Down with Big Brother (57 page)

“A politician has to have a sense of tactics. I was being criticized from both sides. It was necessary for me to steer between one extreme and the other. I was playing for time.”
¹¹

Gorbachev should have known that bargaining with the KGB was a little like bargaining with the devil.

V
LADIMIR
A
LEKSANDROVICH
K
RYUCHKOV
had the kind of bland, featureless face that merges into the crowd. Western correspondents had difficulty identifying him at the first Congress of People’s Deputies in May 1989, seven months after his appointment as head of the KGB. Few of the legislators knew who he was, and there was little in his official portrait to distinguish him from the other faceless apparatchiks. He seemed the perfect subordinate: soft-spoken, self-disciplined, eager to please.

He had made his career in the shadow of Yuri Andropov. Their association went back to the Hungarian crisis of 1956, when Kryuchkov served in the Soviet embassy in Budapest under Andropov. The uprising and its subsequent suppression by the Red Army were an ordeal by fire for both the ambassador and his thirty-two-year-old press attaché. Together they had
the task of convincing the rebels that Soviet troops were withdrawing permanently from Hungary at a time when Khrushchev was planning to send them back into Budapest in overwhelming force. The experience provided Kryuchkov with a powerful lesson in the uses of misinformation and military might to stop a counterrevolution in its tracks. When Andropov was transferred back to Moscow, to be put in charge of a Central Committee department dealing with socialist countries, he took Kryuchkov along as his aide.

When Andropov was appointed head of the KGB in 1967, he asked his assistant to accompany him. A party apparatchik inexperienced in intelligence work, Kryuchkov aroused some resentment among KGB professionals. Many were openly contemptuous, regarding him as an obsequious bureaucrat who owed his position entirely to Andropov’s patronage. “He was a meticulous paper shuffler, a master at working the Soviet bureaucracy,” recalled Oleg Kalugin, a career KGB general who had many arguments with Kryuchkov. “Kryuchkov catered completely to Andropov’s wishes, and unfortunately the KGB chairman had worked with Kryuchkov so long that he couldn’t see his assistant’s myriad shortcomings. In reality, Kryuchkov knew little of the outside world, and even less about intelligence. He had a serious intellectual inferiority complex and was extremely jealous of his colleagues’ successes. He was the kind of man who gloated when you stumbled and then, if the opportunity arose, would push you even further down. He was, in short, a real bastard.”
¹²

In order to retain the confidence of his masters, Kryuchkov had to display utter loyalty and devotion to the cause. Like other KGB officers, he was required to submit a detailed personal biography, drawing attention to any conceivable character flaw or compromising family connection. He acknowledged that his sister was an alcoholic who had been convicted of theft. He took care to inform his superiors that he had broken off all ties with both her and with a politically unreliable older brother, who had conveniently disappeared from his life at the end of the war by moving to the Soviet Far East.
¹³

Andropov appointed Kryuchkov head of the foreign intelligence arm of the KGB, the First Chief Directorate, in 1974. He served in this position for the next fourteen years, impressing his subordinates with a seemingly limitless capacity for work and a total absence of humor. A physical fitness fanatic, he had the habit of squeezing tennis balls to strengthen his grip while conducting meetings. He rose every day at 5:45 a.m., in order to allow time for a full regimen of outdoor exercises, regardless of the weather and when
he had gone to bed. This routine continued after he became chairman of the KGB in October 1988. He would summon officials to his Moscow dacha and make them wait while he finished his early-morning run around the estate. A Zil would then take the party to the Lubyanka.
¹⁴

The fact that Kryuchkov had served Andropov for many years boosted his standing with Gorbachev. The general secretary believed that the new KGB chief would continue Andropov’s crusade against corruption and Brezhnevite “stagnation.”
¹⁵
He had every condidence in Kryuchkov’s loyalty, seeing him as a consummate acolyte, who had spent his entire life fulfilling the wishes of his superiors. It was difficult to imagine such a creature leading a coup against his commander in chief. When he was eventually presented with evidence of Kryuchkov’s betrayal, he initially refused to believe it.
¹⁶

