JRL #6428

Plain Text - Entire Issue

From: Alexander Domrin (domrin@pc-club.ru) Subject: An excerpt from Iona Andronov's book "My War" Date: Mon, 9 Sep 2002 On the eve of the 9th anniversary of Yeltin's bloody coup, I'd like to offer to the JRL readers an excerpt from a book "My War" by Iona Andronov, the last Chairman of the Russian Supreme Soviet's Committee on Foreign Affairs and Foreign Economic Relations. The excerpt takes us back to what was correctly described by the late Dev Murarka as a "a defining episode in contemporary Russian politics" - the brutal suppression of the first democratic parliament of Russia by President Yeltsin in September-October 1993. Among other things, the excerpt gives the details of Andronov's nighttime visits to the U.S. Embassy on October 3-4, 1993, and attempts of the Russian Supreme Soviet leadership to prevent bloodshed in Moscow. That would be a major understatement to say that Yeltsin's Decree #1400 of September 21, 1993, was a "shock" to many of us in Russia. Sergey Karaganov, head of influential Council for Foreign and Defence Policy and hardly a "red-brown", later admitted that he fell down in a faint (in his words, for the first time in his life) when he heard Yeltsin reading his notorious decree on the Russian TV. I hope David Johnson won't mind if I repeat what he said in an introduction to my old piece "President Yeltsin vs. the First Russian Parliament: Forgotten Lessons?": "Western journalists, Western academics, and Western government officials (with rare exception) all contributed to the undermining of democratic institutions and practices as they encouraged Yeltsin's authoritarian tendencies and the adoption of policies that had little public support. We, and Russia, continue to live with the consequences of that crucial period" (JRL, 1 May 1997). Andronov's book is available in the State Duma's bookstore and several other places in Moscow. Alexander Domrin, Doctor of Juridical Science (SJD, University of Pennsylvania Law School), Senior Associate and Head of International Programs, Institute of Legislation and Comparative Law (under the RF Government) --------- Iona Andronov. MY WAR. Chapter XV. Yanks and Tanks Mark Zlotnick was the last official emissary from Washington to visit us at the parliamentary White House, and he carried out his special mission with rare audacity. An elegant gentleman in his fifties, with a distinguished streak of gray hair, he visited me on September 22, 1993, a day after the Kremlin putsch, accompanied by two diplomats from the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. These attendants served to underscore his high rank. I was most intrigued by the guest's calling card, which read: "National Intelligence Council-The United States of America." No spy had ever introduced himself to me so directly. This prominent operative, however, dispensed with the usual charades and informed me that he had flown in from Washington specifically to ascertain the Russian Parliament's ability to resist Boris Yeltsin. His questions were very direct: "How long would you be able to withstand a militarized blockade of the Parliament?" "As long as humanly possible." "How many guards do you have here?" "Their number is unknown to me." "What kind of weapons do they carry?" "I don't know." I laughed. "But even if I did, I wouldn't tell you." The American visitor flashed a phoney smile. I responded in kind. During my 11 years as a journalist in the U.S. I came to know well the standard-issue smile of the business Yankees. The guest, acknowledging a draw on the smile front, changed the subject: "Mr. Andronov, should your side prevail in this struggle, what would that portend for U.S.-Russian relations?" "U.S.-Russian relations would be good and stable." "Really?" "Yes. That's because the relations would be put on an equal footing. We in the Parliament are not anti-American. Would you like to hear it from a politician far more authoritative than myself?" "With pleasure. But who would that be?" "Should I ask Speaker of Parliament Ruslan Khasbulatov to meet you?" "Excellent." On that day the White House telephones were still working, so I called Khasbulatov's office and asked the Speaker to receive a guest from Washington, accompanied by the Embassy escort. Soon came the answer: the Speaker would see the delegation in 15 minutes. Upon hearing this, one of the American diplomats stirred: "No press, no TV cameras!" "As you wish." Despite this assurance, the diplomat was clearly nervous: "Could we call our Embassy from here?" "Of course." He spoke to the U.S. Embassy; five minutes later they called back and asked to speak to their diplomat. Afterwards he made the gloomy announcement: "Our Ambassador, Mr. Pickering, strongly recommends we not meet the Chairman of the Russian Parliament. Please accept our profound apologies for any inconvenience." After a short pause the Americans resumed their polite smiling, and soon they left my parliamentary office at the Committee on International Affairs. There were no more foreign diplomats at the White House after that. It was clear my visitors were diplomats in name only, and the delegation was led by an experienced spy. They were interested in a single question: how soon will our resistance to the coup d'etat weaken? .... The U.S. government's complicity in the crushing of the Russian Parliament is still a top secret in Washington. This bloody, shameful affair is just as evil as the American assistance provided to General Pinochet when he carried out a putsch in Chile, bombing and burning the Presidential Palace in Santiago, executing hundreds of his opponents, deposing the duly elected President Salvador Aliende. Washington's support for the Kremlin's Pinochet revealed once and for all the hypocrisy of American declarations in favor of universal parliamentary democracy and citizen's rights guaranteed by the Constitution. I still have the old issues of the Washington Post and the New York Times from October 1993, when the reports from Moscow on the siege and the storming of our White House filled the front pages. This pogrom is presented as a great triumph of democracy. The supporters of the Parliament are characterized as a "gang of rebels," while Yeltsin is referred to as "the man who saved Russia from the supporters of the Soviet regime." Later on, the praise lavished on Yeltsin in the U.S. grew fainter, yet he is still revered there for brutally suppressing the power of the Soviet, for dismembering the hated rival superpower, for dismantling its strong army and defense industry, for restoring capitalism in Russia, and for forcing his weakened country into a dependent relationship with the West. That is why to this day no historical account of the meddling by Yeltsin's Washington accomplices during the tragic autumn days of 1993 has been published in the United States. Yet it is possible now to compile a chronology of the U.S.-Kremlin conspiracy against the Russian Parliament, although it would necessarily be incomplete. Two weeks prior to the putsch, Yeltsin sent his Foreign Affairs Minister Andrei Kozyrev to Washington with a secret mission: to inform the U.S. government of the coming suppression of the highest legislative organ in Russia. Kozyrev so informed Secretary of State Warren Christopher on September 13. Christopher was not surprised. On September 2 he and President Bill Clinton had received a coded message from the CIA station in Moscow, detailing Yeltsin's preparations for the anti-constitutional coup. Later on, during the coup itself, the New York Times would acknowledge, "Clinton Administration officials blessed Mr. Yeltsin's dissolution of the Parliament." (New York Times, Oct. 4, 1993, p. A11.) Three months later, professor Stephen Cohen, a specialist in the Russian history, commented: "I'm sure that in September 1993, our leaders knew in advance what was about to transpire in Moscow. The U.S. supported and, quite possibly, encouraged Yeltsin's extremist policy. I consider the U.S. government responsible for Yeltsin's extremism." On September 21, prior to broadcasting his dictatorial ukase on TV, Yeltsin dispatched the text of this decree to U.S. Ambassador Thomas Pickering. The Russian President also instructed his aides to keep the Ambassador informed of subsequent actions against the defenders of the Parliament. Pickering immediately informed Clinton of the developments, and the U.S. President telephoned Yeltsin without delay to express his assent. That same day Clinton publicly declared his support for Yeltsin's actions. On the fifth day of the coup d'etat, Yeltsin again dispatched Foreign Affairs Minister Kozyrev to the U.S. to get specific approval of his plan for a complete siege of the Moscow White House, including