Bush Exults as Gorbachev Regains Power in Kremlin : U.S. reaction: The President calls the turn of events in Moscow a ‘gigantic leap forward’ for democracy.

An exultant President Bush on Wednesday hailed Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s return to power on an “emotional” day that Bush said demonstrated the irreversible power of freedom and democracy.

As troops who backed the failed coup pulled out of Moscow, Bush said the dramatic events will blunt the forces of reaction in the Soviet Union and put to rest the nightmare of a sharp turn to the right as Gorbachev resumes authority.

“They tried, and then they failed,” Bush said of the right-wing takeover. “Democracy prevailed and reform prevailed.

“They underestimated the power of the people. They underestimated what a taste of democracy and freedom brings,” Bush said, sounding quietly triumphant after his “new world order” survived its greatest challenge yet.

With the tension of the drama ebbing, Bush thrust his hands in the pockets of his blue jeans and described the telephone conversation he had finally had with Gorbachev on Wednesday after fruitless efforts to reach him on Tuesday. Bush told reporters that the Soviet leader sounded “buoyant” in his first communication with the West after being freed from roughly three days of house arrest in the Crimea.

On a day that Bush said thrust him “right in the middle of this history,” the President said he and his wife were “delighted” to learn in the 12-minute phone call that the Soviet leader and his wife, Raisa, had emerged safely.

With the news from the Soviet Union seeming to change by the moment, Bush dashed from transatlantic telephone link to press conference podium, then from speedboat to his bedroom to take the call from Gorbachev, and finally back outside to relay the news to the nation.

The rush into and out of the public spotlight was central to the Administration’s effort both privately and openly to maintain a “loud voice” encouraging resistance to the coup.

Bush blamed the coup’s failure on a serious miscalculation by its leaders.

The flush of uplifting news from the Soviet Union dissipated fears that a successful coup would mean a return to the dark days of Cold War tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union.

Gorbachev’s return to power, Bush said, would be a “gigantic leap forward” for democracy. “The power of the people to stand up against this illegality is pretty good, pretty strong,” he said.

Bush paid fervent tribute to Boris N. Yeltsin, president of the Russian Federation, whose standing in the world took what Bush described as “a quantum leap forward” as a result of his “displayed courage and by his commitment to democracy.”

Bush also had a pointed message for Gorbachev, saying the Soviet leader should keep in mind a central lesson in the aftermath of the coup. “I would say: Stay with your principles. Stay with your reforms. Stay with your commitment to democratic process and constitutional law.”

The President said that knowing Gorbachev, he is convinced that the Soviet leader will, indeed, retain his commitment to “the evolution of democracy and perestroika and glasnost. “

But he warned that the coup plotters who sought to overthrow the Soviet president might try “to get him to do something else.”

The roller-coaster events of recent days provided a window on Bush’s view of a world divided into “good vs. evil” and his faith that good will prevail.

“Some philosophers might think (this) is a little over-simplistic, and I don’t,” he said. “What’s good is a commitment to constitutional law and a democracy, and what is bad is a use of muscle to try to overthrow it.”

With an understated sense of self-congratulation, Bush recalled that he said in the early hours of the crisis that “all these coups don’t succeed.” The President said the failure of the coup provides a lesson about the “underpinnings” and the “inherent strength” of democracy.

“Democracy, once unleashed, is a pretty powerful force,” he said.

U.S. concern that conservative forces would take control of the Soviet Union has been a troubling undercurrent in American relations with the Kremlin, even as Gorbachev tried to balance forces on the left and right and press ahead with plans for political and economic reform.

But with the military revolt apparently suppressed, Bush said “the fear that some of us have had . . . about right-wing takeovers will no longer be as extant.”

Indeed, Bush said, what had been a difficult path for Gorbachev toward greater democracy and economic freedom would now be eased because “what will be filtered out will be the fear of a right-wing military takeover.”

Yeltsin’s role as the daring leader of opposition to a coup supported by leaders of the KGB, the Soviet military and the police left him in a position of prominence that may eclipse that of Gorbachev himself. The undeniable new influence could prove troublesome for the Bush Administration, which has had rocky relations with Yeltsin in the past and does not altogether embrace his ambitious agenda for reform.

Yeltsin’s new, central role was reflected in Bush’s eagerness to compliment the “flamboyance” that had previously riled White House officials in their dealings with the Russian president. Admiring the way Yeltsin mobilized popular opposition to the coup, Bush said “flamboyance is a very positive quality as you climb up there and encourage your people.”

In describing his own efforts to pressure the Soviet Union from afar, the President took issue with those he said would have him “wave a wand and solve a problem of this nature in the city of Moscow instantly.”

“But what you can do if you’re President,” he said, “is put the full force of the American people behind--emotionally, morally--behind the democratic forces.”

The news that Gorbachev was safe and back in power reached Kennebunkport as Bush had just headed out into the stormy Gulf of Maine aboard his speedboat Fidelity with two friends.

A military aide aboard a U.S. Coast Guard boat in the small armada accompanying the President’s boat signaled to Bush that Gorbachev was trying to reach him. The President gunned the throttle, sped back to the dock at Walker’s Point, his 11-acre compound, and hurried to his bedroom to take the call with Mrs. Bush. They spoke with the Soviet leader from 12:19 p.m. until 12:31 p.m. EDT.

National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft had placed the call earlier in the day, after Bush had been unsuccessful in two previous efforts. The call was the climax of a day that from the moment of a cloudy dawn brought ever-stronger indications that Gorbachev would regain control.

At a hastily called midmorning news conference, Bush rushed to the press headquarters at the Shawmut Inn, just up a coastal road from his vacation home, to welcome the “encouraging signs” but to say he was not ready to declare the coup over.

In passing along what Yeltsin had just told him in a phone call, Bush took the unusual step of using the presidential podium to beam unverified information around the world in what appeared to be an effort to accelerate the unraveling of the coup.

After his abbreviated boat ride and a second meeting with reporters summoned to his home to hear about his conversation with Gorbachev, Bush headed to the Cape Arundel Golf Club, resuming his vacation activities.

But he made clear that he plans to continue mixing work with recreation. He will meet today with Secretary of State James A. Baker III, who spent Wednesday at a NATO meeting in Brussels. Later in the week, he is to receive Robert S. Strauss, the new U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union, who is expected to return in the next few days after a whirlwind first official visit to Moscow.