The Main Enemy by Milton Bearden (epub e reader txt) 📕

the emergency committee delegation that had placed Gorbachev under house arrest in Foros or that Plekanov himself was now under arrest.

The crowd of greeters reacted approvingly. The guards, their composure still intact, immediately brought in a Volga, and the President slid into the rear seat of the ordinary sedan as the disorganized, confused cortege, with a wail of sirens and flashing red and blue lights, sped off in the direction of the Kremlin.

At that same moment, but on a different road, KGB Chairman Vladimir Kryuchkov, Oleg Baklanov, the head of the Soviet Union’s Military Industrial Commission, and Defense Minister Dmitri Yazov—Gorbachev’s closest colleagues until their arrest on the tarmac by Moscow prosecutors—were being driven away for interrogation.

Shebarshin reflected on the irony of Gorbachev’s statement on arrival that, having returned to Moscow, he seemed to have come home to a different country. It may have been sincere, he decided. These were strange and unusual times.

Langley, 2330 Hours, Wednesday, August 21, 1991

There was no longer any doubt that the old guard in Moscow had failed. The old guard in Langley had retreated into a corresponding silence. Closing up late that evening, I began to plan a strategy to deal with the even more rapid change brought about by the cataclysmic failure of the Moscow hard-liners.

I had relayed to Rolph an order from the seventh floor to tell Krassilnikov that all cooperation with the KGB was suspended until the situation had clarified and a new leadership surfaced. There was nothing to lose by playing it cool with the KGB over the next week or so. On the contrary, now was the time to see if there were any new openings at Lubyanka we might be able to exploit.

I also began planning a return visit to Moscow as soon as the dust cleared.

I continued to work in a split-screen world, keeping one eye on the satellite feed from Moscow and the other on the official reporting. It was all pointing to the same conclusion. Even the race to reach Gorbachev in Foros by the old guard led by Vladimir Kryuchkov in one plane and the Russian group in a second plane led by Boris Yeltsin’s Vice President, Aleksandr Rutskoi, had been slapstick comedy.

But as I read the reports of Gorbachev’s departure from Foros with Rutskoi, as Kryuchkov and the other plotters stood under guard in the rear of the plane, I focused for the first time on the photographs and biographical sketch of Yeltsin’s Vice President that came with the report. Aleksandr Rutskoi, a much decorated fighter pilot and Afghan War veteran, had been shot down in eastern Afghanistan in August 1988, the report said. He’d been a colonel at the time and later made his way to safety with the help of the “competent organs”—the euphemism for the KGB. After the Afghan War, Rutskoi had swapped his Air Force wings for the rough-and-tumble of Russian politics, aligning himself with Boris Yeltsin.

History was wonderful! I thought as it all came together. Rutskoi was the Soviet colonel who’d been captured in Paktia Province in Afghanistan in the last year of the war. He was the colonel who’d been released after I’d paid the prescribed ransom of Toyotas and rocket launchers.

I began to enjoy the final days of the August coup even more and hoped one day to sit down with Rutskoi to talk over old times.

Moscow, 0700 Hours, Thursday, August 22, 1991

For a fleeting moment, Leonid Shebarshin thought himself lucky for having avoided either joining in the conspiracy against Gorbachev or playing a role in its suppression. But then he thought of Pascal’s dictum: Don’t call a man lucky while he’s still alive; in the best of cases things are just going his way.

Luck aside, Shebarshin had dodged both bullets. Now all he had to do was deal with the aftermath—the hypocrisy and denial he knew was coming. Arriving at Yasenevo early, he found the few officers already at work excited and alert the morning Gorbachev returned to Moscow. They studied him closely, and he felt himself unconsciously assuming a brave, businesslike attitude, cheerfully greeting the guards and the others he met as he entered the First Chief Directorate compound. Shebarshin was relieved that there were few seniors around at the early hour.

The newspapers were delayed, but there was no shortage of sensational coverage by the broadcast media. Shebarshin reviewed the world reaction to events in Moscow. Foreign capitals uniformly welcomed the great victory of democracy, he thought wryly. German Chancellor Helmut Kohl declared that the defeat of the putsch would open a new chapter in the history of Russia and the Soviet Union. British Prime Minister John Major announced the renewal of British aid to the USSR, which had been frozen in conjunction with the coup attempt. France’s foreign minister, Roland Dumas, proposed that the European Community invite Gorbachev for a joint discussion of the future of the Soviet Union in Europe. NATO Secretary General Manfred Woerner declared that the leadership of the Soviet Union had now attained greater stability and democracy.

Moscow simmers and democracy celebrates, Shebarshin said to himself. Those who didn’t have time to do so yesterday were rushing today to separate themselves from the plotters and align themselves with the ranks of the victors. The time had come to betray yesterday’s friends and find witnesses to one’s loyalty to the new regime. Gorbachev now appeared before the world and the people of the USSR as an innocent victim of the coup, a person betrayed by those he’d trusted.

But Gorbachev hadn’t even had time to recover from his long flight from the Crimea when the first whispers were heard that the President might not have been simply a helpless, captive witness to what was happening. Perhaps he had found himself in a complex situation, one that begged a complex solution. Perhaps he was a little lucky after all to have dodged the bullets, Shebarshin concluded with deep irony. There was more play left in the game.

Later, rifling through his safe,