the deployment of armed soldiers and barbed wire around the building. On September 29, Kozyrev received the approbation personally during a meeting with Secretary of State Christopher and President Clinton. Following this encounter, the Russian newspaper Segodnya reported from Washington: "Kozyrev delivered to Clinton a message from Yeltsin. Afterwards, Kozyrev publicly thanked the U.S. President for his support." On October 3, when Yeltsin was ready to storm Parliament, the New York Times revealed a curious aspect of the plan: "The American Embassy in Moscow was serving as the liaison to the Russian Government, with Ambassador Thomas Pickering maintaining contact with Mr. Yeltsin's forces and passing on messages to Washington." (New York Times, Oct. 4, 1993, p. A11.) Early in the morning of October 4, Yeltsin's storm troopers attacked the White House, and in the evening of the same day the New York Times reported: "President Clinton received hourly updates on the fighting in Moscow as he traveled in California on Sunday night. But he felt so confident that Mr. Yeltsin would succeed, aides said, that he went to bed shortly after arriving at his hotel in San Francisco. Aides proclaimed Mr. Clinton 'four-square' behind the Russian president." (New York Times, Oct. 5, 1993, p. A19.) There was one other American diplomat, besides Ambassador Pickering, providing hourly updates on the Moscow bloodletting to President Clinton, special envoy Strobe Talbott. He is an old friend of Bill Clinton's; they studied together. Talbott mastered Russian; his dissertation was on Russian poetry. Later he switched to politics; he worked in the Soviet Union as a reporter for Time magazine and published several books about the country. Under Clinton, Talbott was assigned to lead the Russian Desk at the State Department and to coordinate Washington's policy vis-â-vis the former Soviet Union. He was engaged in this task directly during the assault on the Moscow White House. All day October 3, that night, and the morning of October 4, Talbott was conducting telephone negotiations from Washington with key Yeltsin advisers. They were talking about tanks and machine guns firing at the White House, about slaughtering those who remained in the building. On October 6, after the carnage, Talbott addressed the House Foreign Affairs Committee, relaying a filtered version of his conversations with the Kremlin coup plotters: "Ambassador Pickering and I were in touch with Russian officials during the early hours of Monday morning as the troops began to move in. We were told that President Yeltsin had two options: one, quick and dirty, to rush in like gangbusters with guns blazing; the other, a slow, phased, piecemeal retaking of the building, giving those inside maximum chance to surrender. Even though the loss of life was still substantial, we find it significant and heartening that President Yeltsin opted for number 2." (Statement of Ambassador-at-Large Strobe Talbott to House Foreign Affairs Committee, Oct. 6, 1993.) In exonerating Yeltsin, the Russian President's American admirer also expressed contempt for the hundreds of freshly slaughtered Russians: "The forces of New Russia, personified by President Yeltsin, were committed to democracy, reform, respect for human life, and civic peace." (Ibid.) Five months later, I tried to remind Ambassador Pickering of his partner's words. On March 9, 1994, Ambassador Pickering held a reception for the recipients of American grants and stipends at the House of Scientists in Moscow. During the Ambassador's speech the attendees were invited to submit written questions. I sent my question along, but it was ignored. So I had to approach the podium where Pickering was seated and address the Ambassador in a loud voice: "Mr. Ambassador, could you please tell us about the discussions you had with Kremlin officials regarding the various ways of storming the parliamentary White House on the morning of October 4 of last year? And could you please provide more details then did your colleague Strobe Talbott recently?" Three Americans trying to push me away from their Ambassador instantly surrounded me: "You can't do this!" Washington's freeloaders in attendance were annoyed. Pickering, however, could not pretend to be deaf. He said: "Well, I know who you are. We've met before. I will answer your question: on the morning of October 4 I personally did not discuss any preparations for storming of the Moscow White House with the Russian leadership. I had no such discussions." The Ambassador turned away from me and, having bid farewell to the audience, left the podium, disappearing behind the curtain. The curtains are still drawn over the political stage, where in 1993 a deathly drama played out under the American co-direction. .... On the fourth day after the coup d'etat, the Congress of People's Deputies, sitting in the White House, elected me chairman of the Committee for International Affairs. At the time I knew little of the collusion between the two presidents, Clinton and Yeltsin, against us. I was, however, familiar with the long-term antipathy towards Russia on the part of Washington politicians; I knew of their self-serving alliance with Yeltsin and of their desire to crush his opponents. Twenty days prior to the putsch I had read in the International Herald Tribune a prophesy, which came to pass: "Yeltsin can bring about Parliament's premature death. He will probably have to send in armed men to enforce his will." (International Herald Tribune, Aug. 31, 1993, p. 4.) The majority of our deputies, however, do not read foreign papers, and so they held an illusionary hope that western parliaments would assist the Russian Supreme Soviet. The most naòve among them even proclaimed repeatedly at the rallies, held in front of the White House, that the U.S. Congress and the British House of Commons voted in favor of lifting the blockade imposed by Yeltsin on our Parliament. The crowds earnestly applauded this nonsense. They were demanding that I call on the foreign saviors to come and rescue us. It was impossible to convince the stubborn dreamers that there were no foreign saviors. The Supreme Soviet leadership, including Chairman Ruslan Khasbulatov and his First Deputy Yuri Voronin, were pestering me with questions: "How can we influence the western powers?" Even though the very idea seemed futile to me, I could not reject it by myself for fear of being declared a vicious saboteur. I had to go along with my comrades' self-delusions. Day after day I was composing appeals to western parliamentarians and to the delegates to the United Nations. I did not, however, beg them to come and rescue us, but merely asked for objective observers to be sent to Moscow in order to witness "the violations of the constitutionally guaranteed rights of the Russian citizens," i.e., the beatings administered by the police to the Muscovites in the vicinity of the Parliament building, which was surrounded by soldiers and barbed wire, with water, electricity, heat, and communications cut off. These appeals could only be sent abroad surreptitiously. Each document was smuggled out of the White House by a messenger who had access to some Moscow office outfitted with international communications equipment. It was quite risky to use a fax machine, and so each office could only be used once for this purpose. Besides, the messenger himself could not return to the White House, which was blockaded by troops and police. At the end, only two employees assigned to our parliamentary committee remained with me. Marc Royse, a Canadian journalist who visited the White House during the siege, managed somehow to obtain some Kremlin documents related to the minutiae of the blockade. Here is one of his trophies: Resolution. Moscow, Kremlin. Administration of the President of Russia. September 25, 1993. To immediately investigate former deputy Andronov's use of international fax communications in establishing contacts between the White House and foreign parliaments. To investigate his connections at the Communications Ministry and at Glavkosmos [Russian Space Agency]. As they say, fear has no bounds. The same day as this resolution, on September 25, I was the subject of speculation in the pages of Komsomolskaya Pravda, a newspaper that was at the time obedient to the authors of the resolution: "Deputy Andronov, dreaming of becoming the Foreign Affairs Minister of Russia, is paving his way to the coveted goal." Yeltsin himself later revealed the origins of this speculation in his Memoirs. According to him, he anticipated resistance by the Russian deputies to the dissolution of Parliament as early as in the beginning of September of 1993: "They would, in all likelihood, convene a Congress of People's