The Foreign Service Journal, December 2011

D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 1 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 31 F OCUS all the union republics was develop- ing rapidly, most importantly in Rus- sia. By summer, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic had an elected president, Boris Yeltsin, while the USSR had a president who had been selected by the legislature, not the people as a whole. To make mat- ters worse, Gorbachev and Yeltsin were acting more like sworn enemies than political leaders who understood the need to cooperate for the good of the country. The Coup Attempt and Its Aftermath When President Bush visitedMoscow at the end of July 1991, it appeared that Gorbachev had the agreement of at least eight of the 15 Soviet republics to adhere to a new union treaty, and a date for signing was set for Aug. 21. Pres. Bush tried to support Gorbachev with a speech in Kiev on Aug. 1, in which he urged the non-Russian re- publics to accept Gorbachev’s pro- posals. But whatever prospect that draft treaty might have had was shat- tered when a cabal of Gorbachev’s most senior associates attempted to seize power on Aug. 19, 1991, while he was vacationing in the Crimea. The identity of the conspirators should not have been a surprise to Pres. Bush or Sec. Baker, for I had sent them a message in June reporting that Moscow Mayor Gavriil Popov had asked us to informBoris Yeltsin, then visiting Washington, that KGB Chairman Vladimir Kryuchkov, Prime Minister Valentin Pavlov, Defense Minister Dmitry Yazov and Par- liament Chairman Anatoly Lukyanov were conspiring to take power fromGorbachev. In response, the department instructed me to warn him, which I tried to do without naming the individuals since we could not confirm the in- formation. But Gorbachev failed to grasp the seriousness of his position. Events in the spring and summer of 1991 moved with kaleidoscopic rapidity and complexity.