Treason was probably the last thing on Kryuchkov’s mind in December 1990. His aim was not to lead a coup himself but gradually to maneuver Gorbachev into cracking down on the “antisocialist” opposition. The country was on the verge of disintegration, but the “course of events” could still be reversed through decisive action. Soviet history was full of examples of Communist Party leaders reasserting their authority when all seemed lost. There were textbook scenarios for what he had in mind in the KGB archives, in files marked “Kronshtadt, 1921,” “East Berlin, 1953,” “Budapest, 1956,” “Prague, 1968,” “Kabul, 1979,” and “Warsaw, 1981.” The party and the KGB had decades of experience in the art of seizing and retaining power. It was what they did best.

The KGB chief was convinced that political chaos and economic disruption had left many Soviet citizens yearning for a “strong hand.” If the authorities displayed sufficient determination and tactical skill, they might be able to restore order without excessive violence and bloodshed. But first of all, it was necessary to organize a trial run.

VILNIUS
January 13, 1991

T
HE CONVOY OF FOUR
T-72
TANKS
and sixteen armored cars roared up the winding path to the television tower, on the top of a hill, overlooking the Lithuanian capital. As the tanks approached, swinging their gun turrets menacingly and firing deafening blanks, several thousand demonstrators rushed toward the eleven-hundred-foot tower. From the tops of the armored cars, Soviet soldiers trained powerful spotlights on the crowd. An amplified voice boomed out of the darkness. “Brother Lithuanians! In the name of the National Salvation Committee, I announce that all power in the republic is now in our hands. This is the power of simple working people: workers, peasants, and servicemen. The power of people like you.”
¹⁷

There were jeers and whistles from the demonstrators, who had linked arms, forming a human barricade, ten to twelve people deep, around the television tower. Chants of “
Lietuva, Lietuva
” (Lithuania, Lithuania) and “
Laisve, laisve
” (Freedom, freedom) filled the cool nighttime air.

“True, some of you have come under the influence of deceits, lies, demagoguery, and intimidation,” the male voice went on. “These are the weapons the authorities have used up to now, playing games in the Lithuanian parliament and government. They expressed the interests of rich people, fraudulent people, corrupt elements. This is not our course.”

By now it was clear where the voice was coming from, a loudspeaker mounted on top of one of the armored cars. The speaker did not identify himself, but Lithuanian investigators later said it belonged to Juozas Jermalavičius, chief ideologist of the pro-Moscow wing of the local Communist Party.
¹⁸
Installed in power by Soviet tanks, Jermalavičius and his comrades had suffered a humiliating defeat in the first free elections in Lithuania in half a century. When the Lithuanian parliament declared independence on March 11, 1990, by a majority of 124 to 0, the pro-Moscow deputies walked out. Ten months later they announced the formation of a “National Salvation Committee,” with the task of restoring “Soviet power” in Lithuania. The members of the committee refused to reveal their identity, saying they feared for their lives.

“I ask you not to resist,” the voice continued, first in Lithuanian and then in Russian, as the tanks pushed aside a few small trucks and cars that had been blocking the path to the television tower. “I ask you to go home. Your parents, your mothers and fathers, your brothers and sisters, your grandfathers and grandmothers are waiting for you. Go home. Confrontation is senseless.”

The Lithuanian defenders stood their ground, shouting defiance at the approaching tanks. They had been expecting such a confrontation for several days now. Over the past week the Kremlin had stepped up its campaign of intimidation, dispatching thousands of paratroopers to the Baltic states to hunt down draft dodgers. Events seemed to be following a planned scenario. First, Gorbachev had dispatched an angry letter to the Lithuanian leaders demanding their allegiance to the Soviet Constitution. Then Soviet troops began seizing public buildings, gradually restricting the authority of the democratically elected Lithuanian government. They also took the precaution of disarming an elite Lithuanian antiriot squad, the only force capable of opposing them. Air and rail traffic, in and out of Vilnius, was halted. Finally, at midnight on January 12, a delegation of “workers” had attempted to deliver a petition to the Lithuanian government, demanding that it surrender power to the National Salvation Committee. The “workers,” many of whom reeked of alcohol, had been hustled away for questioning by nervous pro-independence activists.

