Moscow, December 25, 1991

by Conor O'Clery

  Palazchenko is painfully aware that he is translating the last formal consultation between the two presidents, for whom he has interpreted many times. He cannot help wondering what is going through their minds. “Was Gorbachev perhaps thinking that Bush could have done more for him? Was Bush trying to rationalize some of his decisions?” Was the American president concluding that he has “done his best” but that things in Russia are “beyond his control”?[155]

  Speaking as if he still has influence over events, Gorbachev tells the U.S. president, “The debate on our [new] union [treaty], on what kind of state to create, took a different tack from what I thought right. But let me say that I will use my political authority and role to make sure that this new commonwealth will be effective.”

  It is important to promote cooperation rather than disintegration and destruction, Gorbachev adds. “That is our common responsibility. I emphasize this point.”

  Knowing of Bush’s concern about the security of the USSR’s nuclear arsenal, Gorbachev promises him that he will ensure the safe transfer of the nuclear suitcase to the president of the Russian Republic this evening, immediately after he has left office.

  “I am pleased that already at Alma-Ata the leaders of the Commonwealth worked out important and strategic agreements…. I attach great importance to the fact that this aspect is under effective control. I’ve signed a decree on this issue that will come into effect immediately after my final statement. You may therefore feel at your ease as you celebrate Christmas, and sleep quietly tonight.”

  Unable to bring himself to mention Yeltsin by name, Gorbachev promises to support the new administration in Moscow. “But watch out for Russia,” he says. “They will zig and zag. It won’t all be straightforward.” As for himself, “I do not intend to hide in the taiga. I will be active in political life. My main intention is to help all the processes here, begun by perestroika and new thinking in world affairs.”

  Glancing at the ABC crew, he adds “Your people, the media here, have been asking me about my personal relationship with you. I want you to know at this historic time that I value greatly our cooperation together, our partnership and friendship. Our roles may change, but I want you to know that what we have developed together will not change. Raisa and I send to you and Barbara our best wishes.”

  Bush reassures Gorbachev that their friendship is as strong as ever, “no question about that.” He lavishes praise on his Kremlin counterpart. “What you have done will go down in history, and future historians will give you full credit for your accomplishments.”

  He is also delighted to hear that his friend does not plan to “hide in the woods” and will stay involved politically and publicly. “I am totally confident that will benefit the new commonwealth.”

  The American president recalls a visit Gorbachev made to Camp David the previous year and how to everyone’s amazement the Soviet leader tossed a ringer at his first try at the horseshoe pit where the president played one of his favorite games. Bush had presented Gorbachev with a horseshoe as a keepsake, and Gorbachev had given him in turn a map of U.S. military bases compiled by the KGB.

  “You have found me up at Camp David once again,” he says. “We’re here with Barbara and with three of our children’s families…. The horseshoe pit where you threw that ringer is still in good shape…. I hope that our paths will cross again soon. You will be most welcome here. And indeed I would value your counsel after you have had a little time to sort things out. And perhaps we could do it right back up here at Camp David.”

  Out of deference to Gorbachev, Bush also avoids mentioning the Russian president by name. He indicates that the White House’s relationship with Yeltsin will be cautious but not quite as friendly. “I will of course deal with respect—openly, forcefully and hopefully progressively—with the leader of the Russian republic and the leaders of these other republics… but none of that will interfere with my desire to stay in touch with you, to welcome suggestions from you as you assume whatever your new duties will be, and furthermore to keep intact the friendship that Barbara and I value very, very much.

  “And so at this special time of year and at this historic time, we salute you and thank you for what you have done for world peace. Thank you very much.”

  “Thank you, George,” replies Gorbachev, his hazel eyes growing misty. “I am glad to hear all of this today. I am saying good-bye and shaking your hands.”

