US tipped off Gorbachev about Kremlin coup, but he didn't believe it till he was toppled

London, Aug 16 (ANI): Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev has revealed that he was tipped off by former US President George Bush Senior about a Kremlin coup against him, but he didn't believe the it till he was toppled.

Gorbachev said he thought Soviet hardliners would 'have to be idiots' to depose him and take control of parliament in Moscow.

The 1991 coup saw Gorbachev deposed for three days by his own vice president Gennady Yanayev and the then KGB head Vladimir Kryuchkov.

The coup leaders were hardline members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union who were opposed to Gorbachev's reform program and the new union treaty that he had negotiated which decentralized much of the central government's powers to the republics.

"Unfortunately, they really were idiots," the Daily Mail quoted Gorbachev, as saying.

"I should not have taken that vacation. That was a mistake," admitted Gorbachev, who was then on a Black Sea holiday.

Later when Gorbachev briefly returned to power at the Kremlin, the real victor was his arch-rival Boris Yeltsin who mounted a tank to defy the coup leaders.

Gorbachev said he regretted not tackling Yeltsin's 'thirst for power' earlier.

"I should have sent him to a banana republic as ambassador so he could smoke a hookah where it's nice and quiet," the paper quoted him, as saying.orbachev also praised Bush for his support, claiming that he sought to put a brake on independence movements in Ukraine and the Baltic states, hearing the instability that might arise from a Soviet break-up. (ANI)