Yeltsin’s tantrum looked unstatesmanlike, and by the weekend, he had patched things up with Nixon. But as a matter of principle, Yeltsin still was right. The ultraconservative Parliament recently exonerated Rutskoi and other leaders of the anti-Yeltsin October rebellion, but that doesn’t make them innocent. They are hostile to the West, opposed to free economic competition and generally antipathetic to U.S. interests in Russia. As one Moscow pundit observed, it was as if Nixon had stopped off at Lenin’s tomb on his way to the Kremlin. Dmitri Simes, an adviser to Nixon who arranged the former president’s schedule, said, “It didn’t even enter our heads that Yeltsin would object to a visit with Rutskoi.” Oh, please. Simes, an emigre, well understands the bitterly competitive world of Russian politics. And Nixon himself, as history has shown, never forgets a political foe. Why did he think that Yeltsin would?
The Clinton administration doesn’t yet see the significance of this misstep. Nixon telephoned Clinton in advance and told him of the plan to meet Rutskoi and ultranationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky (who later canceled). According to a senior White House official, Clinton saw nothing wrong with the plan because Nixon was “not an envoy of any kind. " But Nixon is warmly remembered around the world, and especially in Russia, where nobody cares about Watergate but everybody remembers detente. Russians see Nixon’s actions as a sign the West is reaching out beyond Yeltsin-to the wrong people.
Nixon adviser Simes insists that our policy is too Yeltsin-centric, and he’s right. In some ways the situation is analogous to the last days of Mikhail Gorbachev: the Kremlin boss did great things in the past, but now he’s falling out of touch with Russian society. The difference is that when Gorbachev began to teeter. Yeltsin offered even greater commitment to reform. Rutskoi offers the opposite. He’s the hero to political forces that hate America. Meanwhile, plenty of younger Russian democrats truly deserve U.S. encouragement, such as former Yeltsin aides Sergei Stankevich and Sergei Shakhrai. We should keep tabs on Rutskoi, who could well win the presidential election in 1996. But let an embassy functionary do it, not Richard Nixon.
These are troubling and morally complex times in Russia. Few men remain in power for long, and the government’s most basic policies may change overnight. U.S. policy should not fall into the same political confusion that plagues ordinary Russians. Even those who don’t agree with us will appreciate our consistency. We don’t need to stick with the same politicians forever, but we do have to stick with the same principles.