  Bush is deeply affected by the exchanges and the expressions of endearment. He senses that Gorbachev is drained of energy and uncertain about the future of the country he loves. He is taken aback later, when watching an account of the last day on ABC television news, to learn that his exchanges with Gorbachev were picked up by the camera crew. Normally conversations between himself and Gorbachev are private, overheard only by the interpreters and stenographers. “I could hear Bush clearly,” recalled Koppel. “It was one of those truly bizarre moments. Bush did not know I was listening and recording.”

  After putting down the phone at Camp David and ending the telephone connection with Moscow, the U.S. president switches on a little tape recorder in which he sometimes confides his private thoughts after encounters with world figures. Gorbachev’s “was the voice of a good friend,” he murmurs into the machine. “It was the voice of a man to whom history will give enormous credit. There was something very moving about this phone call…. I don’t want to get too maudlin or too emotional, but I literally felt like I was caught up in real history with a phone call like this. It was something important. Some enormous turning point.” Before switching off the recorder, he adds, “God we’re lucky in this country! We have so many blessings.”

  Anatoly Chernyaev feels that the ending of the Gorbachev-Bush tandem is an enormous loss to the world and that it is “ridiculous, provincial and unworthy of Russia to ignore Gorbachev’s contribution.” After the call he wonders if the rest of the world knows better Gorbachev’s contribution to the advance of civilization than the Russians themselves. “There has been an unwavering, genuine respect [abroad] for Gorbachev and gratitude for what he did. This is simply a matter of historical fact, and his epoch stands out as one of the most remarkable of the centuries.”

  Andrey Grachev too has mixed feelings. He ponders how George Bush and James Baker wasted valuable time after coming to office in 1988 before engaging Gorbachev, and he convinces himself that they must share some of the blame for what is happening. “To Gorbachev the value of historic time was different. The balloon was losing air, approaching the earth. While the drama in the Soviet Union was Shakespearean, Baker’s reaction was methodical, calculated in America’s interest.”

  Gorbachev takes one more international call—his last as president—from Hans-Dietrich Genscher, foreign minister and vice chancellor of Germany. Genscher wishes him well, a gesture that pleases Gorbachev, as their relationship had become frosty over what he thought was Genscher’s shabby treatment of him on a visit to Moscow in the autumn.

  As Koppel begins another taped interview with Gorbachev for his documentary, Yegor Yakovlev asks Palazchenko in a whisper what the interpreter will do for a job, now that Gorbachev is resigning. Palazchenko tells Yakovlev that he hasn’t figured anything out yet. He has been offered employment in the Russian foreign ministry, but when Chernyaev had asked him if he had accepted, he had replied indignantly, “You can’t think I would do anything other than leave government.” He mutters to Yakovlev, “I know I just can’t go over to work for the new boss, like the staff of the Kremlin cafeteria.”

  “That is my problem too,” confesses the Russian television chief, who seems to Palazchenko to be on the verge of tears.[156]

  At that moment Gorbachev looks over and notices how distressed Yegor Yakovlev is. Finishing his remarks to the ABC camera, he comes to commiserate with his old friend, like a bereaved person who finds the strength to comfort someone grieving on his behalf. “Well, Yegor, keep your chin up,” says the soon to be ex-president. “Everything is only j
ust beginning.”

  As the weak winter sunshine fades and the lights start coming on in the Russian White House on the other side of the city center, Boris Yeltsin decides that the time has come for him to talk to the world on television, to display his responsibility and statesmanship, before Gorbachev gives his farewell speech. He instructs his information minister Mikhail Poltoranin to call CNN and tell them the moment has arrived.

  The CNN television crew come hurrying from their office in Building 7/4 on Kutuzovsky Prospekt, just across Novo-Arbatsky Bridge from the White House.[157] They are immediately let through security at the entrance and admitted to an ornate marble-walled banquet room.

  Yeltsin has chosen this grand auditorium with massive chandeliers and large tapestries portraying pastoral scenes as an imposing backdrop for the big occasion. The crew arrange camera, lights, and chairs. They get a two-minute warning that Yeltsin is on his way.

