Why were the red flags ignored? Intelligence sources believe President Bush’s personal commitment to Gorbachev colored White House assessments. The State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research heatedly maintained that Gorbachev was safe. “State couldn’t accept the plain truth,” says one analyst, “which is that Gorbachev has no political base left.” State’s position was also tainted by White House disdain for the only viable alternative to Gorbachev: Boris Yeltsin. Even after his election as Russian president last June, the administration stuck to a negative impression formed largely during Yeltsin’s raucous 1989 U.S. visit, when he gave the impression of a hard-partying buffoon.
While the agency’s reach is limited in places like Iraq, the Soviet Union remains fertile ground. Assets built up during the cold war–and the intelligence wind fall generated by glasnost–enabled it to closely monitor Gorbachev’s decline. The bleak advisories began shortly after Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze warned in his December resignation speech of an incipient dictatorship. As Soviet legislators spoke privately of a “creeping military coup,” the agency concluded that Gorbachev had “only a year” left. In March, it intercepted a KGB cable to overseas agents warning them to brace for possible civil war (NEWSWEEK, April 22). By June, agency analysts were telling House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Dave McCurdy in secret briefings that Gorbachev could be toppled at any time. They urged more support for Yeltsin. This summer DLA, analysts even identified a principal figure in the critical mass of unrest that was forming: Defense Minister Dmitry Yazov. It was also clear that KGB chief Vladimir Kryuchkov was becoming increasingly disenchanted with Gorbachev. When former Politburo member and Gorbachev confidant Aleksandr Yakovlev resigned from the Communist Party on Aug. 16, warning of a coup by a “Stalinist” core, the agency knew the situation was grave. Analysts now believe Yakovlev had caught wind of the plot but lacked hard evidence.
Still, for all the elaborate warnings, no one in the CIA could say when the upheaval would occur or how likely it was to succeed. “The agency had been predicting his downfall so many times, they had worn out their credibility,” says one Pentagon analyst. “It was a sky-is-falling analysis that no one was paying attention to.” Even if the administration had agreed that the sky was indeed falling, heading off the coup would have been close to impossible. After all, Mikhail Gorbachev himself chose to ignore the warnings of friends who had been at his side for years.
Coup rumors are a Moscow staple. But months before last week’s drama the rumors began giving way to open threats.
November and December 1990: A chorus of KGB and military officers and hard-line lawmakers openly warn that they will fight to save socialism. Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze resigns, saying “Dictatorship is coming.”
May and June 1991: Leaders of the coming putsch grow bolder. Baklanov warns that a coup is possible. In parliamentary maneuvering, Pavlov attempts to wrest emergency powers from Gorbachev–but fails.
August 1991: Former top presidential aide Aleksandr Yakovlev hands in his party card, warning that “an influential Stalinist group” is plotting a revolt. After the coup Gorbachev admits he should have heeded such warnings.
