If anyone tried to tamper with the primary system, a network of backup systems would kick in, Zanin explained. The core of the work is so secret that he refused to discuss it-except to say cryptically it would allow Gorbachev to restore any interrupted communications with nothing but pen and paper. The mystery deepened with a report in the weekly Commersant that border guards noticed only a brief disruption of all communications in the area during the coup. For some, the reports bolstered their belief that the Soviet president was somehow in league with the plotters.

Gorbachev dismissed the Moscow News report, telling the weekly that it played into the hands of the conspirators. Anatoly Chernyayev, a top aide, said a large shipment of communications equipment had been flown out of the Crimea on Aug. 19, the day after Gorbachev was placed under house arrest. And a KGB official insisted it wouldn’t have been hard to cut off the president’s phone.

Other mysteries remained. Why did Gorbachev have access to his video camera, with which he was able to tape a clandestine message to the outside world? How did his captors know he didn’t have a two-way radio with which to blow the whistle? Despite some Soviets’ suspicions, the lapses seemed to be just another series of scenes in the Coup of Errors.