Moscow, December 25, 1991

After the conspiracy in the Belovezh Forest, which killed off his political career, Gorbachev went through the first two stages of grief—denial and anger. After Alma-Ata he moved to the third stage—bargaining. He now had to negotiate his retirement package. He had got his aides to draw up decrees regarding his pension and living conditions and prepare drafts of a resignation address. But he couldn’t bring himself to set the final wheels in motion.

Yeltsin forced the issue in typical fashion. In midmorning on Monday, December 23, six years to the day since Gorbachev promoted him to Moscow party chief, the Russian president sent word that he was on his way to the Senate Building to set the terms for Gorbachev’s exit from political life.

The president’s aides were furious at the short notice. Grachev perceived Yeltsin to be acting as he always did, capriciously and aggressively.² But as Gorbachev’s former deputy spokesman Sergey Grigoryev put it, “Yeltsin had Gorbachev by the balls.” Now that the republics had signed up to the Commonwealth of Independent States, scheduled to come into existence on January 1, there was no longer a role for a Union president.

The unexpected arrival of Yeltsin was doubly embarrassing for Gorbachev’s staff. They had alerted Ted Koppel and his television crew to be in the Kremlin to film something quite different.

“When we picked up our equipment on that Monday morning, we were told Gorbachev would be taping his resignation speech in his office in a matter of minutes,” said Koppel. “He was, we were told, getting a haircut in preparation. Waiting with us was Gorbachev’s makeup artist. At one point a member of the president’s personal security guard came to the door to tell us that Gorbachev was a minute away. The president’s desk with two Soviet flags behind it was fully lit. Two large cameras from Soviet state television were already beaming the signal out for taping.

“But he never showed up. It was just past 11 a.m., and Boris Yeltsin was coming to the Kremlin for a meeting.”³

With Yeltsin on his way, Gorbachev had to scrap plans to prerecord his speech and make up his mind quickly when he would actually announce his departure to the nation. He told Grachev he would most likely broadcast his resignation speech live the following day. “There’s no sense in dragging this out,” he sighed.

“Wouldn’t it be better to wait until Wednesday?” Grachev suggested. “Tomorrow is December 24, Christmas Eve. In many countries this is the biggest holiday of the year. Let people celebrate in peace.” “All right,” said Gorbachev, who like his press secretary was seemingly unaware that the “biggest holiday” was Christmas Day, “but Wednesday at the latest.”

Grachev asked Gorbachev if he thought it would be acceptable for the American and Russian television crews to film the two leaders in the act of greeting each other. This would be an important encounter between the two men who had shaped Russia’s destiny, and it should be recorded for history. Gorbachev gave his OK with a wave of his hand.

Knowing how prickly Yeltsin could be, and worried he might suspect an ambush of some sort, Grachev went to ask Yeltsin, too, for permission. As Yeltsin emerged from the elevator, flanked by his wary and unsmiling bodyguard, Korzhakov, Grachev inquired if the camera crews could record his arrival. “Out of the question, otherwise I’ll cancel the meeting,” snorted Yeltsin. Grachev signaled to the television people to leave. There was no doubting whose wishes must be obeyed, even in the precincts of Gorbachev’s own office.

Koppel remembered the Russian leader glowering as he walked towards the office. He felt that Yeltsin was angry at him. “I was paying all this attention to Gorbachev. He felt I should be seeking him out. He was the new boy in town. This was his moment; he was absorbing all the power. It was bleeding through Gorbachev’s hands minute by minute.”

In an interview not long before, Yeltsin had bluntly told Koppel his opinion of Gorbachev: “To a large extent, I don’t like him.”

Yeltsin waited until the reporters left before he would even cross the threshold into Gorbachev’s sanctum.

Zhenya, the Kremlin waiter, brought in a tray with coffee, cups, shot glasses, and two bottles, vodka for Yeltsin and Jubilee cognac for Gorbachev, “to go with the coffee,” as Chernyaev observed dryly. After some small talk they took their jackets off and in shirt sleeves and ties moved to the adjacent Walnut Room. It was in this same room on March 11, 1985, the day after the death of Soviet leader Konstantin Chernenko, that the Politburo of the Communist Party agreed to make Mikhail Gorbachev general secretary of the party and undisputed leader of the Soviet Union.