The Main Enemy Milton Bearden (read full novel .txt) 📖

With those words he wheeled around and walked away. End of discussion. I would have to wait until my next visit to get a good look at the czar’s cannon, though watching the look of surprise on Colonel Kuzmin’s face had been a worthy trade-off.

We left the Soviet Union on the morning of August 8. Although we could see that the Soviet system was under great stress, we saw nothing to alert us to what would follow only ten days later. The fact that we had been invited to Moscow by the KGB at that precise time would later convince me that our hosts had no inkling of what was coming either.

Langley, August 12, 1991

As Soviet intelligence officers continued to volunteer to the CIA in growing numbers, there came the inevitable requests for the means to commit suicide to avoid arrest and interrogation. One such request had crossed my desk, and now I found myself sitting across the conference table from the chief chemist in Technical Services, who was explaining in more detail than one might ever want to know the inner workings of the L-pill, euphemistically called “special preparations.”

He explained that cyanide was hands down the historically preferred means of exit. It was reliable, and it was quick—most of the dead in Hitler’s bunker had bitten down on the glass-encased cyanide capsules. The downside was that it took a large pill to hold a lethal dose, something that might not be easy for a spy to conceal in an everyday object he could carry about without attracting attention. There were other options nowadays in more discreet preparations, but they generally took longer to take effect, which could be quite inconvenient! If concealment size was not an issue, it was always best to go with the cyanide, because it was neat and quick.

The chemist had a couple of demonstrator L-pills with him, inert gas capsules concealed in small trinkets. All you had to do was bite down on the concealment, break the capsule, and take a couple of deep breaths. It would be over in a matter of seconds. He slid one across the table to me. “Want to try it?” he asked, deadly serious.

I picked up one of the concealment devices and felt its weight. “You’re sure this is a practice one?” I asked.

“Sure it is. . . . No, wait a minute . . . I think it’s . . .” The chemist smiled for the first time as I dropped the device back on the table pretty quickly.

I had asked for this meeting so that I’d be able to provide a detailed justification to Bill Webster when I hand-carried the memo requesting L-pills to him for his authorizing signature. Judge Webster was a cautious, thoughtful man, and I had voiced my concern to Dick Stolz, who thought Webster’s only problem with this would be the usual revulsion toward the concept, plus a recognition of the need for safeguards. He’d want to know that the special preparations were not being requested frivolously or for the purpose of killing another person. Stolz was in an expansive mood and told me the story of how he’d authorized the L-pill for TRIGON. In those less complicated days, he’d signed the authorizing memorandum himself to keep the DCI out of the process—to protect him. Those days were long past, Stolz said wistfully. Take it to the judge and tell him what he needs to know.

A week later, I presented the memo to Bill Webster. He asked me if we had denied the Soviet agent’s request the requisite three times. I told him yes, we had. Can the man use the device on another person? he asked. I assured him that anything was possible, but that the delivery system did not easily lend itself to murder. Without hesitation, and without further question, Judge Webster signed the memo.

Foros, Crimea, Sunday, August 18, 1991

Mikhail Gorbachev was ready to wrap up his vacation at the picturesque resort town of Foros on the Crimean coast of the Black Sea, where he’d gone for his August break and a much needed rest with his wife, and return to the political intrigue of Moscow. Despite his earlier misgivings, he was planning to sign the All-Union Treaty as soon as he returned to the capital. The treaty represented a historic devolution of power from the Soviet central government to Russia and the other republics. Despite his agreement to sign the treaty, Gorbachev knew that he had not yet developed a clear political accommodation with Russia’s new President, Boris Yeltsin. The pugnacious former Party boss from Sverdlovsk clearly had political momentum behind him, thanks to his sweeping victory in Russia’s June elections, but Gorbachev still controlled the national security apparatus of the Soviet Union, so the battle for political dominance between the Soviet Union and the republics remained unresolved.

Gorbachev’s vacation was shattered just before 5:00 P.M. on August 18, a quiet Sunday afternoon, when surprise visitors arrived from Moscow. The delegation included Oleg Baklanov, head of the Soviet Union’s Military Industrial Commission; General Valentin Varennikov, chief of Soviet Ground Forces; Oleg Shenin, a Central Committee and Politburo apparatchik; and Valery Boldin, Gorbachev’s own chief of staff. They were backed up by Yuri Plekhanov, chief of the KGB’s Ninth Chief Directorate, in charge of the security of the Soviet leadership.

Gorbachev’s unexpected visitors told him that they were representatives of an emergency committee that had taken control of the Soviet government. Just as they arrived, the phone lines into the vacation compound went dead, including the communications link that allowed the Soviet leader to command his country’s nuclear forces. Gorbachev was now cut off from the outside world.

It soon became apparent that the delegation that had traveled to Foros was actually made up of backbenchers. The real driving force behind the coup was KGB Chief Vladimir Kryuchkov, whom Gorbachev had disastrously considered an ally.

Gorbachev angrily rejected the delegation’s request that he endorse the emergency committee and join their effort to turn