Deputies, declare impeachment of myself, and produce president [Alexander] Rutskoi. They would probably form a 'government' in a hurry, appointing the militant Iona Andronov as minister of foreign affairs." For some reason, Yeltsin's supposition about me was converted to the "truth" a year later by Stolitsa, a Moscow magazine: "Iona Andronov is a former 'White House' foreign affairs minister." Later still, an American journalist David Remnick repeated the same fable in his recollections of the suppression of our Parliament. But all the mythmakers did not know something I knew very well: Rutskoi, if he were to become President, would never have allowed me to become the Foreign Affairs Minister, because of latent mutual enmity. Besides, prior to the putsch, Khasbulatov had prevented my election to the chairmanship of the Foreign Affairs Committee because of what he perceived as my "inflexibility." Such people are never appointed to cabinet posts in our country. Anatoly Chubais, a Kremlin insider who participated in organizing the White House blockade, repeated publicly a second legend he heard from the high security officials: "A representative of the U.S. Embassy was discovered trying to approach the Parliament building. Measures were taken to prevent such attempts." This is yet another bogus bugaboo. On September 30, I did speak over a wireless phone to Louis D. Sell, Minister-Counselor for Political Affairs, Embassy of the United States, and invited him to come to the White House. He flatly refused. Our conversation was in English, and apparently the counter-intelligence radio-eavesdroppers' language skills were not up to par. They compelled their frightened bosses to hunt for my interlocutor, who all the while remained at the Embassy. As a result, the State Security people failed to detect my get-together with the American diplomat when it actually took place three days later. Now I can explain how and why it happened. .... On the tenth day of the White House siege, over 50 of its defenders were in dire need of medical aid, to which we had no access. It was mainly those who manned our barricades around the Parliament 24 hours a day, exposed to cold winds and rain, who suffered from severe colds, heart ailments, and physical traumas. At night, the selfless warriors slept in shifts on the cold marble floor of the first floor vestibule. There, several volunteer doctors took care of the sick, but they soon ran out of the most needed medications. On September 30, one of those volunteers, Alexander Dalnov from the Sechenov Medical Academy in Moscow, complained to newspaperman Alexander Gamov: "People around the White House are exhausted. They are stressed out. Many are suffering from high blood pressure, headaches, and heart pains. There are also physical traumas. We are not in a position to help them. We lack medical equipment, bandages, and especially painkillers. The deliveries are blocked. The other day, a truck carrying supplies for the White House medical office was stopped. As was explained by the police, we are denied bandages and medicine 'in accordance with the President's decree.'" On September 26, doctors from the White House appealed to the Health Minister for at least one ambulance. But this request was denied. A second such request was denied even after an elderly defender of the White House was felled by a heart attack on September 30. The poor man died. That same day I asked for Khasbulatov's permission to make yet another attempt to save the most sick in his name. By that time the futility of appeals to western democracies was quite evident. At the same time, our own democrats and the most well known human rights activists were issuing truly bloodthirsty pleas to Yeltsin, calling on him to "crush the monster" (meaning the Parliament), thus exceeding in their zeal even their western friends. Under such circumstances, I reasoned, only the Americans could be compelled to influence Yeltsin, if they were threatened with public charges of their ally's criminal indifference to the plight of his sick compatriots. I proposed to demand a humane intervention from the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. Khasbulatov acceded to this plan. In order to get to the U.S. Embassy from the White House one only has to cross Konyushkovskaya Street. In September 1993, though, a front line ran along this thoroughfare. On September 30, upon exiting the Parliament building, I first approached the people manning our street barricades and got their permission to climb through a jungle of metal pipes, cement blocks and two-by-fours. However, on the other side of the street I came to a long metal fence. Behind it there was a row of policemen armed with sub-machine guns. Behind the gunmen there was a brick wall, and behind the wall lay the U.S. Embassy compound. The diplomats' living quarters could be seen from the street, and behind them towered the lifeless multi-story Embassy office with its windows covered over: All the walls, floors, and ceilings of the building were filled with KGB bugs. The secret eavesdropping system was revealed to the U.S. ambassador in 1991 by the last KGB Chairman Vadim Bakatin, but even after two years the Americans were still too wary to utilize the spy-structure in any way. For over an hour I stood on the street, next to this monument to the Cold War (which Moscow lost), trying to argue with police officers and not getting anywhere. Anybody could leave the sealed off White House, but I would not be allowed back inside, the officers warned. All my pleas and arguments against this prohibition fell on deaf ears. The police officers were hostile and rude to me. They reeked of vodka. One of them was especially brash; he was smoking American Marlboros and made an effort to exhale the fumes, along with the strong alcohol odor, into my face. I retreated to the Parliament building, where all the phones were turned off. Khasbulatov, however, had a wireless phone, although one could use it only for up to half a minute before the connection was jammed with a cacophony of rattle, whistles and crashing sounds. On the other hand, I noticed the reporters for major U.S. TV networks, who had stationed themselves in the White House second floor hallway, talking over their cell phones without any outside interference. This privilege was afforded the Americans because they spoke to their colleagues in English. In those days Russian was a politically suspect language on Moscow's airwaves. Moreover, American journalists at the White House could come and go through the police lines, while the officers were vigilant in not allowing the Russian reporters near the Parliament. A U.S. passport and a stack of green bills open a lot of doors in our country. My New York-accented English is the only valuable item I brought back from America, but it served me well at the White House, along with a cell phone belonging to ABC-TV. The network reporter complained about the low batteries and the impossibility of their recharging, yet he did let me call the U.S. Embassy. The TV-man wanted to know why I was calling there. His curiosity also served my purpose: There was an opportunity to publicize in the western media the Kremlin's villainous policy of refusing medical aid for the Parliament defenders. An American woman picked up the phone at the U.S. Embassy. Speaking in English, I told her my name and, after proceeding to inform her of my Parliamentary rank and of where I was calling from, asked to connect me urgently with Ambassador Pickering. The woman asked me to wait for a couple of minutes. Then she said Pickering was traveling outside the Embassy and could not be reached, so an Embassy councilor, Louis Sell, would talk to me instead. He came on right away and immediately made clear his rank - "number two at the Embassy." Now, any diplomat or international journalist can tell you what "number two" does at any embassy. As it happened, the phone dialogue between Mr. Sell and myself was being monitored by Russian counter-intelligence, although they did not dare jam it. I informed my interlocutor of the Kremlin's impediments to delivering medical supplies for the sick people at the White House. As I reminded Mr. Sell, President Clinton approved of Yeltsin's repressions against the Russian Parliament, and, therefore, United States bore moral responsibility for the illegal harm done to my fallen comrades, as well as for torture by the deprivation of heat, food, and medical supplies. "So, what do you want from our Embassy?" asked the American. "You can influence the Kremlin at least to allow deliveries of medicine and hygienic supplies to the White House." "And who would make the actual delivery?" "If you were able to get the humanitarian aid embargo lifted