THE THIRD MAN BREAKS LOOSE 465the ‘Vice-Misha’.^13 Foreign leaders regarded the two of them as the
pillars of the USSR’s new foreign policy.
By June 1989, when Soviet foreign policy first came in for public
criticism in the USSR, Shevardnadze was the prime target at the
Supreme Soviet’s Committee on International Affairs in the Kremlin’s
Faceted Chamber. The questions would have riled even a very placid
politician – and Shevardnadze had a fiery personality. Objection was
made to the disproportionate number of women he had appointed to
the ministry. The committee’s chairman Valentin Falin opined that
Shevardnadze had failed to recruit people with genuine professional
expertise. Another member contended that Shevardnadze had proved
too soft a negotiator and ought to ‘show his teeth’. Only when Georgi
Arbatov entered on Shevardnadze’s side did the trouble subside; and
the committee, in a throwback to the years before perestroika, con-
firmed him unanimously as Minister of Foreign Affairs.^14 This was not
much more than a formality, but the session put Shevardnadze on alert
about the growing peril faced by the leadership under conditions of
widening freedom of expression; and although no one yet dared to
criticize Gorbachëv, everyone understood that an arrow directed at
Shevardnadze was meant to hit both of them.
Shevardnadze admitted to being a very ‘emotional person’.^15 Geor-
gian affairs always put him on edge. Whereas he saw himself as his
nation’s protector, his critics reminded him of his embarrassing state-
ment in 1976 that the sun had risen not in the east but in the north.^16
Many Georgians rejected him as the ‘deceiver of the people’.^17 The
nationalist dissenter Zviad Gamsakhurdia accused him of being an
‘agent of Mos cow’.^18
Communist traditionalists were equally combative, and Shevard-
nadze felt humiliated. On 24 December 1989 he asked to address the
Congress of People’s Deputies after a provocative statement by the
Chief Military Procurator Alexander Katusev. The Georgian deleg-
ation had walked out. Shevardnadze thought that Katusev would not
have dared to speak out without sanction by some higher authority.^19
Gorbachëv denied the microphone to Shevardnadze for fear that he
might say something that both of them would regret.^20 Shevardnadze
could stand it no longer. He told Gorbachëv that he was stepping
down from office and left for his dacha. The Kremlin’s politics were in
chaos. Kryuchkov approached Shevardnadze’s deputy Kovalëv and
asked him to go out and reason with him. Gorbachëv seconded the
request. Kovalëv took the precaution of ringing from his personal