  For CNN this is an outstanding triumph, getting exclusive access on the last day of the Soviet Union to the president of Russia. The transition of power in the Soviet Union is the most important world story since the Gulf War ten months back, when the network scored a spectacular success with its coverage of the bombing of Baghdad. The Atlanta-based outfit has not only secured the sole television interview with Boris Yeltsin on his day of triumph. It has also acquired exclusive rights to broadcast live Gorbachev’s farewell speech to the globe from the Kremlin later in the evening. Ted Koppel and Rick Kaplan of ABC are already in the Kremlin but have nothing like the personnel and equipment needed for such a major television operation.

  Founded by Ted Turner in Atlanta in 1980 as the world’s first round-theclock television news service, CNN invested heavily in the Soviet Union during its first decade. It located one of its pioneer foreign bureaus in the Russian capital. Turner brought the Goodwill Games to Moscow in 1986 to encourage competition between U.S. and Soviet athletes, after the United States boycotted the 1980 Olympic Games over the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan. On a trip to Russia during the early days of Gorbachev’s reforms, the CNN founder was so impressed by the new Communist Party general secretary that he suggested to a bewildered Soviet official that he should be made an honorary member of the party. The official politely demurred and offered him instead membership in the Soviet Union of Journalists, which Turner in turn declined, citing his distaste for trade unions of any kind.

  In 1989 CNN became the first non-Soviet broadcaster to be allowed to beam its news programs into Moscow. Initially it was only available in the exclusive Savoy Hotel for viewing by foreign guests, but amateur Russian engineers found they could rig up an aerial to get the network’s signal on their home television screens. In the days before the internet and the mobile phone, this had a considerable impact on how Russians saw events in their own country, and made censorship of news almost impossible.

  They almost missed out on the drama of the last day of the Soviet Union. Only when CNN executives got wind that ABC’s Ted Koppel had secured unique access to the Kremlin to film Gorbachev’s last days were they jolted into action. In Atlanta CNN president Tom Johnson decided to throw all the station’s resources into battle with its rival. A former publisher of the Los Angeles Times, Johnson took over the CNN presidency the previous year and established a reputation for being ferociously competitive. He set out for Moscow on December 18, taking with him Stuart (Stu) Loory, a former CNN Moscow bureau chief who could speak Russian, to lobby for the first interview with Boris Yeltsin as the new leader of Russia and the final interview with Gorbachev as leader of the USSR, though they were not even absolutely sure a transition would happen.

  Johnson called on the Russian information minister to make his case for the Yeltsin interview. He cited to Poltoranin their exclusive coverage from Baghdad and showed the information minister the latest color global satellite distribution map, emphasizing that no other news organization on the planet could reach as many nations. Poltoranin snapped, “I know that!” Taken aback, Johnson proposed that they would link the interview with Yeltsin to Russian television to ensure it got shown across the country. “The entire spirit of the talks became very friendly after that,” he recalled. Johnson was brought to meet Yeltsin, who agreed to an exclusive interview on the day, though precisely when that would be Yeltsin could not tell him. He gave the Russian president a copy of Seven Days That Shook the World, a CNN book on the failed August coup.

  It helped that CNN was a known quantity in Moscow, explained bureau chief Steve Hurst. “We were in the offices of serious players day and night.”

  The company started bringing people to Moscow from all over the world. Charlie Caudill, senior CNN producer in charge of live coverage, flew in from Atlanta to head the biggest crew ever assembled for a single foreign television event up to that time. The group of seventy-five included executives, producers, directors, interviewers, camera operators, sound operators, managers, and interpreters. Unit manager Frida Ghitis arrived in Moscow to find that the bureau staff had already spent weeks “begging for interviews from Yeltsin and Gorbachev” and strategically placing boxes of chocolate and bottles of whiskey in the hands of their aides. “There was great pressure to beat the competition,” she remembered, “and Koppel’s name came up with some frequency.”