we could ask the Moscow mission of the International Red Cross, or go to some of the charitable foundations funded by your government. I would like to discuss this with you at the Embassy. However, the armed police besieging the Parliament would not allow me back in to coordinate the medical aid deliveries." "Well, that's a Russian internal problem for you to deal with." "True. But maybe you can pay an unofficial visit to the White House?" "No. Absolutely not." "Can we meet in a neutral zone on the street halfway between the embassy and the White House?" "No. There are too many journalists and other nosy people around." "In that case, I am going to try again to see if I can insure I could get back into the White House." "Okay. We'll be expecting you. We have a request of our own, though. We have received some disturbing information about a possible attack on our Embassy from the White House. We have noticed men with machine guns in the windows facing the Embassy. We have women and children here. So, let's think of helping each other out. Would you inform the parliamentary leadership of our concern?" "Of course. And let me assure you, none of our people are going to shoot up your Embassy." "Thank you." I relayed his concerns immediately to Khasbulatov and to the "power ministers" appointed by the Supreme Soviet, State Security General Barannikov and Interior Minister General Dunayev. All three of them pledged to protect the American neighbors from any militant actions by any provocateurs in our midst. In order to calm the U.S. Embassy personnel I once again called them on the ABC cell phone: "Speaker of Parliament Khasbulatov and our security ministers Barannikov and Dunayev would like to make an official assurance: Your Embassy is under no threat from the White House. We have taken all measures necessary to prevent any actions by some extremist against your diplomats and their families." Mr. Sell thanked me again. Two months later, a New York magazine, Lies Of Our Times, provided a summary of my contacts with the U.S. Embassy in Moscow: "According to the State Department's Russia Desk, Iona Andronov had been instrumental in negotiations with the Russian Parliament to ensure that foreigners, especially Americans from the nearby Embassy, were not hurt." (Lies Of Our Times (New York), Dec. 1993, p. 7.) At the time, of course, I was most keen on getting medical aid for the defenders of the White House who were sick. They were the reason I had to go to the American Embassy and then get back through the police lines. For that my English language tricks on the cell phone were not going to work. So I had to call the headquarters of the Moscow police chief General Vladimir Pankratov from Khasbulatov's office, using his cell phone. I got an officer on duty at the Pankratov headquarters on the phone. I asked him to relay my request to the general: I needed permission to return to the White House after visiting an American diplomat, Louis Sell, in order to coordinate with the U.S. Embassy a medical aid delivery to the sick in the Parliament building. However, as soon as I started saying it in Russian, there was only din, rattle, and clatter on the line. Nevertheless, I once again went to the front line on Konyushkovskaya Street and approached men armed with machine guns by the metal barrier. A fat colonel in a blue uniform was already waiting for me there. He glanced at my People's Deputy ID and chuckled: "We have orders from the headquarters: to let Andronov out of here, but not to let him back in." Thus my negotiations with the Americans were interrupted. Not for long, however. Although on that day, September 30, neither I, nor the fat, smug colonel could have known that we would meet again at the same spot during a street fight, and that afterwards, late at night, I would enter the U.S. Embassy with a gun in my pocket. .... On October 1, my attempts to attract the Americans' sympathy for the sick inside the besieged White House became superfluous. Someone of much higher stature intervened on their behalf-Aleksiy II, the Orthodox Patriarch of Moscow and of all Russia. In the morning of October 1, he invited representatives of the two warring centers of secular power, the Kremlin and the White House, to his Svyato-Danilov monastery in the capital. The Patriarch called on them to end the military standoff as soon as possible, to work out a political solution, and, most urgently, to remove all obstacles to delivering medical aid to the sick inside and around the Parliament building. "To the best of my knowledge, there is a medical office in the White House," said the Patriarch at the beginning of the talks at the monastery. "If they lack medicine, it should be delivered." The Parliament welcomed the Patriarch's peacemaking initiative. So did the Kremlin. The deputies inside the White House selected a delegation to take part in the monastery talks; I was included in the delegation. The leader of the delegation was Yuri Voronin, deputy chairman of the Supreme Soviet. He and four other deputies held sessions at the Svyato-Danilov monastery for three days. The Yeltsin delegation was led by Sergei Filatov, the president's chief of staff, and Yuri Luzhkov, the mayor of Moscow. As soon as the parties met in the presence of the Patriarch, Voronin started asking the Kremlin emissaries to lift the embargo on medical aid to the White House. Every time the issue was raised, Filatov vowed to give orders immediately to deliver all the medicine necessary without any inhumane restrictions. In reality, however, we did not receive a single pill. As we found out later, back at the Kremlin Filatov was recommending to deploy against us the latest weapon of mass destruction-a quantum laser beam generator, capable of blinding large numbers of street rebels. All the attempts by the Patriarch to nudge the invited politicians to a reasonable compromise were futile. Even there, in the holy monastery, they continued to argue and to insult each other. On the third day of scandalous bickering Aleksiy II had a heart attack. At the same time, fierce clashes erupted in Moscow between the soldiers of the Interior Ministry and the demonstrators rallying in the streets in support of Parliament. On October 3, at 6:00 p.m., the talkathon at the Svyato-Danilov monastery ground to an inglorious halt. Three hours prior to the collapse of the monastery negotiations, several thousand Parliament supporters started marching from Kaluzhskaya Square along the Sadovaya Ring Road towards the White House. After about an hour, the brave marchers managed to rush through three different police lines, on the Crimean Bridge, on Zubovskaya and Smolenskaya squares. There, during clashes with the OMON [Police Special Troops], the citizens captured a lot of police shields, nightsticks, helmets, and bulletproof vests. Thus equipped, this human wave crushed the last remaining police barricades around the White House and the crowd swirled around the building, shouting victoriously: "Hurrah! Freedom! Comrades, do not hesitate to kick Boris out!" The deputies inside the White House were happily saluting our liberators from the windows. Caught up in the clamor, all of us rushed out of our sanctuary to exchange hugs and kisses with the unexpected saviors. For those of us who had spent the last two weeks in the White House, this was an incredible celebration. It was the most memorable day in my life. But the celebration was short lived. The joyous revelry that broke out on Free Russia Square, adjacent to the White House, was interrupted by the thundering rat-tat-tat of machine gun fire. The shooting came from the Konyushkovskaya Street, not far away. There, near the U.S. Embassy, is a glass-covered high-rise housing the Mayor's Office, and the 12-story "Mir"("Peace") Hotel. It was in this hotel, despite its name, that the Interior Ministry troops besieging the Parliament had their temporary headquarters. This was also where the troops retreated after their defense lines were smashed by the people. The Muscovites standing next to me in the square fell silent, peering uneasily into the open windows of the hotel building. "One of ours is dead!" someone screamed. In a flash, the crowd's mood turned from good-natured to furious. At this moment, we heard the nervous voice of neo-president Rutskoi, addressing the crowd through a megaphone. Rutskoi was towering above us on the second floor balcony of the White House. There were bodyguards on either side of the general, holding open in front of him a bullet proof vest, which covered most of his body, save for the head. "We have to storm the Mayor's Office and the Ostankino TV-center!" Rutskoi shouted. Following his command, hundreds of men rushed out to Konyushkovskaya Street. But