had also allowed the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic to assume control of domestic KGB activity under its jurisdiction after Chairman Yeltsin's Declaration of State Sovereignty of Russia. Many Russian KGB agents had demonstrated their loyalty to the new government by defying Kryuchkov's order to vote against Yeltsin in the 1991 Russian presidential election. After the defeat of the committee, Kryuchkov was imprisoned for his participation. Kryuchkov was replaced as chairman of the KGB by Vadim Bakatin, released on recognizance not to leave in January 1993. Many analysts of the Soviet Union at the time and since, including former U.S. Ambassador Jack F. Matlock Jr., have held that Kryuchkov was inadvertently responsible for the collapse of the Soviet Union by staging the coup and destroying the Communist Party's authority. Matlock wrote in his memoir "People do make a difference, and Vladimir Kryuchkov made a big difference. The Soviet Union might exist in some modified form today if another person had been running the KGB in 1990 and 1991." Immediately after the collapse of the coup Kryuchkov unsuccessfully requested a pardon for himself and his co-conspirators on the basis of their old age. On 3 July 1992, Kryuchkov appealed to Russian president Boris Yeltsin, accusing him of laying the blame for the dissolution of the Soviet Union on members of the State Committee on the State of Emergency. Kryuchkov was finally freed in 1994 with a pardon by the State Duma. He subsequently returned to public life with writings condemning Gorbachev's rule. His writings improved his reputation with the Russian public, with a 2007 Levada Center poll revealing that only 12 percent of respondents would have actively opposed his coup. On 7 May 2000, Kryuchkov attended the first inauguration of Vladimir Putin as President of Russia. Family His son was a resident of Switzerland in the 1990s where very large sums were transiting during the 1990s looting of Russia. Yevgeny Primakov blocked the Duma's Ponomarev investigative commission from accessing KGB, FCD, and SVR documents. Death Kryuchkov died at the age of 83 on 23 November 2007. His body was buried at the Troyekurovskoye Cemetery in Moscow. References Bibliography Kryuchkov, Vladimir Alexandrovich (1996). ''Personal Business. Moscow: Olympus. pp. 872. 1924 births 2007 deaths Politicians from Volgograd Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union members Diplomatic Academy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation alumni Eleventh convocation