Visit our website: HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------------------------- US embassy was nearly Yeltsin HQ ======================== (Filed: 18/08/2001) Daily Telegraph BORIS YELTSIN nearly sought refuge from the coup in the American embassy in Moscow. He cancelled the plan only after getting into the car that was to take him the few hundred yards to the diplomatic compound. Mr Yeltsin's aborted night-time flight from his stronghold in the parliament building, the White House, is one of the more startling episodes from the coup to come to light. At the first sound of gunfire he was taken, still half asleep, into the White House basement and bundled into a limousine by his bodyguards. The plan, agreed in advance with American diplomats, was to continue resisting the coup from inside the embassy. When Mr Yeltsin discovered where he was being taken, he overruled his security staff and returned to his office, where he oversaw the coup's defeat only hours later. The incident was not the first case of direct US involvement in Moscow's politics that summer. The ambassador, Jack Matlock, was tipped off about an attempt to oust Mikhail Gorbachev two months earlier. The then mayor of Moscow, Gavril Popov, a liberal in the Yeltsin camp, warned Mr Matlock by scribbling notes to avoid being overheard by the KGB. The mayor even listed several members of the August junta as part of the conspiracy. As he left, he whispered to the American diplomat: "We're counting on you." Later the same day the ambassador visited the Kremlin and conveyed the gist, but not the source, of the warning to Mr Gorbachev. The Soviet leader was grateful for the "friendly gesture" but said America "need not worry". © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2001. Terms & Conditions of reading. Commercial information. Privacy Policy. ------------------------------------------------- This Discussion List is the follow-up for the old stopnato @listbot.com that has been shut down ==^================================================================ EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9spWA Or send an email To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] This email was sent to: archive@jab.org T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