they first attacked the Mir Hotel, not the Mayor's Office. There was no fire coming from the hotel. The Interior Ministry officers abandoned in fear not only their headquarters, but also their equipment, about half a dozen military trucks and a communications vehicle. I saw an army APC by the entrance to the hotel trying to get away, unsuccessfully. It was stuck. This APC was backed against the hotel's stone stairway. In front of it a huge water truck was parked. The trapped APC was trying to push the water truck away in fits and starts, but the latter, apparently, had very strong brakes. In the meantime, three men, armed with just-captured machine guns, climbed on top of the APC and were trying to pour gasoline out of a bottle into the vehicle. One of them had a box of matches ready. When I saw this, I shouted "Hey, you guys, don't you dare set it on fire! I am a Deputy of the Supreme Soviet. I forbid the extra-judicial retribution." They followed my order without enthusiasm. The APC stopped jerking back and forth. Out of the vehicle's front section two periscopes appeared. Looking into the periscopes' oval mirrors, I said loudly: "Get out of there while you are still alive. I, Deputy of the Supreme Soviet, guarantee your safety. My name is Andronov. Get out!" The periscopes went down into their nests, and the APC crew again tried to push the water truck out of the way. The guys on top of the vehicle did not heed my protests any more and set the spilled gasoline on fire. The APC was in flames. For the first time, I, as a People's Deputy, felt powerless in the face of street rioting evolving into civil war. Fortunately, gasoline did not penetrate inside the APC, and the driver did manage to nudge the heavy truck out of the way. The APC, its top in flames, speeded away along the Konyushkovskaya Street. On the steps leading up to the hotel I ran into a group of men exiting the building. Having captured the Interior Ministry headquarters there, they were dragging along two prisoners, a major and a colonel. The men were kicking the officers. The prisoners were sweating profusely; their faces white with fear, their blue uniforms torn. The fat colonel recognized me, and vice versa. He got even more scared and his fleshy chin started shaking. Three days earlier he had chuckled contemptuously, turning down my request to arrange medical aid delivery to the Parliament defenders who have fallen sick. "It's forbidden to beat prisoners!" I said to the men escorting the officers. "Who are you to give orders here?" they asked. "I am a Deputy of the Supreme Soviet. Here are my documents." "What, then, should we do with those scoundrels?" "Escort them to the White House; but no beatings." "We don't have the passes to go there." "I will get you through. Let's go!" Having walked about 50 meters towards the White House we found ourselves in the midst of a swirling throng. The crowd, driven by hatred and a thirst for revenge, surrounded the captured enemies. Raised fists were all around. Both prisoners were hiding behind my back. Once again I had to hold up my People's Deputy ID and shout at the top of my lungs: "Don't touch them! They surrendered without resistance. Make way!" Slowly, we escorted the prisoners almost all the way to the nearest White House entrance through the menacing crowd. Suddenly, someone jumped on my back from behind, cat-like, and snatched my glasses away. At that moment, every object and every living creature turned blurry, as if I was submerged under water. I am severely nearsighted, -5.00. I knew that without my glasses I would be all but useless at the White House. I felt despair cut through my whole body like a knife. In the meantime, the prisoners, having lost my protection, fearfully ran to a building entrance on their own. I turned around, looking for the person who grabbed my glasses. I noticed that there were no glasses smashed on the pavement. I saw a group of men and a blonde woman, whose face turned out to be familiar upon closer inspection. This not-so-young woman used to read political verses at rallies run by Anpilov, the red ultra-radical. She was known as an admirer of his. As soon as I approached her, the woman pulled her right hand behind her back. "Give me back the glasses!" I said to her. "What glasses?" she screamed. "My glasses!" I grabbed her right hand and saw the twisted frame in her clenched fist. I managed to pry her palm open and to reclaim my damaged treasure. I was lucky: the lenses were intact. But the wire-rimmed frame was all twisted and bent. I sat right there on the pavement and started straightening the delicate metal wires. While I busied myself with this task, playing out the comical misadventure in my mind, the events were escalating: the rebellious crowd captured the Mayor's Office. The assault was already over when I joined the excited citizens by the shattered glass-covered entrance to the Mayor's Office. An elderly mustached man in a green uniform climbed on top of a cement awning jutting out over the smashed-up entrance. He was standing there with his head erect, wearing a black beret a la Che Guevara. Only instead of a Cuban cigar, this valiant soldier was holding up a megaphone. "There will be no more mayors, no more peers, and no more khers!" he thundered.("Kher" is a slang Russian vulgar word which means penis.) The crowd laughed approvingly: "Bravo, Makashov! Long live our General!" Albert Makashov, a general with no military victories or even experience on the front lines to his name, managed to become famous in Russia because of his soldierly sense of humor and snappy one-liners. A lot of our people like that. During the 1991 presidential elections almost four million Russian citizens voted for him. Since those days the general has taken to calling his opponents "son of a bitch," or "rascal," or "rat," or "dirty Jew" in public. He also called for either castrating them or hanging them by their balls from lampposts. Even his apolitical compatriots provoke Makashov's anger: "Neutrality is the piece of shit that's flattering in the middle of an ice hole", he is fond of saying. General Rutskoi, who also likes a juicy turn of phrase, appointed Makashov a commander of the White House defenses. After the assault on the Mayor's Office, Makashov took it upon himself to carry out Rutskoi's order to capture the Ostankino TV-center, so that the new president could proclaim his victory in front of the whole country. I saw Makashov leave the Mayor's Office with a dozen men armed with machine guns and return to the square in front of the White House. There, hundreds of enthusiasts were waiting to march to Ostankino. I saw Makashov quickly form a column of about a dozen trucks and smaller cars, captured earlier from the OMON. Unarmed volunteers filled the commandeered vehicles. Embarking on this super-risky raid, the self-confident general took along just 18 men armed with machine guns. Only one Supreme Soviet Deputy, Ilya Konstantinov, joined the Makashov brigade. He was respected for his personal courage, but the rest of the deputies refrained from the apparent insanity. However, by that time, the opinion of Parliament did not make much of a difference. Rutskoi, by himself, gave the order to storm Ostankino. The People's Deputies were left out of the thrilling game, played out by out-of-control generals and street fighters. I felt helpless and apprehensive as I watched the Makashov brigade take off from the now half-emptied White House square. The threat to Parliament itself did not disappear, yet its most able defenders were gone. As I suspected, Rutskoi gave the order to storm Ostankino spontaneously and without much planning. This was pure idiocy, since even if the assault were successful, the Kremlin could have easily switched the TV broadcast signal from the Ostankino studios elsewhere. However, what actually happened was even worse. .... The distance between the White House and Ostankino is about 12 kilometers. As soon as the Makashov column reached the Sadovaya Ring Road, they were met by a checkpoint of about twenty APCs and Interior Ministry trucks. The soldiers were armed with machine guns. But, instead of stopping the rebels' motorcade in its tracks, the soldiers let them through without a word, followed them, passed them and then speeded away to Ostankino. General Makashov, a graduate of two military academies could have figured out (or so it would seem), that his unarmed followers were heading into a fiery trap near the TV-center. For some reason, neither Rutskoi nor Makashov used the captured Interior Ministry mobile communications center R-142M to coordinate their actions. The lack of awareness on the part of both generals resulted in a situation where no one at the White House could