Word: coupes
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...ahead of their pursuers from Yeltsin's headquarters, and hopped a plane for Gorbachev's resort. They were accompanied by Anatoli Lukyanov, chairman of the Soviet parliament. Though he is an old friend and law-school classmate of Gorbachev's, Lukyanov played at best an ambiguous role in the coup; he was not a member of the Emergency Committee but has been accused by some of Yeltsin's aides of being the mastermind behind the whole plot. Hard on their heels, Rutskoi and his avengers also took off for the Crimea -- taking care to bring guns...
Possibly Kryuchkov and Yazov hoped to negotiate with Gorbachev an end to the coup that would preserve some of their power. Or maybe they simply intended to beg for forgiveness and leniency. Rutskoi and his friends, however, feared they might want to kill the Soviet President. The thought that some of the plotters might try to execute him in a last attempt to save the coup occurred to Gorbachev as well. One of his first calls on Wednesday was to the chief of his personal guard at the Kremlin, working out arrangements to guarantee his safety on a return...
...drawn but flashed a relieved smile, rather like the released hostage that he was. In theory, at least, he was back in full command. In fact, he faced gigantic tasks of rounding up the plotters, alleviating the economic and social chaos that had given the excuse for the coup, and working out a modus vivendi with Yeltsin. As for the surviving plotters, all of whom had been arrested by week's end, they were facing not only treason trials but also the knowledge that their mismanaged coup had intensified the move toward democracy and decentralization they had tried to stop...
...nationalists indignantly rejected the notion that they should play by the Kremlin's rigged rules. But in Moscow, Gorbachev's apparent willingness to accept even the idea of Baltic freedom further antagonized the hard-liners and set in motion the chain of events that led to last week's coup d'etat...
...established by Mikhail Gorbachev was not the kind that soldiers were accustomed to living with. Pulled out of Afghanistan, shown the door in Eastern Europe, beset by shrinking defense outlays, low pay and ethnic tensions, the army smarted under the changes sweeping the U.S.S.R. For the plotters of the coup, such discontent seemed to make the military a logical -- if reluctant -- ally. Its armed might made it an essential...