Valerii Boldin, the fifty-six-year-old chief of the presidential staff and the plotter who knew the president best, believed that Gorbachev felt somewhat relieved when he heard the names of the committee members. Gorbachev’s main concern, argued Boldin in his memoirs, was that the visitors might represent not his indecisive aides but his impulsive archenemy, Boris Yeltsin.
