World News Tonight (ABC) - 1991-08-21

Name: World News Tonight (ABC) - 1991-08-21
Uploaded: 2025-08-21
Duration: 1700 s
Channel: malgent
Description: Read a transcript preview of “World News Tonight (ABC) - 1991-08-21” from malgent, uploaded on 2025-08-21.

Channel: malgent

Uploaded: 2025-08-21

Duration: PT1700S

Read a transcript preview of “World News Tonight (ABC) - 1991-08-21” from malgent, uploaded on 2025-08-21.

Transcript preview

Language: English (original, YouTube automatic captions)

[0:00] report. We'll see you back here at 6.

[0:03] >> The Soviet army retreats from Moscow. An

[0:05] old fashioned coup fails in a new era

[0:13] from ABC. This is World News Tonight

[0:16] with Peter Jennings.

[0:18] >> Good evening. A great day in the middle

[0:20] of history, said President Bush. And

[0:21] given the history of the Soviet Union,

[0:23] who would have believed it 60 hours ago?

[0:25] Tonight, Mikall Gorbachoff is again

[0:28] president of the Soviet Union. The men

[0:30] who tried to bring him down are either

[0:31] under arrest or being hunted. We're not

[0:34] absolutely sure. Boris Yelen, the

[0:36] Russian president, once dismissed as a

[0:38] loose cannon on the Soviet political

[0:40] scene, has stared the cannons down and

[0:43] emerged as the man who's kept the Soviet

[0:46] Union from being plunged backwards. The

[0:48] pace of events today has been difficult

[0:50] to keep up with, and there are still

[0:52] some mysteries. We'll begin in Moscow,

[0:54] of course, with our bureau chief there,

[0:56] Jim Luri.

[0:58] To people manning the barricades here,

[1:00] the first sign the coup was faltering

[1:02] lay in the fact there was no all-out

[1:04] attack on the Russian Federation

[1:06] headquarters. Three civilians had died

[1:09] last night when light tanks tried to

[1:11] slam through a barricade. But today,

[1:14] civilians mounted the abandoned vehicles

[1:16] and drove them away.

[1:18] Then Boris Yelten went before the

[1:20] Russian Parliament to reveal one of the

[1:23] coup leaders, KGB Chief Kuchkov, had

[1:25] agreed to send a delegation to meet with

[1:28] Gorbachev under house arrest in the

[1:30] Crimea. The delegation was soon on its

[1:33] way. Yeltson also reported key members

[1:36] of what he had called th