At the time the incident seemed inconsequential. But the leaders of the shadowy National Salvation Committee needed a pretext, however flimsy, for appealing to the commander of the Soviet military garrison in Vilnius for “assistance.” This was it. Shortly after 1:00 a.m. armored columns appeared on the streets of Vilnius, prompting Lithuanian leaders to broadcast
a frantic appeal to the population to defend strategic buildings like the television tower.

Rolandas Jankauskas was at a Vilnius discotheque when he heard the appeal. He had just turned twenty-two. He had left the Soviet navy two months previously, after completing his compulsory military service. Singing and laughing, Jankauskas and his friends poured out of the disco to see where the tanks were headed. At roughly the same time a twenty-three-year-old seamstress, Loreta Asanavičiute, ran into an old friend while walking home after a party. The friend asked her to go with her to the television tower, on Cosmonaut Avenue, where large crowds were beginning to gather. Impulsive and full of life, Asanavičiute immediately agreed.
¹⁹

Jankauskas and Asanavičiute were among the first Lithuanian victims of the attack on the television tower. He fell to the ground as the troops began advancing toward the tower, throwing stun grenades and firing shots into the air. Seconds later he was crushed under the wheels of an armored personnel carrier. Asanavičiute was one of several Lithuanians hit by a tank clearing a path for the advancing troops. The right side of her body bore the marks of caterpillar tracks.

After failing to disperse the demonstrators by firing over their heads, the Soviet attackers aimed their AK-47 assault rifles directly into the crowd. Seven of the eleven Lithuanian civilians killed during the assault on the tower were hit by bullets. Sporadic shooting continued in the vicinity of the tower for a further ninety minutes. That night, out of more than four hundred injured, a total of fifty-three people were taken to hospitals in Vilnius with bullet wounds. At Hospital No. 1, in the center of the city, there were horrific scenes of carnage: charred faces; crushed legs; ripped-out intestines. “Some of the things I have seen tonight made my hair stand on end,” said Dalia Steibilene, the doctor on duty when the fighting broke out. “We knew that this kind of violence was happening in the Caucasus, but nobody thought that anything like this would happen in peaceful Lithuania.”
²⁰

Soviet officials later claimed that members of the crowd had opened fire on the Soviet army. But they failed to produce any evidence to support their assertion, and none of the foreign journalists at the scene saw any firearms in the hands of the defenders.

Spearheading the assault force was a group of thirty or so men in black helmets, their eyes shielded by bulletproof visors, who smashed their way through the plate glass windows at the base of the television tower. They seemed more organized and disciplined than the rest of the attacking force. They talked to one another constantly, via radio sets attached to the backs
of their helmets. Once inside the tower, they moved methodically from floor to floor, pushing aside the barricades erected by the Lithuanian defenders and dismantling the booby traps. Their presence in Vilnius was meant to be a closely guarded secret. Within a matter of days it was to become a matter of nationwide controversy, and a serious embarrassment to their masters in Moscow.

M
ORE THAN A DECADE HAD PASSED
since Yevgeny Chudesnov had taken part in the operation to overthrow Amin. He still remembered the fragrant aroma of shashlik, rising from hundreds of bonfires, as he drove through the deserted streets of Kabul that cold winter night. A veteran of the Alpha Group, he had become almost immune to the rattle of gunfire and the deafening sound of explosions.

If the KGB was the sword and shield of the Soviet state, the Alpha Group was the sword and shield of the KGB. Modeled on the British SAS and the American Delta squad, the two hundred or so members of the Alpha Group were superbly trained and equipped. These Soviet Rambos had extensive experience in freeing hostages, disarming terrorists, and storming buildings. Since the takeover of Amin’s palace in December 1979, they had carried out hundreds of delicate missions in different parts of the Soviet Union, achieving almost mythic status in the eyes of Kremlin leaders. The head of the Alpha Group reported directly to the chairman of the KGB. The force was the last line of defense for a Soviet Union threatened with disintegration.