UpDate - Vol. 11, No. 8, Page 12
October 24, 1991
Insider's view; Former spokesperson describes Gorbachev's woes

     During the August coup that failed to remove Soviet President
Mikhail Gorbachev from power, the three keys that can be used to
launch Soviet nuclear weapons were in the hands of government
conspirators, a former spokesperson for Gorbachev said.
     Two of the conspirators, who were close aides to the Soviet
leader, held keys before the attempted coup, while the third,
Genady Yanayev, took his key from Gorbachev, who was being held at
his vacation home, Sergei A. Grigoriev said Oct. 9 in a public talk
in Smith Hall.
     Speaking on, "The Soviet Union in an Era of Uncertainty,"
Grigoriev, a former deputy spokesperson for Gorbachev, gave an
audience of more than 150 people his insider's view of the failed
Soviet coup, as well as Gorbachev and Russian President Boris
Yeltsin.
     Though he had resigned his post as Gorbachev's principal
spokesperson to English-speaking countries in July, Grigoriev was
in a hotel in the Crimea, about 10 miles from Gorbachev's vacation
home, when the coup began.
     A consultant to ABC on Soviet affairs since July, Grigoriev
said he was alerted to the coup at 3 a.m. by a Japanese newspaper
editor. "I thought it was a bad joke," he said. Later, a call from
CNN convinced him that a coup was under way.
     Around 6:30 a.m., the government television station announced
that Gorbachev was "almost paralyzed" by a disease and that his
authority had been willfully transferred to an emergency committee
of leaders. Grigoriev said, "We knew this could not be true."
     Grigoriev said he knew the reports of Gorbachev's ailing
health were false because of the way the television news anchors
"arrogantly spoke of his disease" and because "gossip travels real
fast in the Soviet Union." If the Soviet leader had been sick, he
said, people would have known about it.
     Later that morning, after receiving a telephone call from
Yeltsin supporters, Grigoriev said he joined the resistance to the
coup at a building in Moscow. There, plans were made for the
defense of the Yeltsin "White House," which was nearby.
     "My job was easy," Grigoriev said, "Everyone knew I had taken
that job with ABC in July, so I was to go to the news bureau often
and photocopy things off the news wire."
     Grigoriev said his trips to the news bureau gave leaders of
the resistance knowledge that there was little public support for
the coup. After two days of mounting resistance to the coup,
Grigoriev said he knew "everything would be okay."
     The presence of both young and old people outside the Russian
Parliament Building and Yeltsin's famous climb to the top of a tank
in front of the building were particularly reassurring, he said.
     Seeing Yeltsin atop the tank was "a really emotional thing, I
had tears in my eyes," Grigoriev said. He said he also saw young
men waving Russian flags and old women lying down before tanks.
     The end of the coup, however, was in sight when leaders of
"Group Alpha," a special anti-terrorist detachment of the KGB,
refused to attack the Yeltsin White House, according to Grigoriev,
who is now a fellow at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School
for Government.
     "Despite the fact that the coup failed," Grigoriev said, "the
Soviet Union is facing no fewer problems than it was before
August."
     A struggle for power among democratic leaders and deep
economic woes are the country's biggest problems, he said.
     In a press conference before his speech, Grigoriev noted,
"There are plenty of forces in Soviet Union, not just the disbanded
Communist party, but a lot of people, who got used to the
psychology of the welfare state. They are afraid of change."
     While he criticized Gorbachev for failing to push more quickly
for democratic reforms in the late 1980s, at times calling him,
"Mr. Consensus," Grigoriev described his former boss as "a
survivor."
     "I think he will resign only if he sees there is no way to go
ahead," Grigoriev said.
     There are some "refreshing signs" that the Soviet Union is
"getting rid of old ways, like the obedience of people to
totalitarian rules," he said.
     "I think the country is learning how to take the path toward
a free market economy. But it cannot be achieved without any
sacrifice."
     Grigoriev said he thinks the Soviet Union needs technical aid,
such as trained accountants, bankers and economists, more than any
other form of support. He said that foreign governments should not
send cash to the Soviet Union.
     "The Germans once, in 1989, gave a lot of cash, unaccounted,
to the Soviet government," Grigoriev said. "Actually, no one ever
saw the benefits of this. It's just like a black hole. (Money) gets
there and then it doesn't come out. It disappears.
     "I think it is more appropriate to discuss each (foreign
assistance) project and to make sure that the Soviets have a plan
to transform their economy into a free market. Then it will be
appropriate to talk about cash."
     In the meantime, Grigoriev said, "there has to be some relief
aid to make sure that the Soiet Union, in the process of organizing
this transition, is able to survive the winter."
                                        - Stephen Steenkamer