dissuade the arrogant commander from storming the TV center. The Ostankino TV center encompasses two buildings, divided by a narrow strip of asphalt, which is Korolyov Street. That is where the Makashov brigade disembarked. By that time gunmen of the Interior Ministry Special Forces already occupied both buildings of the TV center. They barricaded themselves inside and established firing positions on the roofs and in the windows. Makashov, having realized that he was late, delayed assault on the TV center in the hope of later arrival of numerous opponents of the Kremlin TV propaganda. While they were making their way to Ostankino, a noisy rally was held on Korolyov Street for about two hours. Makashov, through his megaphone, addressed the people inside the TV center: "Hey, rats, get out! Hey, you, rats! Rats! Any one who comes out voluntarily will have one of your balls spared! Rats! Get out! Resistance is futile. Yeltsin betrayed you. You are surrounded by the superior forces!" But the superiority was not on his side: a crowd on the street and Makashov's 18 men armed with machine guns were swirling between the two buildings where 900 fighters of the Interior Ministry Special Forces were deployed. And 24 APCs armed with long-range guns were parked nearby. However, Makashov continued with his oratory: "If there were some imbeciles who were to open fire on us, we would make sure there is only one way out for them: suitcase, airport, Israel!" At 7 p.m. one of Makashov's trucks went through the glass doors of the TV center Technical Support Department. The general shrieked that he was ready to use his grenade launcher. And then death rained out of the TV center upon the unarmed crowd in the middle of the street. Fire from the APC gunners put a finishing touch to the bloodbath: 46 people lay dead, 124 wounded. It was a mass execution for the crowd caught unaware. Makashov, alive and well, soon returned to the White House in a car. His high opinion of himself was also intact: "I went to Ostankino and did what I could there." Those who would later blame him for the tragedy at Ostankino were threatened with castration by the general once again. Rutskoi later regretted his call to storm the TV center: "I admit that my first impulse was not well thought out." Five days prior to the Ostankino bloodbath Rutskoi received a friendly visit in the White House from Stanislav Govorukhin, a well known film director and a public figure. On the evening of October 3, Govorukhin happened to be in the TV center on an unrelated business and he was caught in the crossfire. He remained a friend with Rutskoi afterwards, yet at the time he wrote in his diary: "Rutskoi made a charge against himself publicly, in front of the TV cameras, when he mouthed the call 'To Ostankino!'... After those words, 'To Ostankino!', he might as well have gone up to his office on the third floor, thought about it for a minute, pulled out his foreign chrome plated gun and sent a bullet straight to his heart. He did not do it. Neither then, nor later-when the tanks opened fire on the White House, on women and children. It's not for me to judge him. But for me it remains a mystery." Just as the Interior Ministry Special Forces were slaughtering the unarmed crowd near the TV center, all live broadcasting was switched from Ostankino studios elsewhere, on orders of the Kremlin. People watching TV at home saw the following false statement on their screens: "The broadcasting on channels 1 and 4 has been interrupted by an armed mob, which has entered the TV center." After about ten minutes, a man's head on a thin neck appeared on the TV screens. A youthful-looking dark-haired head began to lie: "According to information coming from Ostankino, there is fighting in the On-Air studio going on right now. That's why we are broadcasting from elsewhere. According to our reporters inside the TV center, whom we have spoken to by telephone, the attackers have captured one section of the building using armed personnel carriers, grenade launchers and machine guns." At that very moment, dozens of wounded and dying Muscovites were laying in pools of blood on the street between the two buildings of the TV center. The Special Forces snipers and the gunners from the APCs, which by then moved closer to the action, were finishing them off. That evening and all night long until dawn, the TV talking heads, one after the other, were lying and misinforming the nation. Nikolai Svanidze, Svetlana Sorokina, and Sergey Torchinsky competed against each other in the field of sophistry. They were doing so live from two State TV studios-on Shabolovka Street and on 5th Street off the Yamskoye Field. In the beginning of this ominous night, at 9:30 p.m., the fleshy-faced vice-premier Yegor Gaidar materialized on TV screens. He issued a militant call to the Yeltsin supporters in the capital to quickly organize street self-defense units in order to prevent a recurring nightmare of Gaidar's from taking place: "Let's not allow our country to be turned into a huge concentration camp once again!" A popular film actress Liya Akhedjakova personified Gaidar's TV ecstasy in a more artful fashion: "Today in Moscow policemen are being killed! They are defending us from those who would defend the Constitution. So, what kind of a damned Constitution is it? And where is our Army? Why doesn't the Army defend us from this damned Constitution?" Grigory Yavlinsky, a politician, proclaimed from the screen: "The President must display maximum toughness and determination in repressing the bandit gangs. All the fascist-leaning, extremist elements are grouped under the auspices of the White House. If the law enforcement agencies are not capable enough to repress them, the issue of using regular Armed Forces must be given consideration." Late at night, Prime Minister Chernomyrdin made the announcement: "The criminal elements, egged on by the White House, have spilled blood in Moscow. Tonight, the Army troops will be deployed in Moscow." Shortly before midnight, I met Deputy Nikolai Pavlov on a dimly lit staircase landing inside the White House. The bonfires on the street were clearly visible through the large windows. The red flames outside were giving out enough light to see my friend's troubled expression. He said he was just at the Kiyevskoye highway in the suburbs of Moscow, where he saw columns of military vehicles from the Tamanskaya and Kantemirovskaya Divisions moving towards the capital. Those were the divisions that were usually called into Moscow in the past by the Kremlin conspiracy-mongers and coup-plotters. A month before, Yeltsin, in preparation for the putsch, visited the garrisons of both divisions near Moscow and promised their commanders all kinds of rewards. At nightfall, the multi-storied White House, its electric power disconnected, resembled a disturbed anthill. Men armed with machine guns were silently fashioning fortified firing positions out of safes, refrigerators, and tables in the building's darkened corridors and landings. Outside hundreds of people were trying to reinforce the flimsy barricades with whatever was available: some rusted iron bars, spare wood, construction debris. It would only take a minute for a tank or an APC to crush these fortifications. How much time do we have before the assault on Parliament? I was asking myself. One hour? Two? Do we have until dawn, or not? Is a repeat of the Ostankino massacre inevitable here? In an attempt to somehow prevent this, I went in darkness to the nearest office, that of Deputy Speaker Valentin Agafonov. I asked Khasbulatov's deputy to alert his boss to the fact that for the last time I was going to try to reach the U.S. Embassy in hopes of convincing the Americans to facilitate a cease-fire agreement between us and the Kremlin. That night, for the first time, there was nobody outside the perimeter of our barricades. I walked over to the gates of the American Embassy without a hitch. Behind the gate, by a guard-booth, a marine was on duty, clutching his carbine. He was wearing a helmet, a camouflage uniform, and a bulletproof vest. Inside the guard-booth I told the sentry of my desire to see Mr. Sell urgently. Soon after, a young American appeared and asked me to follow him into the Embassy courtyard. It was midnight. After walking for about fifty meters we were in front of a long two-story building, the Embassy residential quarters. Each duplex apartment has its own entrance, complete with a stone staircase and a wrought-iron fence. It's an architectural copy of old New England towns. I was escorted into a warm and comfortable living room with a fireplace, furnished with soft armchairs, floor lamps, and a tapestry on the wall depicting a bouquet of beautiful flowers. I had a