I sensed that something was up. But what? I called the commando quarters and told the officer of the day to summon the unit commander B.P. Beskov and to gather the groups. Then I called Zhardetskii.
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“What’s going on, where will the groups be used?”
“I don’t know myself. We just sent thirty-five agents to the Baltic states. Maybe there?”
We agreed to keep in touch and inform each other if we got definite information. Things are bad. Something is going on but there has been no disturbing news from the Baltics lately, and what does military counterintelligence have to do with it? Boris Petrovich Beskov calls. He’s at his post and is executing the order.
“Where to?” he asks.
“Don’t know yet. Get the men ready.”
“What’s the equipment?”
“Don’t know, will inform you later.”
At 1800 hours, or a little later, there is a call from the officer of the day at KGB headquarters: the chairman is calling a meeting in his office at 2230. This has got to be something worse than the Baltics. Has the military cooked up something? There is no one to consult. Vadim Alekseevich Kirpichenko [First Deputy of the KGB Foreign Intelligence Department], a dependable man, has just returned from vacation and won’t be at work for three days. He is not at the dacha. An hour goes by. The phone rings again: the meeting has been cancelled. But the call-up is still on. At 2100 Beskov reports that the hundred men are ready, and I relay it by telephone to Grushko. But what should their equipment be?
“What sort of equipment have they got?” asks Grushko.
“They have civilian clothing, dark-colored jumpsuits, and camouflage fatigues of the border guards.”
“The chairman is not at his desk. I’ll find out and get back to you.”
Around 2200 I call Zhardetskii. He knows nothing new; there have been no instructions. His voice is full of alarm. I call Beskov and ask permission to give the men a rest and be ready the next morning. I also inform Zhardetskii and go to bed.
At 0130 Zhardetskii calls.
“Grushko has denied permission to let the men disperse and asked that they be in a state of readiness by morning.”
“What’s up? Where is the unit to be deployed?”
“Possibly in Moscow. But don’t give me away. You and I have not had this conversation.”
Leonid Shebarshin, Three Days in August
321
“O.K.” I fall asleep without calling Beskov and have the craziest dreams all night. I’m up at 0635 to walk the dog and turn on the radio: “The State Committee on Extraordinary Affairs . . . announces . . .” Something very ominous is happening. The list of the committee members suggests that it is not a military show. The phone rings. It’s Ageev.
“Are the units ready?”
“They ought to be ready.”
“Send them to the Central Club immediately. And send an additional hundred men to the same place.”
“What’s the equipment and weapons?”
“Have them take everything they’ve got.”
The officer of the day calls: a meeting in the chairman’s office at 0930. If the early morning begins with telephone calls, nothing good can be expected. A thought flashes by: my normal life is over.
I direct the communications people to tape everything that the State Committee on Extraordinary Affairs (SCEA) broadcasts and leave Iasenevo [a southern suburb of Moscow] for Lubianka Square [KGB headquarters]. As always on Monday mornings the streets are full of cars. People are coming back from their weekends. There are lines at the bus stops; it’s rush hour. The center-city is calm. There’s the usual crowd by Children’s World [a department store across the square from KGB headquarters]. No signs of any “Extraordinary Affair.”
Familiar faces greet me outside the chairman’s office: members of the Collegium, heads of directorates. Everybody seems dejected; there is no conversation, no smiles. Kriuchkov starts the meeting without any preliminaries. No one knows what is going on. Out of habit I take brief notes. I try to summarize what Kriuchkov is saying in a single sentence and come up with: “A state of emergency has been proclaimed with the goal of helping to bring in the harvest.” Kriuchkov is very excited and speaks in fits and starts. He concludes by saying approximately the following: “Keep working!” He does not take questions. Plekhanov, the chief of security, pops in. He looks completely crushed. Could it be that he is concerned about the health of the president? He is sick after all. Kriuchkov makes a rallying hand gesture in Plekhanov’s direction, something as: “It’s O.K., it’s O.K. Don’t worry, everything will be fine.” We depart with our heads hanging, exchanging not opinions but mindless curses muttered under our breath.
An inner voice tells me that it is best to keep away from Lubianka, not to get trapped in some unpredictable assignment. Headquarters is always full of people who are eager to use others as a cat’s paw. I am on my way back to Iasenevo. The streets are filled with armored columns. Occasionally there are
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stalled vehicles with soldiers fussing around them. The air is full of diesel exhaust as in the bad times in Kabul. The columns move without hurry and seem endless. To everyone’s surprise they stop at red traffic lights. Clearly something’s off.
Is Kriuchkov off on a risky venture? What’s wrong with the president? Stroke? Heart attack? Can’t figure out a damn thing. Along with the statements of the State Committee on Extraordinary Affairs they are reading Lukianov’s letter concerning the agreement on union. In spirit he is with the SCEA but he is not its member. Where are the countless committees of the Supreme Soviet, where is the mountain, the great pyramid of law-giving authority?
The TV runs stupid cartoons and the radio broadcasts mindless stuff. We have the technical capacity to receive the American news network, CNN. It is an insane situation: we get news about the capital city of our native land from American sources, from various news services, from private telephone calls. No one knows anything. Kriuchkov is always at meetings. It is pointless to ask Grushko about anything, and who would want to.
According to CNN, crowds are starting to gather at Manezh Square [adjacent to the Kremlin] and at the White House [seat of the Russian Federation] on the Krasnaia Presnia Embankment. Telephone calls substantiate this.
Time ticks away but there are no instructions and no information. I ask that copies of the SCEA statements be sent to all stations abroad as well as an order to report on the local reactions to the events in Moscow. The reactions come swiftly—they are acutely negative everywhere except for Iraq. Iraq hails the events. I authorize the telegrams to be sent to Kriuchkov, but on his orders some are diverted to members of the SCEA. Let them read, it won’t hearten them; perhaps it will give them pause.