Ousted Prime Minister Valentin Pavlov, arrested as a major plotter of last week's short-lived coup, was so drunk at a key meeting of the conspirators on the night of the putsch that he could not be understood, his former deputy said.
Also, former Vice President Gennady Yanayev, the front man for the coup who formally seized power, was drunk during most of the three-day coup last week that temporarily removed Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev from power, according to newspaper accounts and speeches at the Supreme Soviet."The coup was staged by drunkards," said the Kuranty newspaper of the Moscow City Council.
In fact, Yanayev, whose hands shook uncontrollably at a news conference, was so inebriated when he was arrested he had to be awakened before his apprehension, the news accounts say.
Despite the events swirling around him during the coup, Yanayev found time to indulge in the Russian sauna at the Kremlin, special guards at the Kremlin told Kuranty.
Pavlov, who dropped out of the junta on the second day pleading high blood pressure, was "obviously so totally drunk" at the kick-off meeting of the putsch Sunday that "he just made no sense," his deputy, Vladimir Shcherbakov, told the Supreme Soviet Thursday.
Shcherbakov tried to justify his not walking out of the meeting and condemning it, saying his first task was to keep the economy going.
But Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, who demanded and received Thursday the firing of his entire Cabinet, told Parliament he could not accept Shcherbakov's argument.
Gorbachev said the entire Cabinet was culpable and he no longer wanted to work with them.