bitter thought upon seeing all this foreign comfort: "My God, when would the Russians concentrate on making our own life better instead of fighting each other?" My host-a wide-shouldered, fit man with graying hair-shook my hand and showed to an armchair. The diplomat who escorted me in sat next to me and opened his notebook. "Would you object to his transcribing our conversation?" Mr. Sell asked. "No." "Should we get to the point of your visit?" "Of course. You must already know a motorized army division has entered the city. They are preparing an assault on the White House. A terrible bloodbath is almost inevitable. Being a Russian, I would like to prevent a mass slaughter of Russians by Russians. We are foreigners to you. But you have your own long-term state interests to look after. I am sure your friend in the Kremlin would be victorious tomorrow. However, I don't think the United States' political interests in Russia would be well served by having a tsar soiled by the blood of Russians. It would be much more profitable for you to act as peacemakers now, at this critical moment for the Russians. You can do so without denying your friend the triumph he so craves." "Who authorized you to make us such an offer?" "The Speaker of Parliament Khasbulatov." "And what about Rutskoi?" "If his sanction is necessary, it would be arranged." "So, what specifically do you want from me?" "To act as a mediator between us and the Kremlin." "What would you offer to the Kremlin?" "An immediate meeting between their representatives and our leadership, with no pre-conditions. There is only one immediate goal-to prevent bloody mutual extermination." "Well, I think your initiative is worthy of respect, although I do not share your opinions. And I can not be an intermediary between the Kremlin and the White House, because we do not interfere in Russia's internal affairs on principle. Still, I do not reject your request outright out of humanitarian concerns. Would you like me to inform the closest advisers to President Yeltsin of the White House request?" "Yes, please do." "How can I relay their answer to you?" "All the communications at the White House have been cut off. I can return here at an agreed upon hour." "Very well. Return in an hour. At 1:30 a.m." He gave me a penetrating look and suddenly said: "How may I help you personally?" The unexpected question was probably due to my appearance: surviving two weeks of a blockade does leave a mark on one. But I was surprised. I thought my appearance was different from most of my fellow People's Deputies. Most of them stopped wearing ties and shaving, taking on a rather disheveled look. I, on the contrary, found myself two buckets, which I filled with water whenever I could, so as to be able to cleanse myself, to shave, and to wash my shirt. I also kept a jar of eau de cologne, which I used sparingly. I purposefully tried to maintain the demeanor of the only international professional left in the White House. All the others like myself long ago left the Parliament. Even the people manning the street barricades looked approvingly at a neatly dressed People's Deputy, sporting a foreign-made tweed jacket and a tie. Still, something in my appearance drew the American's compassion. I laughed: "A double whisky would be helpful enough." Warmed by the Scottish whisky, I returned to the damp darkness of the White House. By this time men armed with machine guns patrolled all the entrances. The corridors leading to any of the floors from the stairs were barricaded with massive safes, so one could only get there by squeezing through narrow passageways. The guards there shined a flashlight or a candle on a visitor and conducted an impromptu inquiry: "Who are you? Where are you going? Are you armed?" I, however, was recognized and not interrogated. I passed unimpeded through three more checkpoints on the fifth floor on my way to Khasbulatov's office. His secretary picked up a candle from his desk and escorted me through the huge lightless office of the Speaker and into a small study. To my surprise, a flickering electrical bulb lighted the room. As it turned out, the light was hooked up to a lamppost outside. In that room I saw all our leaders seated on two couches and some chairs around a coffee table. Khasbulatov and Rutskoi were holding a consultation with generals Achalov, Barannikov, Dunayev, as well as with Khasbulatov's deputies Voronin and Agafonov. Khasbulatov listened to my report of the visit to the U.S. Embassy and then turned to Rutskoi: "We should continue our attempts at peacemaking with the help of the Americans. Do you agree, Alexander Vladimirovich?" "Yes," Rutskoi agreed. "Proceed, Iona." Voronin said, "I doubt the Americans would be of much help in light of yesterday's fiasco, the collapse of negotiations with the government through the good offices of the Patriarch. We were close to a bloodless solution at the Svyato-Danilov Monastery. Why, then, did we assault the Mayor's Office and the TV center?" "Just whom would you like to declare the guilty party?" Rutskoi was clearly angered. "It's no use arguing about it now," Agafonov interjected. "Those mistakes can not be corrected at this point." There was ponderous silence in the room. Khasbulatov got his lighter out and started smoking his famous pipe. The politicians who were so animated just a few hours ago were stonefaced now, and I had a strange sensation of being in a wax museum. It seemed like these losers, with whom I had intertwined my fate, were sending me out to the U.S. Embassy without any hope. Khasbulatov, as if he read my mind, asked if I had a weapon. "No." He unbuttoned his jacket, unsnapped a holster from his belt, and handed it to me. Inside a leather holster adorned with an Oriental ornament was an officer's revolver. The present was symbolic in an Oriental sense, too. Its meaning was clear: There was no way back for me. I knew it as well. "So, will you be without a weapon then?" I asked Khasbulatov. "I will get another one." He smiled. Rutskoi came back to life and said sarcastically: "Iona, do you know how to handle a gun?" "Why do you doubt it?" "Well, you come from the intelligentsia." "It's true. I come from the Russian intelligentsia, unlike the aids and advisers you had brought here from the Kremlin. Tonight they all split, while I, of the intelligentsia, remain here with you." He didn't take offense and put his hand on my knee amicably: "Don't get upset. Everybody knew you would not sell out and would remain here until the end." Having left Khasbulatov's apartments, I proceeded to my second appointment with Mr. Sell. As I was climbing over one of our street barricades, one of the guys manning it yelled out: "Look at People's Deputy Andronov running away! Shame on the coward!" "Shut up!" I snapped back. "I will be back in an hour." I don't think I was believed. In those late hours, not a few people had lost faith and gone quietly home. By the gates of the American Embassy, inside the guard booth, the same diplomat who escorted me to Louis Sell earlier was waiting for me. We went to the same apartment again. There I took off my down jacket but declined a polite offer from Mr. Sell to hang it for me. I did it myself. Otherwise the diplomat would have felt the gun weighing down the light jacket. Unauthorized weapons are strictly prohibited in any embassy. Inside the living room, Mr. Sell handed me the phone: "You may call Vitaly Churkin, the acting foreign minister." "Where is the foreign minister Andrey Kozyrev?" "It seems he is leaving our country to return to Moscow at this very moment." "If Churkin is in charge of foreign affairs, is he authorized to discuss the confrontation between the government and the White House?" "Look at his phone number if you have any doubts about it." The diplomat handed me a piece of paper with seven digits scribbled on it. The first three digits were 206. "Is it clear?" he asked. "Yes, this is a number of a government residence on Staraya Ploschad." "Well then, call Churkin there." I knew Vitaly Churkin since 1985, when I was a journalist in the U.S. and his diplomatic career was just beginning. He served as a secretary in the Soviet Embassy in Washington. A privileged graduate of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, he demonstrated such passionate obedience to Communist ideals while stationed in imperialism's lair that in two years' time he was transferred to the Central Committee of the CPSU. Yet as soon as Yeltsin had the CPSU banned, Churkin turned anti-Communist and an ardent Yeltsin supporter. For this, he was promoted to a deputy foreign minister. According to his coworkers, this sudden career move turned Churkin's head around; "Vitaly Ivanovich Churkin is arrogant, self-confident, and