Word: kryuchkov
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...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...
...When Kryuchkov and Yazov arrived at his dacha, Gorbachev refused to see them; he demanded that they be arrested (Lukyanov was not arrested but was suspended from his job pending an investigation). Rutskoi and his gun-toting party, who got to the dacha shortly after, were delighted to do that job. They frisked both Kryuchkov and Yazov; Kryuchkov offered no resistance, but the Defense Minister grumbled (neither was armed). Even then Rutskoi and his companions were worried that other plotters might try something. "We told the airport to prepare two planes to mislead the scoundrels," Rutskoi later said on Soviet...
Gorbachev too was shaken by how narrowly disaster had been averted. For the second time, he had taken the advice of Pugo, Kryuchkov and the hard-liners -- and for the second time he had seen that their methods would have led only to blood in the streets...
...response from what used to be the most dreaded organization in the Soviet Union. Nothing. In the coup's aftermath, the KGB -- it calls itself the Sword and Shield of the Communist Party -- showed itself to be as divided and traumatized by the actions of its disgraced chief, Vladimir Kryuchkov, as was another pillar of power, the army. Once the plot had unraveled, the agency released a statement declaring that "KGB servicemen have nothing in common with illegal actions by the group of adventurists." After a bewildering two-day shuffle of leaders, Vadim Bakatin, a liberal who was Gorbachev...
Glasnost came to the KGB under Kryuchkov, who took over as a Gorbachev appointee in late 1988 with the promise of greater openness regarding agency affairs and cooperation with Western intelligence agencies in such areas as drug trafficking and terrorism. But as the winds of glasnost blew more strongly, the top echelons of the organization grew nervous. The Old Guard complained that secret files were being opened and covert methods exposed. Kryuchkov reacted harshly when dissident KGB officers sounded off in the press about agency meddling in ethnic conflicts or floated proposals to deprive the KGB of its special troops...