Time - Man of the Year/Time_Man_of_the_Year_Compact_Publishing_3YX-Disc-1_Compact_Publishing_1993.iso/moy/040692/0406520.000

Text File | 1992-10-19 | 14KB | 268 lines

                                                                                PROFILE, Page 42

Present At the Breakup


As Washington's man in Moscow, veteran politico BOB STRAUSS
discovers the frustrations of the diplomatic beat

By STANLEY W. CLOUD/MOSCOW


    Bob Strauss was frustrated. America's first post-cold war
ambassador to Russia thought he and the embassy were spending
too much time watching events and not enough shaping them. So
one recent morning in Moscow, Strauss called together 18 members
of his senior staff and delivered a little speech in his deep
gravel pit of a West Texas drawl. He wanted to change the nature
of what the embassy does, he said; it was not his style to sit
back and just watch things happen. "I didn't come over here to
be a goddam reporter," Strauss told his aides, "and I don't
think that's why President Bush sent me over here. If
Washington wants a reporter, let 'em watch CNN. I'd like to see
us try to actually get something done here."

    The night before, the futility of conducting diplomacy as
usual in the midst of a historical earthquake had been brought
home to Strauss when he attended a Kremlin reception given by
Russia's President, Boris Yeltsin. It took Strauss two hours to
get to the head of the receiving line. When he finally did, he
shook Yeltsin's hand and said, "Mr. President, it's good to see
you, but I'm not going to waste your time or mine with a lot of
chatter." A few minutes later, a still exasperated Strauss,
having melted back into the mob of other diplomats, whispered
to his driver, "As soon as Yeltsin's given his speech, I want
you to get me the hell out of here."

    Now, meeting with his staff, Strauss, who arrived in
Moscow last August, made clear that receptions and most of the
other symbolic trappings of his job were no longer good enough.
Nor was it good enough to help coordinate the U.S. airlift of
medical supplies and Army rations left over from the gulf war.
Strauss wanted the American embassy to see what it could do
about actually helping the Russians move foodstuffs from the
farms to the stores. He also wondered why the embassy couldn't
figure out a way, working with the local government and the
central bank, to set up several small stores around Moscow to
demonstrate how free-market pricing works. "Overpriced sausage
is rotting in shops out there right now," Strauss said. "You
want to know why? Because that damn sausage doesn't belong to
anyone. That damn sausage is a damn orphan. That's why."

    Some career diplomats, who regard any attempt to meddle in
a host country's internal affairs as the foul-smelling preserve
of the CIA, were privately aghast at Strauss's unorthodox
notions. In their view, his main job, and theirs, is to wrestle
with the complicated political equations in Russia and explain
them to the policymakers at home. But Strauss, an old-school
Democratic pol and back-room beguiler, whose knowledge of Russia
and Russians was all but non existent before George Bush
appointed him last summer, was unlikely to dazzle Foggy Bottom
with his Kremlinology. While he was attending receptions, people
were out there on Moscow's muddy, slushy streets, making
history. And Robert S. Strauss, 73, a former chairman of the
Democratic Party in the twilight of his public career, wanted
a piece of the action.

    For those making history, however, the action is not
always attractive. Many ruble-bound Russians, faced with
hyperinflation, must sell prized possessions in order to feed
their families. Some are even beginning to look back on their
benighted communist past with a bitter nostalgia. A young
Russian engineer, now unemployed, says he felt "nothing but
shame" when, on TV, he saw his country's awkwardly named
"Unified Team" compete in hockey during the Winter Olympics. A
taxi driver, passing Moscow's heroic monument to the Soviet
space program, comments matter-of-factly that it was built "when
we still had pride in ourselves."

