USSR--GORBACHEV GIVES PRESS CONFERENCE Munich, August 22, 1991 (RI/Vera Tolz & Elizabeth Teague) Summary: Mikhail Gorbachev addressed a press conference on his return to Moscow today. He was forthcoming in providing previously unknown details about his detention in the Crimea, but considerably less frank about his own future plans. In particular, he reaffirmed his loyalty to the CPSU and to socialist ideals. USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev began his press conference in Moscow at 1730 CEST on August 22 by expressing the hope that the events that led to this press conference would never be repeated. GORBACHEV DESCRIBES HIS DETENTION Next Gorbachev described the corcumstances of his three-day house arrest in the Crimea, adding many new details to what was already generally known. He said that at 1700 on Sunday, August 18, members of the so-called "Emergency Committee" (GKChP) arrived without warning at his dacha. They gained access to the building only because they were accompanied by Plekhanov, head of the KGB department responsible for Gorbachev's security. (Because of Plekhanov's betrayal, Gorbachev added, the whole system of KGB security is to be reviewed.) Before agreeing to meet the delegation, Gorbachev said, he decided to check with Moscow. At that point he discovered that all the telephone lines had been cut. Gorbachev did not identify his visitors, other than to say that Valerii Boldin, a longtime Communist Party functionary whom Gorbachev appointed head of his personal secretariat, was among them. (Boldin was today placed under arrest. His place as as head of Gorbachev's secretariat has been taken by Grigorii Revenko.) The delegation demanded that Gorbachev hand his presidential powers over to his Vice President, Gennadii Yanaev. When Gorbachev asked in whose name this demand was being made, his visitors named the Emergency Committee--the existence of which had until then been unknown to Gorbachev. Then the coup organizers offered Gorbachev an alternative: that he should himself join the GKChP. However, Gorbachev said, he refused because, although he agreed that the USSR was facing a critical situation, he did not favor a return to the totalitarian policies of the past. Instead, he proposed that the matter be debated at a session or the USSR Supreme Soviet or at an emergency session of the "superparliament," the USSR Congress of People's Deputies.1 When Gorbachev refused to cooperate with the delegation, he was put under house arrest. Of Gorbachev's personal bodyguards, the overwhelming majority (32 out of an unspecified number) remained loyal to him. Once they learned that the GKChP was claiming Gorbachev had been replaced because of poor health, they made Gorbachev adopt a number of precautions. For example, they would not allow additional food to be sent to the dacha from outside. Gorbachev said the bodyguards helped him keep in touch with the outside world by rigging up special antennae to tune in to foreign radio broadcasts. He specifically mentioned the BBC, Radio Liberty, and the VOA. Gorbachev said he feared the possibility of assassination and that, after his death, the conspirators might make use of his name to achieve their ends. On August 20, therefore, he composed a written statement condemning the creation of the GKChP as a coup d'etat and proclaiming all its resolutions illegal. He demanded to be allowed to return immediately to Moscow. He was filmed reading the statement aloud and a videotape was smuggled to Moscow. Gorbachev promised it would be shown on television. Gorbachev concluded his introductory statement by saying that the failure of the coup vindicated his six years in office. Democratization, he said, was now deeply rooted in Soviet society. He thanked the Soviet population, and in particular the people of the Russian Federation, for restoring democratic rule. He singled out the role of RSFST President Boris Yeltsin for special mention. Gorbachev also thanked the non-Russian republics of the USSR for their support during the coup. He failed, however, to make any specific reference to the Baltic republics whose leaders were the first, following Yeltsin, to demand Gorbachev's restoration to his presidential position. GORBACHEV REAFFIRMS LOYALTY TO COMMUNIST PARTY After this opening statement, in which he spoke with unprecedented openness and even, it might be said, uncharacteristic humility, Gorbachev took a number of questions from the assembled newsmen. At this point, he seemd to revert to the role of politician that he has played so often in the past. For example, Gorbachev dodged a straight question from the Italian journalist, Giulietto Chiesa, who asked Gorbachev under whose pressure he acted when, in October 1990, he made his famous "turn to the right" and when, in December 1990, he proposed Yanaev for the post of USSR Vice-President. Gorbachev refused to answer directly, saying only that he had made a mistake in surrounding himself with people whom he trusted but who later betrayed him. In response to a subsequent question, however, Gorbachev admitted that he had been mistaken in trusting KGB chairman Vladimir Kryuchkov and defense minister Dmitrii Yazov. He also said that he was wrong, in December 1990, to force the Congress of People's Deputies to elect Yanaev as Vice-President. He admitted that the betrayal of his closest associates was "a drama" for him. Gorbachev did not respond directly to a question concerning the future of his old friend, Anatolii Luk'yanov, identified today by RSFSR prime minister Ivan Silaev as the "chief ideologist" behind the attempted coup. But Gorbachev did say that there would be changes in the top leadership following the coup and he seemed at that point to have Luk'yanov in mind.2 Some of Gorbachev's replies to the questions of journalists today indicated that, despite his harrowing experience of house arrest, he still clings to several of the opinions that in recent months have caused him to clash with leaders of the country's democratic movement. For example, Gorbachev today vigorously defended the socialist ideals of the October Revolution. He also defended the CPSU and refused to admit that, by their three-day silence, Party leaders supported the coup and its organizers.3 On the contrary, Gorbachev asserted, the only people who openly supported his ouster were Libya's leader General Khaddafi, Iraq's Saddam Hussein, and the leader of the Moscow-loyalist Communist Party of Latvia, Alfreds Rubiks. Naturally enough, Gorbachev refused to answer when asked who is today more powerful--himself or Boris Yeltsin. This is however the main question Gorbachev will have to face in coming weeks and months. FOOTNOTES 1. It seems to have been this that led the chairman of the USSR Supreme Soviet, Anatolii Luk'yanov, to tell members of the "Soyuz" group of people's deputies on August 20 that Gorbachev supported the idea of the Emergency Committee and that he had merely asked for it to be submitted to a session of the Supreme Soviet. 2. Accoridng to "Vremya" on August 22, Luk'yanov has already been "removed" from his post as chairman of the USSR Supreme Soviet and temporarily replaced by Ivan Laptev and Rafik Nishanov, who are presently heads of the Supreme Soviet's two chambers. 3. The furthest that Gorbachev would go was to admit the Moscow Party leader Yurii Prokof'ev and Central Committee secretary Oleg Shenin supported the coup. "Vremya" announced on August 22 that Shenin had been arrested. Gorbachev was, however, warm in his praise of Deputy Party General Secretary Vladimir Ivashko, the new first secretary of the RSFSR Communist Party Valentin Kuptsov, and CPSU Central Committee secretary Aleksandr Dzasokhov.