TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/061190/0611008.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 3.4 KB | 81 lines

                                                                                WORLD, Page 30

AMERICA ABROAD

For He's a Jolly Fellow


By Strobe Talbott


    Lightweight, demagogue, buffoon, windbag. At best naive, at
worst dangerous. Those were among the put-downs of the newly
elected president of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist
Republic that came sluicing anonymously out of the U.S.
Government on the eve of last week's summit. The name-calling
stemmed in part from memories of Boris Yeltsin's visit to
Washington in September.

    Yeltsin called on Brent Scowcroft at the White House. "What
is the objective of your visit?" asked the National Security
Adviser. With no more encouragement than that, Yeltsin launched
into a hortatory rhapsody about how U.S. business could
"rescue" perestroika by building 1 million apartments and an
entire service sector for the Soviet economy; he also plugged
a joint mission to Mars. He talked virtually nonstop for a full
hour.

    Just as Scowcroft's patience was giving out, George Bush
stopped by to say hello and, as quickly as possible, goodbye.
Asked about Yeltsin later, the President paused, smiled and
said he had found him "a jolly fellow."

    In the eight months since, American policymakers have
frequently cited Yeltsin as living proof that there is no
"serious" alternative to Mikhail Gorbachev. It is crucial to
Gorbachev's strategy in dealing with the U.S. that Americans
worry about his being replaced by a neo-Brezhnevite, if not a
neo-Stalinist. Now along comes Yeltsin to pose the tantalizing
possibility of a Soviet leader who would be more accommodating
on a wide range of issues. He has indicated, for example, that
he might give back to Japan islands occupied since the last
days of World War II. Still, his victory last week was at first
taken as little more than further evidence of how unhinged the
Soviet Union is these days.

    Ironically and significantly, some of the Soviets who
accompanied Gorbachev to Washington last week wasted no time
in buttonholing their American counterparts and privately
urging a little constructive revisionism in the Yeltsin case.
Their argument went like this:

    Whatever his foibles, Yeltsin seems dedicated to all that
is most welcome (if not most promising) in perestroika.
Therefore he is a natural ally for Gorbachev. Even the
disagreements between them constitute a tactical opportunity
for Gorbachev. In dealing with his conservative constituencies
in the military and the party apparatus, he can point to
Yeltsin over his left shoulder and say, Do business with me or
you may end up with that guy instead.

    Several of Gorbachev's advisers added that they were
concerned about his thin skin and his tendency to personalize
political disputes. Hence they were upset to find the U.S.
press awash in what they took to be officially instigated
presummit Yeltsin bashing.

    "We have a big job ahead of us," said one Gorbachev
associate to an American who is close to Bush. "We must
persuade our leader to make common cause with Yeltsin. It's in
your best interests that we succeed. So don't play to
Gorbachev's sense of his own indispensability."

    All perfectly reasonable, but also perfectly extraordinary.
Soviet officials used to chastise Americans for "interference
in the internal affairs of the U.S.S.R." Now they solicit help
in teaching their boss the ways of democratic politics.