    It is against that backdrop that Strauss must conduct his
unconventional ambassadorship, while dealing with a U.S.
Administration and a Congress that act, these days, as if
foreign policy were a social disease, each blaming the other for
the failure to provide major economic assistance and advice to
Russia. Over a candlelit dinner last month at Spaso House, the
ambassadorial residence in Moscow, Strauss and his wife Helen
listened as two Senators -- Republican Robert C. Smith of New
Hampshire and Democrat John Kerry of Massachusetts -- agreed
that the way to bring American audiences "out of their chairs"
these days was simply to say, in Smith's words, "We won the cold
war, and we're not going to send one dime in aid to Russia."
Replied Strauss: "Well, you know, I was back in the States not
long ago, speaking to the national Governors' conference, and
I got a standing ovation from them when I said, `We cannot let
this moment in history go by without our being involved. We must
be involved. It is in our interest to be involved.' "

    Strauss, who shares Texas ties with Bush and Secretary of
State James Baker, is hardly a political naif. He understands
that professional politicians are nothing if not adept readers
of the public mood. He knows too that Western financiers are
probably right to be wary of pouring too much money, too fast,
into the Russian economy. But, like Richard Nixon, who recently
criticized the Administration's "pathetically inadequate"
support of Russia, Strauss also understands that leadership can
help change attitudes. "It isn't that there's anything wrong
with the Executive Branch or the Legislative Branch," he says.
"It's just that I've reached a stage in my life where I don't
have the patience that one needs to have. Sometimes that's good
and helpful, and other times I suspect it's not so good. But I
want to move on."

    Strauss favors -- as does, sotto voce, the Administration
-- early admission of Russia to the International Monetary
Fund, creation of a ruble-stabilization fund and additional food
and medical supplies in time for next winter's depredations,
which he predicts will be much worse than this winter's. "The
West must do the right thing," Strauss says. "So must Russia.
But right now we're wasting too much time. The Russians aren't
interested in charity. They're interested in support, and I
think they're entitled to it."

    Everywhere he goes, and in his occasional appearances on
Moscow TV, Strauss talks up his idea of helping the Russians
open a dozen or so small sausage shops to demonstrate the
principle that if perishable items don't sell at their first
price, the price must be progressively lowered so they will sell
before they spoil. "I think we can help move prices down a bit,"
Strauss says, noting that most food stores today are still state
owned. He has enlisted the support of Georgi Matyukhin, head of
the central bank, is in touch with a potential supplier of
Russian-made sausage and is trying to persuade Moscow's mayor,
Gavril Popov, to lend his weight to the plan.

    On other fronts, Strauss says he has persuaded Paul
Volcker, former chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, to come
to Moscow this spring to advise the Russian government on how
to establish a modern banking system. Strauss and his staff also
organized an elaborate "investment tour" of Russia, complete
with chartered Aeroflot planes, for 14 leading U.S. investment
bankers. After a two-day meeting, presided over by Strauss in
Moscow, the group split up and fanned out over the country. They
are currently visiting such relatively remote spots as Perm and
Yekaterinburg in the Urals, Rostov-on-Don in the North Caucasus
and Saratov on the Volga.

    Inside the embassy, Strauss seems quite popular. He has
attempted to introduce a little democracy and normality into
what has long been one of the foreign service's most uptight and
insular postings. He frequently eats in the staff cafeteria, and
at a recent meeting lectured the staff on the dangers of
workaholism, urging them to try to spend more time with their
families. Afterward a woman approached in tears to thank him.
Old State Department ways die hard, however. For months Strauss
tried to reverse the department's ban on hiring Russians for
menial embassy tasks, but U.S. security officers insisted that
for every two Russian workers there had to be one American
"watcher." Says Strauss: "That didn't make any damn sense to me.
And I didn't do it." Finally, the security people relented, and
unskilled Russian workers are once again employed in the embassy
-- without the minders.

    Beyond the embassy's well-guarded walls, Strauss also
receives largely favorable reviews from Russian officials and
other diplomats, as well as from Moscow-based journalists. "He
is a person who can distinguish important things from less
important things," says former Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard
Shevardnadze. "There is an illness in many foreign services --
the people in them are only good at following instructions. But,
having spoken with Ambassador Strauss, I am under the impression
that he has no instructions at all -- and doesn't need any."