thinks he can do no wrong." Churkin was true to form from the very beginning of our phone conversation. "So, Iona Ionovich, even after their banditry at Ostankino, your accomplices are still counting on our compassion?" "Let's have a conversation without insults." "No, let's talk honestly. Are you at the White House able to control your bandits?" "The White House leadership is now in a position to control our supporters in the immediate vicinity of the Parliament. Once again, I ask you to refrain from insults." "Don't pretend something you are not." "Your attempts to get me to answer in kind shall remain in vain. I will not go for it. This is not just about the two of us. You know very well of the impending attack on the White House. It will be a colossal bloodbath. A lot of Russians will die. Let's think about them." "You talk about Russians, but why run to the American Embassy?" "There is no other way to reach your bosses. Here at the Embassy they know that I am no friend of theirs. Still, I am grateful for their help. Tonight your petty words about the American Embassy are out of place." Churkin was vexed. My last remark made him realize that Mr. Sell, who is fluent in Russian and is quite influential in the Kremlin circles, was sitting next to me and listening to every word. Finally, Churkin changed the tone and got down to business: "What specifically are you offering?" "A meeting between the government representatives and the White House leadership, to be arranged immediately and without any pre-conditions. There is only one goal,-to prevent bloodshed." "Is this your personal initiative?" "I am only an intermediary. And you?" "I have full authorization from above. And who authorized you?" "Khasbulatov and Rutskoi. And who authorized you?" "For now, that's not the main issue." "On the contrary, this is extremely important. Without an answer to this question our conversation has no meaning at all. Could you please name the person you are answering to directly?" "The Prime Minister." "When can we expect his answer?" "Where can I find you in twenty minutes?" "Here at the Embassy. You know the number." "Very well." .... Churkin called back in exactly twenty minutes. He spoke firmly, but this time without insults or sarcasm. "Your offer regarding the meeting has been rejected. There will be no more meetings and no more negotiations with your leadership. You can relay to them our demand, which is not subject to any bargaining: 'Put down your arms. Leave the Supreme Soviet building.'" "Is that all?" "Yes. I repeat the answer of our government to those still in the White House: 'Put down your arms and leave the building'." "But this would most likely be unacceptable to our side..." "There is nothing else to be discussed", Churkin concluded pointedly. "Farewell then, Vitaly Ivanovich." "Farewell." Upon putting down the receiver, I heard the voice of Louis Sell next to me: "We are very sorry it all turned out so dreadfully." Yes, this was a crushing blow to my desperate attempts to save the White House and to prevent a bloody denouement. The exact time of my fiasco is fixed in my memory: 2:15 a.m., October 4, 1993. Two weeks later, New York Newsday described in detail how "a Yeltsin opponent and a nationalist deputy Andronov" tried to get the Kremlin to forego the assault on the White House in favor of negotiations with the help of a "high-ranking U.S. diplomat." By that time the results were well known: dozens dead. Vitaly Churkin, in an interview to the American press, blamed me for what happened: "`It all failed because I asked Andronov a single question: What did they [the leaders of the Parliament] want to talk about?'" `They wanted to have another political discussion about which decrees would be canceled and how the elections should be held. At that point, after the fighting has started, to start talking at two o'clock in the morning about how to preserve the Constitution, seemed out of place and too late.'" (New York Newsday, Oct. 20, 1993, p. 42.) Churkin lied. During our phone conversation I did not discuss with him Presidential decrees or new elections, or ways to preserve the Constitution. Nevertheless, Churkin's story was trumpeted by the Moscow newspapermen loyal to the Kremlin, while my version was ignored. I had no voice then. The Yeltsin ban on all opposition papers remained in effect until December. It was only at the end of 1993 that I was able to publicly refute false statements, made by Prime Minister Chernomyrdin's accomplice in extinguishing the last chance to avoid the murder of so many compatriots. This incident is still remembered by some. In the fall of 1997, Yeltsin had Churkin appointed Ambassador to Canada. On this occasion, the newly appointed Ambassador was invited to the State Duma to answer some questions. Among the queries was the following: "In the tragic days of October 1993, did you have a telephone conversation with Andronov?" "Yes, I had a telephone conversation with him," Churkin answered. "And later there were some polemics with Andronov in the newspapers. My call to him on October 4 was cleared with Chernomyrdin. It was 2 a.m. The main point was that I was ready to meet Andronov any time, any place, and as soon as possible in order to get the people who remained in the White House safely out of there. However, I was not authorized to discuss the constitutional issues that Andronov wanted to discuss at 2 a.m. Therefore, unfortunately, there was no direct contact with him. I did want the contact to happen and had full authorization for it from Chernomyrdin." The Ambassador's answer was a triple lie. First, he repeated his previous false assertion about "constitutional issues" being discussed during the nighttime conversation. Second, there was no mention of a meeting between us, since we both were only intermediaries and were in no position to conduct political negotiations of such importance. Third, Prime Minister Chernomyrdin undoubtedly rejected my peacemaking mediation since, as it is now known, he, together with Yeltsin, was demanding the Army obliterate the White House and was not at all interested in establishing any kind of negotiating channels. As then government minister Mikhail Poltoranin now tells it, the Prime Minister called the rebellious deputies "rotten shitheads" and was screaming obscenities at the top of his lungs: "F**k them! No pity for them!" On October 4, Chernomyrdin raged inside his official residence on Staraya Ploschad': "No negotiations! That gang should be exterminated! Those are non-people, they are animals." At the time I entered the U.S. Embassy the first time, at midnight, I did not know that at about the same time Yeltsin and Chernomyrdin were not very far from me, at the Defense Department headquarters on Arbat Street. There they had ordered the generals to use tanks against the White House. This is what Defense Minister Pavel Grachev told Moscow journalists four days later: "We could have started the assault at 2 a.m. But we did not do it, since there was no reason to hurry. We decided to wait until dawn. Shortly before midnight on October 3, the President and the Prime Minister participated in a meeting at the Defense Department. There, the military was presented with a set of objectives. The Prime Minister then organized a command center at the Kremlin and the second command center was established at the Defense Department under my leadership." This is the reason that at the end of our phone conversation Churkin gave me Chernomyrdin's ultimatum, knowing well in advance that the government demands could not be accepted. At the Embassy, when I was about to leave, Sell said to me, "After you report to the White House you may ask for our assistance to you personally." I thanked him for an oblique offer of an asylum at the Embassy. I told the diplomat I would remain in the Parliament until the end. We shook hands. Mr. Sell and his junior assistant were looking at me with pity in their eyes, as if I were already dead. Later, the American press got very interested in my nighttime visit to the U.S. Embassy. Journalists from Vanity Fair and the Russian service of Radio Liberty flew in from New York and Munich, respectively, to interview me. Here is what Vanity Fair reporter later wrote: "After talking with Andronov and other diehards, I understood for the first time why this tragedy had to come to pass: the hardliners were determined to sully Russian democracy with blood." (T.D. Allman, "Yeltsin's Dark Victory," Vanity Fair, Dec. 1993, p. 244.) Even more vicious in its reporting was Radio Liberty. Copyright (c) 1998 by Iona Andronov. Translation, by Misha Gutkin, copyright (c) 2001 by Institute for Media Analysis, Inc.

 
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