Bear Hugs All Around

By Bruce W. Nelan

The President of the U.S. traveled through the snows of Moscow to the dacha & where an empire had been unmade. The sumptuous three-story house is called Novo Ugaryevo, and it was there in April 1991 that Mikhail Gorbachev negotiated the far-ranging reforms that four months later triggered the coup against him: the coup that brought on the Russian revolution that wiped away the Soviet Union and brought to power Bill Clinton's host, Boris Yeltsin. Last week, as trees and fencing glowed with lights marking the Russian new year, saxophone music floated out of Novo Ugaryevo.

The American President had already practiced saxophone diplomacy twice before on his trip: once when he accepted a gift sax during the NATO summit in Brussels and then at a jazz club in Prague. The Russians handed him a third opportunity. Midway through an "informal" 22-dish dinner that included moose lips ("This was not a chocolate dessert," joked an American official), Yeltsin gave the President a five-inch blue-and-white porcelain figure of Clinton, one hand waving and the other clutching a saxophone. Suddenly -- but to no one's surprise -- a real one appeared, and Clinton rose to the occasion, performing My Funny Valentine and, in spite of the season, Summertime.

With the White House awash in Whitewater, Clinton reveled in his chance to conquer new worlds, to prove that a self-described "domestic" President could hold his own in the complex realm of international politics. He brought his genial man-of-the-people act to the streets of Brussels, Prague, Moscow and Minsk, even as he tackled economic and security issues from Russia to Bosnia with wonkish concentration. Boasting of breakthroughs on Ukrainian nuclear arms and the detargeting of Russian missiles, Clinton proclaimed his trip a success. Said a senior official traveling with the President: "We absolutely did everything and got everything we hoped for." But while music hath charms, Clinton's work on the international front may be just beginning.

The foremost issue was Russia. At meetings with NATO partners in Brussels and with Central European leaders in Prague, the same worries emerged over and over. Would Russia backslide from reform and closer ties with the West? Would it reclaim its old sphere of influence in Central Europe? Indeed, Yeltsin looked with dismay at attempts of former East-bloc nations to join NATO. Why should they want to join? "Russia does not threaten any country in Central or Eastern Europe," he told TIME.

As Clinton and his senior aides rode from their hotel to the Kremlin for their first round of talks, they wondered whether they would find Yeltsin firmly on course for more economic reforms or possibly planning to trim under pressure from the extreme nationalists and communists in the newly elected parliament. In political shorthand, the apprehension had a name: Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the most visible and loudest of Moscow's band of neofascists. But Clinton was more broadly concerned last week with resentment among the Russian people and with whether Yeltsin would have to respond by firing some of the best-known reformers from his Cabinet and by slowing down the transition to a free-market economy.

Almost as soon as they sat down in the Kremlin, Yeltsin reassured them, saying, "There has been no backpedaling. We will continue to go steadily ahead and in some areas may intensify reform." The Americans received that pledge, said one, "with an audible sigh of relief." The Russian President went on to describe the state of Russia's economy and so did several ministers. Their presentations lasted 50 minutes, and though some eyes glazed over, Clinton's didn't. He listened attentively to each minister and jotted down pages of notes.

In scenes reminiscent of his election campaign, Clinton took to the streets of Moscow selling Yeltsin's reforms, going so far as to answer questions from Russians in a televised town-hall meeting. At times the performances on the street and on the air made his advisers edgy. "In things like this, there are a lot of difficult issues where language matters a lot, where it's a lot easier to have a script," said a U.S. official.

The view that Russia has become a puppet of the U.S. has helped fuel nationalist sentiments among the likes of Zhirinovsky. Still, the head of the Liberal Democrats professed no interest in Clinton's visit. "It's not important to us," he told TIME. He was apparently busy. At last week's opening sessions of the Duma, the lower house of parliament, Zhirinovsky got into a slapping match with a fellow legislator at the parliament cafeteria. They were arguing over who should be served first.

