Prologue: A Tale of Two Tilts
Journal: Palgrave Macmillan US eBooks
Year: 2013

Abstract Mikhail Gorbachev was relaxing in his lavish villa in the Crimea at 4:50 pm on August 18, 1991, when he learned he had visitors. One was a secret police official. He picked up his phone to see who the others were, but the line was dead. He tried others. They were all dead. He had heard murmurings of a coup before taking this vacation, but had waved them away. Now he gazed around at his palace, with its marble stairways and escalator down to the Black Sea, and felt dread.