Soviet Union 1991

(First update)

All the questions were put on Yanaev's desk. Except for the most sensitive questions that had no answers and needed Yanaev to decide personally, the others even had standardized answers written down, waiting to be read out verbatim during the interview. However, for a politician who had experienced many battles, these questions were not difficult for Yanaev to improvise.

Also on the morning of the same day, Mike Wallace, who had collected and listed first-hand materials, boarded the special plane to Moscow with great enthusiasm. This was his first interview with the top leader of the opposing camp. In the envious or jealous eyes of his colleagues, Mike Wallace would once again create the pinnacle of his career in the news industry.

Wallace carefully prepared and collected materials along the way. Since he started working in 1958 until the August 19 Incident, everything was recorded in a notebook. What surprised Wallace was that Yanaev's temperament changed completely after the August 19 Incident. He seemed to have changed from a mild political approach to a tough and extreme one. Wallace has always believed that apart from Stalin, the evil genius, all the subsequent Soviet leaders are complacent clowns without exception. They have no idea how to grasp the highest power and have mastered a clear mind in the international political struggle.

Finally, Wallace closed the materials, rubbed his sore eyes, and then picked up the pen as if remembering something and drew a big question mark on Yanaev's photo, and quoted Fadeev's comments on Stalin and Khrushchev next to it.

Is Yanaev an evil genius like Stalin, or an unlearned clown like Khrushchev?

After arriving at Moscow International Airport, Yanaev was specially received by the agents of the Ninth Bureau of the KGB. After checking his equipment and finding that he was not carrying any dangerous items, they agreed to let him board the presidential plane to Foros, Crimea. However, during the search, Wallace was rude to the KGB agents when they checked him, and the other party said that it was just routine business. But Wallace still kept it in mind.

Perhaps Wallace was the only Western journalist who enjoyed the treatment of the presidential plane. When he arrived at the Foros villa, Yanayev, who had been waiting for a long time, gave him a warm hug.

The interview was arranged in the president's bedroom. Yanayev hoped to let the West see a friendly image of the supreme leader.

Facing the somewhat alert Wallace reporter, Yanayev smiled and said, "Welcome to the Foros presidential holiday villa, my Western friend. You are also the only Western reporter who has set foot in this villa in so many years. I hope that the following interview can be as relaxed and pleasant as chatting with old friends. Don't be too nervous, my journalist friend, relax, don't make yourself trembling like French director Barbet Strode interviewing Ugandan President Amin. I am an easy-going person."

Wallace was a little surprised. Yanayev's gentleness and courtesy made him doubt whether the brutal dictator who was denounced by American newspapers and verbally abused by Soviet intellectuals was the same person.

Facing Yanaev's enthusiasm, Wallace shook his hand generously and smiled brightly, "Hello, President Yanaev, I am honored that you accepted my invitation to visit. To be honest, since you mentioned Ugandan President Amin, is President Yanaev a cruel tyrant who persecutes dissidents as described by the Western world? Or is the friendliness I have seen just your wishful acting, just like the president of Uganda?"

Wallace's first question was aggressive, and the photographer even looked at Yanaev hesitantly. As long as the president nodded, he could cut off the filming at any time and let the guards forcibly end the interview.

But Yanayev just replied gently, "But the intelligence we have shows that Ugandan President Amin's rise to power has been greatly helped by the British intelligence agencies, and the US and Israeli intelligence agencies are also involved in this matter. The British intention is to support Amin to stop the process of nationalizing foreign property and stop President Obed's pro-Marxist tendencies. Moreover, in this document, the British Foreign Secretary also bluntly said that Amin is a person who has a relationship with us and we can count on him. Of course, you can think that what I said is false. If Wallace reporter has time, he can go back and check the information. He will find that after Amin came to power, he immediately cancelled the previous government's decision to nationalize British private companies. In order to thank Amin, the British government immediately provided Amin with 90 million pounds of financial assistance, donated 50 armored infantry vehicles, and sent military advisers to help train the Ugandan army." Wallace suddenly realized that Yanayev's words were full of meaning, and it seemed that he had set a trap for him to enter. The so-called mention of Uganda was completely to let himself step into Yanayev's thinking trap and follow his thoughts. As expected, Yanayev continued to speak slowly, "Britain is a country that prides itself on human rights and freedom. In 1689, it promulgated the Bill of Rights to clearly restrict the royal power in legal form. Moreover, the British poet Pope once said that anyone who does not give freedom to others will not get it himself. So, is Britain's obstruction of the Ugandan people's right to freedom and democracy an accomplice of dictatorship?"

Wallace wiped the sweat from his forehead. It turned out that the Soviet leader was not a simple and crude "tsar" like Nicholas II. Every word he said revealed that he was plotting against the West and had done what the Western governments had done. Some shady transactions were poured out all at once.

At this time, Yanayev completely abandoned the model essay answers that Surkov had provided him a few days ago and entered the plot of random play. He made a gesture of invitation for Wallace to ask his next question.

Wallace took a breath and began to ask questions directed at the Soviet dictatorship, "What about the innocent people who gathered peacefully in Red Square during the August 19th incident? Your soldiers aimed their guns at these freedom-loving people, hoping The people of the country are democratic and prosperous. Shouldn't this be regarded as a dictator's approach? In what was later called the Stalin-style purge in the West, you purged almost half of the officials in Moscow, and Many high-level officials ended their lives inexplicably. Even Solzhenitsyn, the author of "The Gulag Archipelago" and known as the most conscientious intellectual, wrote a satirical article about you about the dictator. In the eyes of Westerners. , it seems that you can describe it as evil, so I want to know how President Yanayev will feel when you hear these comments. Will he be a dictator by default?"

Compared with the previous questions, this whole question made everyone present hold their breath. Some photographers were even afraid that they might hear some secrets they shouldn't hear. But only Yanayev was still looking at Wallace, who was equally confident, with eyes that seemed to have seen through everything.

"What a pity, Mr. Wallace, the level of your question is not even as good as that group of cents." Yanayev thought about this sentence silently in his heart.