The capstone to the trip, and to months of painstaking U.S. diplomacy, was Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk's agreement to dismantle all 175 of the intercontinental missiles and more than 1,800 nuclear warheads left behind in Ukraine when the Soviet Union collapsed. At a brief stopover at the airport in Kiev, Clinton joined Kravchuk for a press conference in front of a blue , curtain hastily hauled up from a snack bar. Kravchuk had made the same promise before, only to be stymied by the Ukrainian parliament. But he flew to Moscow to join Clinton and Yeltsin in putting his signature to the written agreement. At the same time, Yeltsin and Clinton dramatized the message that the U.S. and Russia are no longer enemies. They announced that as of May 30 their strategic missile systems will no longer be aimed at each other or at any other country.

A senior American official says the only thing more difficult than dealing with Russians or Ukrainians is "dealing with both of them at the same time." The hardest part, he says, "was getting the Ukrainians to be realistic about what to expect from us. They were thinking of billions in compensation when we were thinking hundreds of millions." Washington officials cannot be sure Kravchuk will deliver this time either, but they hope he will be able to sell his parliament on accepting pledges of more than $300 million in aid, Russian and U.S. security guarantees, and up to $1 billion worth of fuel for peaceful nuclear programs. The most potent weapons must be deactivated within 10 months; beyond that the timetable remains secret and U.S. officials hope the warheads can be removed from the most modern and threatening missiles before a recalcitrant parliament in Kiev might be able to intervene.

Integrating the East bloc into the Western military alliance remains an open question. Russia looks askance at applications to NATO by the leaders of Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia, and Lithuania as well, all of whom have been invoking the dread name Zhirinovsky and the shadow of Russian nationalism. In Brussels, Clinton won unanimous approval from NATO representatives, loath to defend a slew of new members, for his Partnership for Peace. It allows new applicants to join in alliance military exercises and training without firm guarantees on when they might win full membership. Polish President Lech Walesa was particularly displeased at what he saw as a Belgian waffle. Even so, he and the others signed on when Clinton arrived to talk it over with them in Prague.

In an interview with TIME, Yeltsin was diplomatic but negative about expanding NATO. "We not only do not regard NATO as hostile to Russia," he said, "we do not even rule out the possibility that we might join it at some stage." But he then went on to warn that the "hasty entry" of some countries into NATO would "create a feeling of isolation in others" and "play into the hands of nationalists." At a joint press conference with Clinton on Friday, Yeltsin went further, arguing that if NATO is to take in new members it should accept Russia and the former Warsaw Pact states simultaneously. "Admitting us one by one is no good," he said. "I am against that."

Secretary of State Warren Christopher told TIME that Russia would join the Partnership for Peace -- and someday might even join NATO. Integrating "all of Europe in one fell swoop" was an attractive concept, he said, but when Yeltsin spoke in those terms he was "defining a kind of Utopia."

Clinton's last appointment in Europe shaped up to be his most difficult and potentially least fruitful. He was to fly to Geneva on Sunday for talks with Syrian President Hafez Assad aimed at getting the Middle East peace process moving again. Clinton will, says Christopher, "let Assad know of our desire for a comprehensive peace." For his part, Assad will be looking for assurances that Clinton is ready to put some of his own time and effort into the process. It is not known whether the Syrian President appreciates the saxophone.

For all his exertions in foreign lands, Clinton was preoccupied with thoughts of home -- especially of family. At 3 a.m. Thursday, hours before his first meeting with Yeltsin, Clinton stood in the hallway of his Moscow hotel, talking with his senior aides about his mother, Virginia Kelley, who died three days before he left for Europe. He had been mourning her throughout the trip. Clinton carried several chapters of the unpublished manuscript of her memoirs with him to Moscow. The President, says a White House staff member, "has effectively become the editor of her autobiography." In the hotel hall he was telling senior officials stories from its pages. Later that day, Clinton made an unscheduled stop at a newly rebuilt church near Red Square. A priest showed him to a corner. "I was looking for a place where I could say a prayer for my mother," he told one of his aides. The President lit a candle and, for a few moments, stood contemplating the flames that illuminated an Orthodox crucifix.

With reporting by David Aikman and James Carney with Clinton, with other bureaus