Word: coupes
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Perhaps because he wasn't sure with whom he might next deal, Bush sounded a hopeful note that morning about Gennadi Yanayev, Gorbachev's handpicked Vice President and the coup's titular leader. Yanayev, as it happened, had joined Bush as a guest on board Air Force One when the President flew from Moscow to Kiev during his summit trip just 18 days earlier. "My gut instinct," Bush said, "was that he has a certain commitment to reform." Bush also took care to describe the coup as "extraconstitutional," fearing that "unconstitutional" was too strong and might offend the plotters...
...White House immediately began to retreat from Bush's earlier ambivalent remarks and voice support for Yeltsin. Scowcroft spoke with reporters in midair, criticizing Yanayev and describing the coup as "quite negative." After arriving at the White House, Bush sat in on a meeting of the deputies committee, a group of senior officials who were monitoring the situation and were by then beginning to uncover the plotters' mistakes. Several members of the group had begun to describe the coup as "half-assed...
...COUP POSTMORTEM: How Yeltsin unhinged the hijacking...
Most obvious of all, he could have denounced the Communist Party for covertly supporting the coup against him and resigned as its leader. After such a betrayal, how could he remain a Communist and vow to "work for the renewal of the party...
...sense -- decisive, foresighted and courageous. When many senior officials in Moscow and the 15 republics watched and waited to test the wind, Yeltsin acted. He declared himself the guardian of democracy and fulfilled his promise. Nor did he rest on his laurels: in the hours and days after the coup, Yeltsin seized the opportunity to issue a fistful of far- reaching decrees. Some, such as temporarily suspending six newspapers, were almost as undemocratic as the old system. And Yeltsin's boorish bossing of Gorbachev in the Russian parliament carried hints of an autocratic style that may do the country more...