NEWTON'S LAW: A COCKTAIL WOULD HIT THE SPOT BEFOR NATION IS OVERTHROWN

Gennadi Yanayev might be the philosophical descendant of Will Rogers, who claimed not to belong to an organized political party he was a Democrat.

For several very chaotic hours a couple of weeks ago, Yanayev, the former Soviet vice president, belonged to a political party that gave no hint of organization he was a Communist.

Only now is information trickling out of the Soviet Union about the broad measure of bungling exhibited in the recent coup attempt. It was inept on a grand scale. Draft days for the football Cardinals have had brighter results.

(Truth be told, there are few American newspaper journalists who lament Yanayev's precipitous fall from power. Philosophy wasn't necessarily the problem. While many Soviet names are no picnic in print, Yanayev was a typo waiting to happen.)

It's hard to believe now that the Soviet Union was regarded as a superpower only a few years ago. That was before glasnost, when the Soviets gave Westerners an unclouded view of the length of their food lines.

Those were also the days when the Soviets' most celebrated export aside from ballet dancers, missile threats and aid to Cuba was that intoxicating combination of potato growing and the distilling arts.

In fact, vodka remains a lucrative Soviet export, and it probably remains an easier item to obtain in Missouri than it does in Moscow. After coming to power, Mikhail Gorbachev throttled the domestic vodka market, fearing Soviets were drinking their nation into a global stupor.

If alcoholism was such a popular diversion in the Soviet Union, it is little wonder so many Politburo members resembled Otis Campbell.

Still, it seems a little hard to ~believe, even if this has been a national problem in the Soviet Union, that coup leaders would show up loaded on the day they planned to overthrow the government.

According to a report in Time magazine, Yanayev and Soviet Prime Minister Valentin Pavlov were throwing back a few when summoned to the Kremlin for the coup's commencement.

The Pavlovian response to this situation was not historic; Time reported that the prime minister showed up at one meeting "semi-coherent" and ultimately was admitted to a hospital for "hypertension." Cloaked in the euphemisms of Soviet politics, the implication was that Pavlov was simply stewed and not particularly useful to the cause.

For his part, Yanayev fared not much better. On his best days, the vice president wore the countenance of a banker ready to turn down a loan applicant. After the coup collapsed, Yanayev was said to be discovered on his office floor in a quiet slumber of the spirits, watched over by depleted vodka bottles.

So much for the short, unhappy reign of Gennadi Yanayev. At least when Richard Nixon left office, he was able to climb the steps to the helicopter.

It is not a sure bet that Soviet leaders will return to power absent this stigma. Russian Federation President Boris Yeltsin, Moscow's ranking power broker, is said to know his way around a beverage cart. In fact, Jack Daniels was an unofficial corporate sponsor of Yeltsin's U.S. speaking tour several years back.

Journalists in Washington have been alerted to pending crises in recent years by the frequent arrival at key locations of Domino's delivery vehicles. If the key players are sending out for food, a long night of decision making is in the offing.

In America, when the going gets tough, the tough get pizza.

In the Kremlin, when the going gets tough, the tough get crocked.

Tell me, is this any way to run a revolution?