  The large CNN team then wait for the day of Gorbachev’s resignation. “We were nervous that Gorbachev would resign ahead of schedule or that other networks would outflank us,” said Loory. On the afternoon of December 24 there is a false alarm. Everyone swings into action. “So now we are rolling to the Kremlin with five or six trucks with cameras and equipment,” recalled Caudill. “The lights were out at the Kremlin. Tom hands his business card to the guard at the gate. The guard has no idea what is going on.” In fact nothing is happening, and the convoy of CNN vehicles and thirty-four staff turns round and goes back the way it came. With everyone far from home, Johnson decides to host a Christmas Eve party in the hotel. He asks Frida Ghitis to find him a Santa Claus hat. A Russian helper is unable to find the right material in the stores. Even the seamstresses at the Bolshoi Theater and the Moscow Circus cannot help. Ghitis spots a picture in a newspaper of a Norwegian Santa Claus delivering presents to children in a Moscow orphanage. “In the end we bought the hat from the Norwegian Mister Claus,” she said. “The party of course was a bust, in spite of Johnson’s lovely hat and matching white beard. Just as it got under way we learned that everything would happen next day, and everyone was much too busy preparing for the two interviews.”

  Now that the interview with Yeltsin is about to take place, Charlie Caudill is checking with Russian officials that all the arrangements in the White House are in place and that the simultaneous translation will work smoothly. He asks Yeltsin’s aide which ear he would prefer for the earpiece. The aide replies, “He’s deaf in one ear.” “Which ear?” “I don’t know.” “Ask him!” “No, I will not ask the president of Russia which ear!” Caudill turns to the CNN technician, who can speak Russian, “When Yeltsin sits down, whisper in his ear, ‘Nice to meet you.’ If he smiles, it is the correct ear.”

  The moment arrives. Escorted by Johnson, Yeltsin makes a majestic appearance, slowly descending a wide carpeted staircase, immaculate in suit and shiny black shoes, his mane of silver hair perfectly in place, showing no sign that he “sweats buckets” before going on television.[158] He parades along a red runner on the polished parquet floor to where three upholstered drawing room chairs with gold brocade are arranged for Steve Hurst and Claire Shipman to conduct the interview. The technician murmurs a greeting as Yeltsin sits and the earpiece is fitted on his left side. He smiles. They have guessed the correct ear. The Russian president lost the hearing on his right side as a result of untreated otitis, an inflammation of the inner ear, when he was a youth.

  Johnson, who once worked for President Lyndon B. Johnson, is struck by how much Yeltsin resembles his former boss in that he is “very strong, powerful, forceful, a real giant of a man.” Shipman find
s the Russian president in ebullient form. “He was on his game, really in his prime, very aware of his power and incredibly confident, but not crowing in an obvious way. He had a gleam in his eye, and a mischievous look. I felt he was impatient to get there.” Hurst remembers Yeltsin as being “very excited, very much on edge, not at all sure of what would happen next.”

  Yeltsin uses the interview to reassure viewers abroad that the breakup of the Soviet Union does not mean nuclear weapons falling into the wrong hands. He urges the world not to worry about it. There will not be a single second after Gorbachev makes his resignation announcement that the nuclear codes will go astray, he says. “We will do all we can to prevent the nuclear button from being used—ever.”

  He professes empathy with his defeated rival. “Today is a difficult day for Mikhail Sergeyevich,” he says graciously, when asked what mistakes Gorbachev made. “Because I have a lot of respect for him personally and we are trying to be civilized people and we are trying to make it into a civilized state today, I don’t want to focus on those mistakes.”

  Instead he scolds the international community for not extending more aid to Russia in its hour of need. “There has been a lot of talk, but there has been no specific assistance,” he says. Perhaps this is because willing nations do not know to what postal address they should send humanitarian assistance. “Now everything is clear, and the addressees are known.” Living standards will decline for at least another year, he warns, and the world must help Russia to shed its “nightmarish totalitarian inheritance.”

  Yeltsin chides U.S. secretary of state James Baker for waiting until he left Russia after a fact-finding visit the previous week to express pessimism about the survival chances of the Commonwealth of Independent States, which will replace the Soviet Union, though everyone, including the Russian president, knows the CIS is little more than a fig leaf for the divorce.