PERSPECTIVES ON THE SOVIET UNION : What Did He Know, and When? : The ‘Gang of Eight’ used Gorbachev’s blueprint and his appointees implemented it. His role is being investigated.

The world breathed a sigh of relief when Mikhail Gorbachev returned safely to Moscow, but the Soviet president may be facing a humiliating conclusion to his career. The irony of the failed attempt to overthrow Gorbachev may be that his ultimate undoing is likely to come in the aftermath of the crisis and its investigation. Early evidence, including Gorbachev’s own account of the critical 72 hours, raises serious questions about his role in the crisis and possible responsibility for it. The key questions that have yet to be answered are: How much did Mikhail Gorbachev know, and when did he know it?

Rumors of Gorbachev’s complicity have circulated since the start of what has come to be known as the Moscow coup. His past record, especially events of the last 12 months, indicates that his recent reconciliation with Russian Republic President Boris Yeltsin was not an easy one. It was forged in April largely on Yeltsin’s terms and only after Gorbachev’s own indecisive crackdown attempts had failed to slow down the reform process.

The blueprint for imposing a state of emergency was drawn by Gorbachev himself last winter. He pushed through the legislation that included suspension of political activity and of freedom of the press. He hand-picked the heads of the coercive institutions and other key officials who took part in the coup. When Gorbachev broke away from the military, KGB and Communist Party hard-liners in April, he left the blueprint for a state of emergency intact and in the hands of his trusted appointees.

In the following months, Gorbachev pursued a dual-track policy. He participated in negotiations on the new draft of the Union Treaty, which provided for transfer of key levers of power from the federal presidency to the leaders of republics. In effect, Gorbachev was negotiating the undoing of the super-presidency that he had struggled so hard to build--a course with which he was clearly uneasy. At the same time, Gorbachev chose to ignore warnings about the right’s impending attempt to seize power. Some warnings came from Gorbachev’s liberal advisers, such as Alexander Yakovlev, shortly before the coup. But, incredibly, the clearest signals came from the hard-liners themselves.

A leading conservative journalist, Alexander Prokhanov, known as the “nightingale of the General Staff,” published a transcript of his conversation with the head of the General Staff Academy, the commander-in-chief of the Soviet Navy, and Gorbachev’s deputy at the Defense Council, Oleg D. Baklanov. With remarkable candor, Baklanov called for a military takeover as an appropriate step to avert reforms that would result in a fundamental transformation of the Union. Needless to say, Baklanov delivered on that warning and joined the “Gang of Eight.”

Remarkably, Gorbachev ignored these warnings.

Did Gorbachev know about the upcoming coup, and what was the nature and extent of his participation? It appears highly unlikely that the hard-liners had been set up or ordered by Gorbachev to launch a hopeless coup attempt in order to improve his political standing. Such a scenario would require an unprecedented degree of selfless commitment to Gorbachev on their part.

A more plausible scenario is that Gorbachev was initially a full member of the conspiracy, which, with his participation, could have clung to the fig leaf of constitutionality and would have thwarted the new treaty. Had Gorbachev participated openly, he could have followed the blueprint that he himself had created.

It is possible that, unwilling to take a huge risk and openly side with the hard-liners at the start of the coup, Gorbachev had decided to become ill and wait out the initial phase. How else can one explain the most bizarre circumstances of his confinement in Crimea? By his own admission, Gorbachev’s loyal detail of highly trained bodyguards remained at his residence, protecting him throughout the coup. Gorbachev did not report the presence of any sizable contingent sent there to arrest him. Thus, one is left under the distinct impression that Gorbachev’s confinement in his summer residence was virtually self-imposed.

Gorbachev did reveal, however, that two important officials had visited him in Crimea at the outset of the coup. One was head of the KGB department responsible for the security of Soviet leaders; the other was V. Boldin, Gorbachev’s closest aide, by the president’s own admission a man of absolute loyalty to him. One can’t help but wonder whether these two visitors came to deliver an ultimatum to Gorbachev and put him under arrest in the event of his noncompliance, or to deliver important documents from fellow junta members at the outset of their joint enterprise.

Furthermore, by Gorbachev’s own admission, his loyal guards were able to fix up communication equipment that enabled him to receive radio broadcasts of the BBC, the Voice of America and Radio Liberty. Thus, Gorbachev must have been better informed about the progress of the coup than most Soviet citizens, and was able to adjust his moves accordingly.

Gorbachev’s vague account of his activities during the coup is likely to fuel further speculations about his ties to the conspirators. The Soviet president’s sharp public rebuke of former Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze for his reported remark hinting at Gorbachev’s possible partial responsibility for the week’s events revealed how sensitive he is to this charge.

Some of the men who are in the position to reveal a good deal of information about the failed coup and Gorbachev’s possible role in it have been taken into custody. Ex-KGB Chief Vladimir A. Kryuchkov, Defense Minister Dmitri T. Yazov, Oleg Baklanov and others have nothing to lose and everything to gain from cooperating with the investigation. Yeltsin and his associates are certain to be in firm control of the investigation, which is certain to be full and public due to mounting public pressure in the Soviet Union. Should the investigation confirm speculations about Gorbachev’s rumored unseemly role in the failed coup, his departure from the domestic political arena is all but guaranteed. At the risk of judging the innocent before they are proved guilty, many Soviet people seem to have already recognized Gorbachev’s complicity in this attempted coup and come to terms with his demise as the leader of the Soviet Union. It is not too soon for the rest of the world to begin pondering this prospect.