In response, Bush hailed “the gigantic task” before Gorbachev, declaring it “a stunning, breathtaking drama,” about which “we are holding our breath as we watch it unfold, and we wish you luck.” Carlos went even further, stating that without the Union, “there will be no important pillar of stability in Europe and in the world,” leaving “a dangerous vacuum.”
As it was, on December 8, Yeltsin phoned the White House to inform his US counterpart of an “extraordinary” development – he, along with the leaders of Belarus and Ukraine, had signed a joint agreement just minutes earlier to break away decisively and finally from the USSR. In laying out the terms of their independence, he stressed that Gorbachev as yet “does not know these results.” An extremely reserved – and no doubt mortified – Bush largely responded monosyllabically to the Russian’s assorted seismic disclosures.
These documents give rise to an enormous number of ‘what if’ scenarios regarding how differently the subsequent three decades would’ve played out, and what the state of Western relations with Moscow would be today, if Gorbachev’s aspirations had come to fruition. However, such speculation is rather moot, for meddling within the Soviet sphere by US intelligence front the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) ever since its launch in 1983 made the USSR’s collapse a fait accompli.
In September 1991, the Washington Post hailed a new era of “spyless coups ” and “overt operations,” in which a number of US government initiatives “have been doing in public what the CIA used to do in private.” The NED was said to be the “sugar daddy” in this wider push, “providing money and moral support for pro-democracy groups, training resistance fighters, working to subvert communist rule.”
It documented at length how the organization’s “overt operatives” were active inside the Soviet Union and had been to date “immensely successful,” for example funding trade unions, the liberal “Interregional Group” in the Congress of Peoples Deputies, an activist foundation, and the Ukrainian independence Rukh, among “many other projects.” Rukh’s campainging was instrumental to the holding of a referendum in December that year, in which 92.3% voted to leave the USSR.
Central to these destabilizing efforts was NED grandee Allen Weinstein, who the Post anointed “the dean of the new overt operatives,” engaged in “global meddling” on a grand scale. His work in the country dated back to 1980, “when he joined Soviet dissidents in organizing a citizens’ committee to monitor the Helsinki Accords on Human Rights.” Quickly becoming connected with a “network of pro-democracy activists” in the region, “soon he was sponsoring conferences for dissidents, arranging visits for them to the US and otherwise making trouble.”
Tantalizingly, the outlet records how Yeltsin and his aides were “drawn into this transatlantic hospitality suite,” attending several conferences arranged by Weinstein, “including one on environmental problems held in Moscow in early August.” Mere days later, the hardliners launched their ill-fated putsch, so “naturally enough” the President’s coterie “began sending faxes to their friend, Weinstein,” apprising him of the Red Army tanks flooding the Russian capital, and “trying to rally support for their resistance.”
Their relationship allowed Yeltsin to contact Bush directly – a call to which The Post referred as “arguably the most sensitive and delicate in the history of the Cold War” – and prompt him to publicize what was erupting in a televised address. The President lambasted the coup as a “misguided and illegitimate effort,” and froze US aid to the Soviet Union until it was reversed.
It’s eminently arguable that this dealt a lethal blow to the plotters’ intentions, greatly emboldening Yeltsin, “the Kremlin rebel who was seeking to dismantle the Soviet empire and destroy the Communist Party,” and making his ascendance – along with the USSR’s resultant “irreversible disintegration” – all but inevitable. One can only wonder whether Bush had any idea that his intervention would help to bring about precisely what he and his administration so feared, and had determinedly battled against for so long.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
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