Soviet Media Give Prominent Play to Firm Denial of Coup Rumors

Seeking to quell rumors of a military coup, Soviet media gave prominent coverage Thursday to the defense minister’s assurance that recent troop movements were related to parade plans and the potato harvest, not a plot.

“No army should use arms against its own people,” Marshal Dmitri T. Yazov told Parliament on Wednesday in a 10-minute speech.

His remarks were reported prominently Thursday in the Communist Party daily Pravda and the capital’s Communist youth daily Moskovsky Komsomolets. Sovietskaya Rossiya, a Russian Federation party and government paper, displayed a picture of paratroopers digging potatoes near Moscow on its front page.

Soviet television broadcast Yazov’s remarks in a midday newscast.

Yazov’s comments followed two weeks of reports in liberal newspapers and accusations by politicians that the military is plotting to overthrow the government, which faces growing political and economic crises.

In Washington, meanwhile, a senior Bush Administration official said that a loss of central power to restive republics is a far greater threat to Gorbachev than any coup. The official, who requested anonymity, said the Soviet leader is “being denuded of power” and in danger of “becoming irrelevant.”