THE RUSSIA HAND

An insightful evaluation, by a key player, of the Clinton administration’s efforts to make an ally of America’s former Russian foe.

Russian democratization began well before Bill Clinton took office, but, to hear former policy advisor Talbott tell it, his predecessors didn’t much know what to make of the new grinning bear in the midst. Clinton had long been applying his famed skills as a policy wonk to the Russian question, but even he was taken unaware; he had hired Talbott, a fellow Rhodes Scholar and longtime student of Russian language and history, to “think full-time about Russia and the former Soviet Union while he went about being president, which he expected would mean concentrating on the American economy.” Soon convinced of the importance of securing Russia’s support on such matters as widening the NATO alliance and pacifying the Balkans—and of having a stable, democratic Russia as an international partner—Clinton quickly turned his attention to shoring up Boris Yeltsin’s shaky government; in this, Talbott reveals, Clinton had a perhaps unlikely ally in former president Richard Nixon, who urged that the economy would take care of itself, remarking to Talbott, “What Clinton will be remembered for is how he deals with Russia. And that means leading the rest of the world, especially those G-7 assholes, in support for what we’re in favor of in Russia.” Nixon’s cheerleading was probably unnecessary, for Clinton took a personal interest early on in helping Yeltsin (and, along the way, in trying to convince the Russian leader to curb his infamous appetite for alcohol); page by page, Talbott reveals Clinton’s painstaking efforts in this regard, and, though he is too courtly to criticize openly, provides a contrast by which to judge the current administration’s on-again, off-again campaign to keep the government of Vladimir Putin at least within eyesight of the Western camp.

Sturdy and well written: for wonks in training, as well as those nostalgic for a time of intelligent foreign policy.