Eyewitness to the 1991 Soviet Coup with Brett Elliott (214)

Cold War Conversations - "vivid & compelling" The NY Times

Ian Sanders

Society & Culture, Documentary, History

4.8 • 863 Ratings

🗓️ 25 December 2021

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Today’s episode is different. Brett Elliott died earlier this year and I was contacted by his ex-wife Polly who offered me a cassette tape. Polly and Brett had met in college and got to know each other in Russian Club at Oklahoma State. In the summer of 1991, they went to Moscow to pursue Polly’s goal of being a reporter in Russia and Brett’s goal of further studying Russia. They both worked together covering the Bush Gorbachev summit, with Polly as a reporter and Brett as an interpreter. Polly left Russia early, but Brett stayed a few weeks more and witnessed the collapse of the Soviet Union, August 19-21, 1991. During a rare phone call, Polly begged him to be careful, and he famously said she was worse than the coup leaders if she wanted to deny him getting out to witness history… Polly's book is available on the links below US Listeners https://amzn.to/3mEuPMa UK listeners https://amzn.to/3CLuHjy We have photos here https://coldwarconversations.com/episode214/ This podcast relies on listener support to enable me to continue to capture these incredible stories and make them available for free. You can support my work and help to preserve Cold War history via one-off or monthly donations Just go to https://coldwarconversations.com/donate/ for more details. Do join our Facebook discussion group where the cold war conversation continues between episodes. Just search Cold War Conversations on Facebook. This episode is the audio from the cassette of Brett describing his experiences just two weeks after the coup. Being on cassette the sound quality is not great, but I am delighted and honoured to welcome Brett Elliott to our Cold War conversation… 0:00 Introduction and appeal for donations 1:47 Brett and Polly's experience in Russia 5:55 Brett's account before and during the coup 14:09 Brett's analysis of the coup leaders' strategy 16:03 Reaction to the arrival of armored vehicles in Moscow 21:23 Protestors' response to the show of military force 28:45 The march towards the Russian Federation building 31:01 Day 2: Speeches and continued protests 35:07 Brett's journey back home through Yugoslavia 44:22 Brett's reflection on the changes since the uprising 46:00 Ian Sanders: Closing remarks and thanks to patrons 47:13 Ian Sanders: Postscript and store promotion Table of contents powered by PodcastAI✨ Support the project! https://coldwarconversations.com/donate/ Follow us on Twitter https://twitter.com/ColdWarPod Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/coldwarpod/ Instagram https://www.instagram.com/coldwarconversations/ Youtube https://youtube.com/@ColdWarConversations Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to Cold War Conversations, the home of real stories of the Cold War.
0:11.0	I was awaiting my phone call, and my friend said, can you bring in my role of black and white film?
0:20.8	And I said, okay, no problem.
0:23.1	He said there's a coup in progress.
0:27.4	This is Cold War Conversations.
0:32.4	If you're new here, you've come to the right place to listen to firsthand Cold War
0:37.3	History accounts. Do
0:38.5	make sure you follow us in your podcast app so that you don't miss out on future episodes.
0:44.9	Today's episode is different. Brett Elliott died earlier this year and I was contacted by his
0:51.5	ex-wife, Polly, who offered me a cassette tape.
0:55.5	Polly and Brett had met in college and got to know each other in Russian club at Oklahoma State University.
1:02.9	In the summer of 1991, they went to Moscow to pursue Polly's goal of being a reporter in Russia
1:09.6	and Brett's goal of further studying Russia.
1:13.7	They both worked together covering the Bush-Gorberchever summit with Polly as a reporter and
1:19.6	Brett as an interpreter. Polly left Russia early but Brett stayed a few weeks more and witnessed
1:25.8	the collapse of the Soviet Union in August 1991.
1:30.3	And during a rare phone call, Polly begged him to be careful.
1:34.5	And he famously said she was worse than the coup leaders if she wanted to deny him getting out to witness history.
1:45.2	Now this podcast relies on listener support
1:48.3	to enable me to continue to capture these incredible stories
1:51.6	and make them available for free.
1:54.5	You can support my work and help to preserve Cold War history
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Ian Sanders, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Ian Sanders and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.