Then I opened my kitchen curtains and made a show of washing out several shirts and a pair of trousers. I hung them prominently on the clothesline of my balcony. Any man planning a desperate action would not take the time to wash and hang up laundry. At least I hoped that was the impression I gave to any unseen watchers.
I carried two heavy boxes of my best aeronautical engineering textbooks and expensive international aircraft almanacs to the duty-alert dayroom that afternoon and told the officers they could help themselves.
“I won’t need these on ground duty,” I explained.
I had signed each of the books: “To my friends and acquaintances with the best of luck for the future.”
Even Dovbnya, the shit-eating zampolit, thought this was a magnanimous gesture.
Before leaving the building, I upbraided the sergeant of the guard for the filthy condition of the troops’ kitchen, bunk room, and latrine. “I want these areas scrubbed and painted,” I ordered. “No damned excuses.”
He began to complain that the men were already short of sleep from the extra patrols and that this duty would exhaust them. This was exactly my intention.
“No damned excuses, Sergeant,” I said in my best parade-ground voice.
That afternoon at sunset, I again climbed the green slope of Dzveli Senaki outside of town. I wanted to be alone on this peaceful mountain to gather my thoughts for the day and night ahead. Again, bells sounded in the cool afternoon. Without thinking, I had stopped before the walls of the church. I entered the courtyard. An old babushka with a twig broom smiled from the doorway. I asked if the priest was there.
He came out brushing dust from his cassock, as if he’d been helping the old woman clean the vestry. The priest was an elderly man with soft, intelligent eyes. Like most Georgians these days, he viewed me cautiously.
I had never spoken to a priest before and was clumsy when I asked him for a “blessing.”
“Why?” he asked, a practical Georgian beneath his cassock and beard.
“I need it, Father.”
He still eyed me warily. “Is it for good or for evil?”
“For good, Father. I’m a Soviet officer,” I said quietly. “I am very sorry for what happened in Tbilisi.”
The priest solemnly studied my face for any hint of mockery. “We are planning a memorial to mark the fortieth day since the massacre,” he told me. “Perhaps you can join us.”
I had other plans to mark that grim occasion. But I could not reveal them. “Perhaps, Father.”
His eyes softened and he nodded with understanding. Then he raised his right hand with the first two fingers extended and made the sign of the cross near my face. He spoke clearly in Georgian, and I understood the word “Kristos.”
Warm calm seemed to flood physically through my body. I was ready.
The weather turned suddenly bad that night. By midnight a rainy gale howled across the base. Then conditions grew worse, with an even lower ceiling and high wind. Antonovich suspended flying for the next day. I called the meteorological office and learned a sudden front had spilled across the Caucasus. We could expect below minimum conditions for the next twelve hours. Flying through the mountain passes in this weather was impossible. Reluctantly I readjusted my schedule. I would make the attempt at dawn on Saturday, May 20.
Late that night I pulled my kitchen curtain and sat before my tape recorder. It was time for me to explain my decision to my family, my colleagues, and the people of my country. I knew the KGB would search this apartment, and wanted them to know exactly why I had taken this drastic step. Investigators at many different echelons would hear this tape, and I hoped reformers in both the Air Force and the KGB would unofficially spread news of my message. I also wanted to make it clear that I had acted alone.
I clicked on the machine and spoke, addressing my words to “the people of Russia and the country called the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.”
I began by stating that many would wonder why a veteran Soviet fighter pilot, “ready to give his life for his country and the ideals of Marxism-Leninism,” had taken this drastic step. Then I suggested they ignore whatever official explanation the authorities gave and to listen to my own version. “I have come to hate Socialism, the system into which I was born and raised.” I explained that I had believed too strongly in that system, but that now all I felt for it was “hatred and contempt.” But I did feel pity and compassion for all those still suffering under this totalitarian system that had already massacred millions of innocent people and was obviously intent on continuing the slaughter. “Communism has created the greatest prison in the world,” I said. And Marxism-Leninism had ruined the country’s economy and enslaved hundreds of millions simply to support a criminal clique that wrapped itself in the protection of the Party.
I spoke about the sad state of the Soviet military, in which young recruits and old veterans alike found release only in suicide. I exposed the hypocrisy of Gorbachev’s “defensive” force reduction.
Then I detailed what I knew of the Tbilisi massacre and the elaborate efforts in the military to suppress the truth. My flight, I said, had been planned for May 19, forty days after that horrible carnage. I spoke directly to the Organs of State Security, the KGB and the MVD, and to the special units under their command.
“Fellows, what are you defending, the people? If so, why do you herd them like cattle to be slaughtered with gas and shovels?” I asked them if they were prepared to become as cruel as Stalin’s butchers.
“Wait before you pull the trigger,” I concluded. “Listen to the voices of the demonstrators. Think before you pull the pin from that gas grenade. The consequences you face are more frightening than ever before in our history.”
I clicked the switch of the tape recorder. The room fell silent.
Then I started the machine for the last time. “My dear mother,” I said, “please forgive me. I have to do this. I have no way out. I love you all.”
As I removed the tape and put away the recorder, I again carefully reviewed all the steps I had taken to protect my family from official retribution after my escape. First, I had kept them completely ignorant of my plans. All my mother knew was that I was trying to obtain a discharge from the Air Force. My family had no idea of the drastic action I was about to take. So they would be absolutely convincing during their inevitable questioning by the KGB. There was nothing I could do to prevent this interrogation, but I was confident that it would not be especially harsh. The record of my movements over the last several months was clear; I had spent very little time with my family, so they were obviously not coconspirators.
More to the point, the days of the KGB’s ruthless Stalinist methods were over forever. With glasnost, the Organs of State Security could no longer simply dispatch their Black Raven vans in the night to haul innocent people away to the gulag. The independent press, especially the popular investigative magazine Argumenti i Facti, which had supported the work of the Memorial organization so effectively, would be certain to publicize any illegal retribution against my family.
And I was also confident that the United States government would intervene on their behalf. Gorbachev desperately needed the support of the West. He simply could not afford to reveal a Stalinist side to his government, especially after the Tbilisi massacre. And, once I was safely in American custody, my first priority would be to appeal for my family’s protection, and, if possible, for their emigration to the West. So, as I carefully planned for the most dangerous and difficult military operation of my life, my family’s welfare was one problem I felt certain would be successfully resolved.