    Critics of Strauss cite his lack of expert knowledge,
inability to speak more than a few words of Russian and his
tendency to focus on commercial activism rather than traditional
diplomatic analysis. Some embassy staffers are also unimpressed
with what one calls his "frequent-flyer ambassadorship" -- a
reference to the fact that about once every two or three months,
Strauss finds a reason to return home. This month he picked up
a "Texan of the Year" award in Dallas. In early May he will
attend the Kentucky Derby, and during the late summer, while air
conditioning is being added to Spaso House, he and Helen will
make their usual pilgrimage to Del Mar, Calif., for the annual
Thoroughbred meeting there.

    The ambassador's defense of these trips is that he always
combines them with speeches and other public appearances aimed
at selling his view of U.S. policy in Russia. During his most
recent two-week trip home, for instance, he testified before the
Senate and House foreign affairs committees; delivered several
speeches, including one to the Council on Foreign Relations in
London; and met with, among others, President Bush and Russia's
new ambassador to the U.S., Vladimir Lukin. Says Strauss: "It
would be a much better use of me if I spent even more of my time
in the States, talking to people about what needs to be done
here. When the President appointed me, he said, `Bob, at least
half of your job is in Washington and in the States as I see
it. And you come and go as you see fit.' "

    Not that life in Russia is physically so terrible for the
Strausses. Spaso House, despite a roach problem, is a grand
mansion, painted bright yellow and designed in the New Empire
style. Apart from some interior redecoration ordered by Strauss
and paid for by the State Department (on a recommendation,
Strauss rather defensively notes, from Barbara Bush), the
biggest changes they have wrought involve artwork. Gone are the
abstract paintings and sculptures favored by Strauss's
predecessor, Jack Matlock. Absolute realism now reigns at Spaso,
including a number of landscapes from Strauss's native Southwest
and many photographs. Prominent among the latter, of course, is
one of the Strausses and the Bushes, taken in the White House
at Christmastime. But Strauss wouldn't be Strauss unless
surrounded by Democrats, so there are also pictures and mementos
of F.D.R., Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, W.
Averell Harriman -- even Henry Wallace. "I've given a lot of
thought to whether or not, as ambassador, I ought to go to the
Democratic Convention this year," Strauss says. "I've decided I
ought to go."

    Earlier this month Yeltsin and his wife Anastasia came to
dinner at Spaso House for the first time. Actually, Yeltsin
invited himself, explaining that he wanted "to meet Mrs. Strauss
and for you to meet Mrs. Yeltsin and for me to practice some
personal diplomacy in the American style." During cocktails in
a small sitting room, Strauss served the Tex-Mex nachos he likes
to make. "There's no point in serving caviar to the President
of Russia," he said. Before the couples adjourned to the family
dining room, Strauss offered a toast to "you, your country and
to what you've done for the world. It has been," he added, "an
inspiration to all of us." Yeltsin smiled and gave a surprising
response. The date, he noted, was March 2, which is the
birthday of his predecessor, Mikhail Gorbachev. "I think we
should drink a toast to Mikhail Sergeyevich," Yeltsin said, "and
to everything he accomplished."

    For all his activity, Strauss, who has never before lived
abroad, is far from happy in Moscow. He and his wife miss their
family and friends and the comforts of life in the U.S. Routine
diversions are meager: on weekends he might shop for souvenirs
or artwork in the Old Arbat near Spaso House, then return home
and warm up canned chili for lunch. "Helen and I gave up a life
we simply loved to come over here," Strauss says. "We didn't do
it because I wanted to add another title to my resume or to be
exposed to a Russian winter. We came over here because President
Bush said he wanted me to be engaged." For Strauss, the
eight-hour time difference with the U.S. makes it difficult for
him to keep in touch by phone the way he'd like. Ask him what
the worst part of his job is, and he responds, "I'm lonely!" And
he says it as if he hopes his voice will carry all the way back
to his many friends at home.

    Still, Strauss knows the importance of what he's doing.
Ask him the best part of his job, and he says, "The challenge.
Every now and then, I'll come home and tell Helen, `Tonight,
dammit, honey, I got something done that makes a difference in
the world.'"

    For some years Bob Strauss nurtured faint dreams of being
President of the U.S. From time to time, he still does. Then he
thinks twice. And, on second thought, he realizes this may be
as close as he will ever get to his dream job -- and that he'd
better make the most of it.