A member of former U.S. President George H.W. Bush's administration says that until the attempted coup against Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in August 1991, nobody in the U.S. government imagined the Soviet Union would collapse by the end of 1991.Nicholas Burns -- who was the White House's director for Soviet affairs at the time and attended all seven U.S.-Soviet summits between Bush and Gorbachev from 1989 through 1991 -- had an insider's view of how the U.S. administration formed policies in reaction to the fall of communism in Eastern Europe in 1989 and the disintegration of the Soviet Union, which culminated in late December 1991.
RFE/RL: 25 years ago, failed coup changed U.S. diplomatic approach to Soviet Union
People laying flowers to mark the 1991 coup attempt in the Soviet Union.
