Moscow, December 25, 1991

Bush came on the line. Yeltsin read the agreement and told the U.S. president that this was the only way out of the crisis convulsing the Soviet Union. Addressing Bush as “dear George,” he told him that the union treaty had reached an impasse and that they had decided to create a commonwealth of independent states. “I must tell you confidentially,” he said, “President Gorbachev does not know these results. Because of the friendship between us, I couldn’t wait even ten minutes to call you.”

“I see,” said the U.S. president hesitantly. He got the impression Yeltsin was reading from a script. It dawned on him that the Russian leader had decided to dissolve the Soviet Union.

Yeltsin assured him that the agreement recognized the five principles that the United States had stated it required for recognition of future independent states: peaceful self-determination, respect for existing borders, respect for democracy and the rule of law, respect for human rights, and respect for international law.

The next day Bush dictated into his personal mini-recorder: “I find myself on this Monday night wondering, where was the army? They’ve been silent. What will happen? Can this get out of hand?”¹⁰

Yeltsin had used the leader of the free world to his advantage. Telling Bush first had further diminished Gorbachev, and his consultation with the president of the United States implied that they had cleared everything with the White House.

It fell to Shushkevich, the third ranking member of the group, to break the news to Gorbachev. It took him some time to get through. Yeltsin and Kravchuk listened as Shushkevich told the Soviet president what they had done.

“What happens to me?” Gorbachev demanded to know. “Do you understand how this will be received by the world community?” The Belarusian leader replied, “I do understand; we have told Bush and he took it well.’”

Gorbachev erupted at this gross discourtesy. “You talk to the president of the United States of America and the president of the country knows nothing. This is a disgrace!” He demanded to speak to Yeltsin.

When the Russian president came on the line, Gorbachev snapped at him in cold fury. “What you have done behind my back, with the consent of the U.S. president, is a crying shame, a disgrace.” He demanded that all three Slav leaders come and explain themselves to him in the Kremlin the next day. He was convinced now of his rival’s duplicity.¹¹

The Ukrainian president laughed at the idea of giving an account of himself to Gorbachev. Kravchuk had taken such a dislike to him—the feeling was mutual—that he was offering to sell Gorbachev’s dacha at Foros in Crimea, now part of Ukraine, to anyone who would guarantee that Gorbachev would never be permitted to return there. He also wanted to get back to Kiev immediately. These were dangerous times, and he was “afraid that violent methods would be used against Ukraine.”

Kravchuk and Shushkevich returned to their capitals rather than answer Gorbachev’s summons to Moscow. They had nothing to say to him and did not want to risk arrest. Both would later explain that they had always found him impossible to work with because he was not straightforward and forthright, qualities they found in Yeltsin. They never met Gorbachev again during his presidency.

When Anatoly Chernyaev, who had spent that Sunday with his mistress, Lyuda, got word of the Belovezh Agreement, he started to prepare, without any conviction, to make the case against it as Gorbachev’s loyal servant. “I didn’t believe in the survival of the Union, even before the putsch,” he wrote that evening. “I continued to work on the arguments for the Union…. But why? You can only laugh.” When “low-life Kozyrev,” as Chernyaev referred to the Russian foreign minister, announced to the media that there were two solutions for Gorbachev, self-liquidation of the presidency or an August-type coup, “we, Gorbachev’s team, shit ourselves.” Nevertheless he didn’t see any alternative but to give themselves to Russia, as the Union was dead.¹²

Yeltsin still worried about a “countercoup.” When he got back to the Russian capital late that night—Gorbachev would later claim he was so drunk he had to be carried off the plane—there were rumors circulating that members of the former KGB Alpha Group, then under both presidents, were preparing to arrest the three signatories to the agreement and that concrete blocks had been trucked to the Kremlin to reinforce defenses. Russian radio also broadcast reports of illegal gatherings of intelligence and military generals to discuss a possible overthrow of the republic leaders.

The next morning security at the Russian White House was reinforced, with extra guards on duty cradling automatic weapons, stamping their feet in the frigid air. It was the coldest day of the winter, with the temperature falling below zero.