page_title: 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt
section_title: United States
hierarchical_section_title: 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt / International reactions / United States
caption_attribution_description: English: The US President George H. W. Bush and Soviet Predident Mikhail Gorbachev hold a press conference at the Helsinki Summit, Finland on September 9, 1990. Suomi: Yhdysvaltain presidentti George H. W. Bush ja Neuvostoliiton presidentti Mihail Gorbatšov lehdistötilaisuudessa Helsingissä 9. syyskuuta 1990.
context_page_description: The 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt was a failed attempt made by Communist leaders of the Soviet Union to take control of the country from Mikhail Gorbachev, who was Soviet President and General Secretary. The coup leaders were hard-line opponents of Gorbachev's reform program and of the new union treaty that he had negotiated. The treaty decentralized much of the central government's power to the republics. The hard-liners were opposed, mainly in Moscow, by a short but effective campaign of civil resistance led by Russian president Boris Yeltsin, who had been both an ally and critic of Gorbachev. Although the coup collapsed in only two days and Gorbachev returned to power, the event destabilized the USSR and is widely considered to have contributed to both the demise of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the dissolution of the USSR.
  After the capitulation of the State Committee on the State of Emergency, popularly referred to as the "Gang of Eight", both the Supreme Court of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev described their actions as a coup attempt.
context_section_description: During his vacation in Kennebunkport, Maine, the President of the United States, George H.W. Bush made a blunt demand for Gorbachev's restoration to power and said the United States did not accept the legitimacy of the self-proclaimed new Soviet Government. He returned to the White House after rushing from his vacation home. Bush then issued a strongly-worded statement that followed a day of consultations with other leaders of the Western alliance and a concerted effort to squeeze the new Soviet leadership by freezing economic aid programs. He decried the coup as a "misguided and illegitimate effort" that "bypasses both Soviet law and the will of the Soviet peoples."  President Bush called the overthrow "very disturbing," and he put a hold on U.S. aid to the Soviet Union until the coup was ended.
  The Bush statement, drafted after a series of meetings with top aides at the White House, was much more forceful than the President's initial reaction that morning in Maine. It was in keeping with a unified Western effort to apply both diplomatic and economic pressure to the group of Soviet officials seeking to gain control of the country.
  Former President Ronald Reagan had said:
  "I can't believe that the Soviet people will allow a reversal in the progress that they have recently made toward economic and political freedom. Based on my extensive meetings and conversations with him, I am convinced that President Gorbachev had the best interest of the Soviet people in mind. I have always felt that his opposition came from the communist bureaucracy, and I can only hope that enough progress was made that a movement toward democracy will be unstoppable."
  On September 2, 1991, the United States re-recognized the independence of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania when Bush delivered the press conference in Kennebunkport.
caption: George H.W. Bush, left, is seen with Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990. Bush condemned the coup and the actions of the "Gang of Eight".
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