CBS Evening News - 1991-08-21
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Read a transcript preview of “CBS Evening News - 1991-08-21” from malgent, uploaded on 2025-08-21.
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Language: English (original, YouTube automatic captions)
[0:05] Celebrations in the streets as the
[0:07] Soviet coup collapses.
[0:14] And Moscow awaits the return of Mikhail
[0:16] Gorbachev.
[0:20] This is the CBS Evening News, Dan Rather
[0:22] reporting. Good evening. Gorbachev is
[0:24] flying to Moscow. The Kremlin coup is
[0:27] over. The failed coup makers in dis-
[0:30] grace and apparently on the run. Mikhail
[0:32] Gorbachev is back in charge, back as
[0:34] president, but not yet back in Moscow.
[0:37] His troubles and those of the Soviet
[0:38] Union are far from over. Gorbachev
[0:41] apparently has been in the Crimea. He is
[0:43] reported flying home right now.
[0:45] About the three days that shook the
[0:47] world, Tom Fenton in Moscow begins our
[0:49] coverage.
[0:52] The first concrete sign that the coup
[0:54] had failed came when the tanks began
[0:56] rolling out of the city. The army was no
[0:59] longer supporting the hardliners who
[1:00] toppled Gorbachev. The departing armor
[1:03] was waved on by the Muscovites who had
[1:05] refused to give up their new freedoms. I
[1:09] personally had to decide to become a
[1:11] free man or to remain slave.
[1:15] Thousands emerged victors this morning
[1:17] after a wet and nerve-wracking night of
[1:19] protecting the Russian Parliament where
[1:21] Boris Yeltsin had been holding out since
[1:24] Monday.
[1:25] It was their bodies that held the tanks
[1:27] back rather than the barricades. Four
[1:30] civilians were killed by advancing
[1:31] tanks, but the soldiers refused to
[1:34] inflict mass casualties by storming the
[1:36] Parliament. Many were the same age as
[1:39] the protesters and most chose the same
[1:41] side.
[1:43] We used to think the young people were
[1:45] not political, says this man, but they
[1:48] took a stand.
[1:50] At rallies throughout