobbs - Down with Big Brother

Kryuchkov now knew that in all likelihood he would not remain head of the KGB very much longer. If he was going to act, he would have to do so soon. On August 6, the day Gorbachev left for his annual vacation in the Crimea, Kryuchkov instructed his aides to prepare the necessary documents for a state of emergency.

The groundwork for a coup had already been laid. Over the course of many weeks Kryuchkov had put out feelers to other members of the leadership. He knew that many of them thought the same way he did. Pavlov had already tried, and failed, to persuade the Supreme Soviet to grant him emergency economic powers. The defense minister, Dmitri Yazov, was constantly complaining about the humiliation of the army and the decline in the Soviet Union’s military readiness. The party secretary in charge of the military-industrial complex, Oleg Baklanov, was convinced that Gorbachev was running the Soviet defense industry into the ground. The secretary in charge of personnel matters, Oleg Shenin, was angry that the party was losing its influence. The president’s chief of staff, Valery Boldin, was another malcontent, even though he took care to hide his disdain for Gorbachev behind a veil of sycophancy. These men met together regularly to bemoan the fate of a once-great superpower.

On Saturday, August 17, Kryuchkov invited his fellow conspirators to a KGB facility, near the Moscow Ring Road. The complex included a sauna, a swimming pool, a video room. It was a secure and pleasant place to meet, and the KGB chief often entertained here. On this occasion, however, he led his guests onto the veranda. Even he was cautious about being overheard. He served vodka to Yazov, Shenin, and Pavlov. The others preferred whiskey. Plates of bacon lard, a traditional Russian delicacy, were served as an appetizer.

“I am ready to resign right now,” said Pavlov, who understood that his days as prime minister were numbered. “The situation is catastrophic. The country is on the threshold of hunger. Nobody wants to carry out orders anymore. The only hope is a state of emergency.” 69

“I deliver regular reports to Gorbachev about the extremely difficult situation, but he scarcely reacts,” complained the KGB chief. “He interrupts the conversation, changes the subject. He doesn’t believe my information.”

At Kryuchkov’s suggestion, the participants in the meeting decided to form a Committee for the State of Emergency, to be known by its Russian initials, GKChP. They would send a delegation to the Crimea to make a last attempt to persuade Gorbachev to declare his own state of emergency. If he refused, he would be interned in his dacha. Vice President Gennady Yanayev would announce that the president was “ill,” and he would assume power. Yanayev was not yet part of the plot, but the conspirators thought they could talk him into joining. He was weak and malleable.

There was a discussion about who would go to Foros to break the news to the president. It was agreed that Kryuchkov and Yazov should remain in Moscow, to make the necessary preparations. Boldin, who had worked with Gorbachev for the past fifteen years, would be made part of the delegation, in order to underline the seriousness of the revolt.

“ Et tu, Brutus? ” joked Yazov, who owed his own promotion to defense minister in 1987 to Gorbachev. Everybody laughed.

IT WAS A SLOW SUNDAY AFTERNOON. For the past eight hours Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Kirillov had been cooped up inside a locked room. He spent most of his time watching television. Outside his window the sea sparkled invitingly beneath the hot Crimean sun.

Suddenly the television set flickered and died. An emergency light began flashing on the electronic console in front of Kirillov. Almost instinctively the colonel started to check the telephones on his desk. The two-way intercom with the commander in chief was out of order. So was the direct line to the Defense Ministry in Moscow. Even the internal phone system within the presidential compound at Foros was down. With the exception of a nuclear strike by the rival superpower, Kirillov’s worst nightmare had just been realized. The man in charge of the Soviet nuclear codes had no way of communicating with his superiors. The clock on the wall showed the time as 1632.

A few feet away from Kirillov lay a black briefcase containing the Soviet nuclear codes. This was the modern-day orb and scepter that distinguished the leader of a nuclear superpower from ordinary mortals. From the outside it looked like an ordinary attaché case. This is precisely what it was. The designers of the nuclear command and control system had leafed through some Western mail-order catalogs, picked out a Samsonite briefcase with a lightweight aluminum frame, and adapted it to their needs. The electronic equipment inside the briefcase would allow Gorbachev to launch thousands of nuclear missiles at the touch of a button, in the event of a surprise attack on the Soviet Union. 70

Kirillov and his colleagues were required to carry the commander in chief’s chemodanchik (little suitcase) wherever he went. They followed him to the Kremlin in the morning and back to his dacha at night. They accompanied him on trips to foreign countries, waiting patiently in a reception room as he conferred with world leaders. When he went on vacation, they tagged along too.

The nuclear command post at Foros was. located in a two-story guesthouse, fifty yards away from Gorbachev’s personal residence. At any one time there were always three people on duty: two “officer-operators” and a communications specialist. The work was organized into three twenty-four-hour shifts. When they were not on duty, the nuclear aides lived in a military rest home, several miles away from the presidential compound.

Only one telephone out of an entire bank of communications devices in the command post was still working. This was a radiotelephone to the government communications center at Mukhalatka, a few miles down the road. When the operator answered, Kirillov asked to be put through to Moscow immediately.

“We have no communications with anybody,” the operator replied. “There’s been an accident.” 71

The nuclear aides were beginning to panic when there was a loud knocking at the door. The chief of Soviet ground forces, General Valentin Varennikov, was standing in the corridor with half a dozen other officers, most of whom Kirillov did not know.

“How are your communications?” barked the general.

“There aren’t any,” replied the colonel.

“That’s how it should be,” said Varennikov, evidently pleased. He told Kirillov that the interruption in communications would last approximately twenty-four hours, adding, “The president knows all about it.” With that he and the others disappeared in the direction of Gorbachev’s residence. When the colonel tried to find out more, he was told by one of the people who had come with Varennikov to “mind your own business.”

“A GROUP OF COMRADES is here to see you, Mikhail Sergeyevich.”

Gorbachev looked up from his papers to see the ingratiating face of the head of his personal guard, Vladimir Medvedev. He was seated behind the desk of the study in his Crimean residence, with a magnificent view of the Black Sea. His annual vacation was practically over. He felt rested and in generally good health, although his back was giving him some problems. He had suffered an attack of lumbago the previous day, while walking in the hills around Foros. That morning his personal physician had given him some injections to relieve the pain. “Do whatever you want,” the president had joked. “Remove the nerve, a vertebra, even the leg, but I must be in Moscow on August 19.” 72When Medvedev entered the room, Gorbachev had been working on the speech he planned to deliver at the signing ceremony for the new Union Treaty, which he saw as his last chance of holding the country together.