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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 t