Present At the Breakup

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 nonexistent 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 to spend more time with their families. Afterward a woman approached in tears to thank him. Old State Department ways die hard, however. For months Strauss tried to reverse the department's ban on hiring Russians for menial embassy tasks, but U.S. security officers insisted that for every two Russian workers there had to be one American "watcher." Says Strauss: "That didn't make any damn sense to me. And I didn't do it." Finally, the security people relented, and unskilled Russian workers are once again employed in the embassy -- without the minders.

Beyond the embassy's well-guarded walls, Strauss also receives largely favorable reviews from Russian officials and other diplomats, as well as from Moscow-based journalists. "He is a person who can distinguish important things from less important things," says former Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze. "There is an illness in many foreign services -- the people in them are only good at following instructions. But, having spoken with Ambassador Strauss, I am under the impression that he has no instructions at all -- and doesn't need any."

Critics of Strauss cite his lack of expert knowledge, inability to speak more than a few words of Russian and his tendency to focus on commercial activism rather than traditional diplomatic analysis. Some embassy staffers are also unimpressed with what one calls his "frequent-flyer ambassadorship" -- a reference to the fact that about once every two or three months, Strauss finds a reason to return home. This month he picked up a "Texan of the Year" award in Dallas. In early May he will attend the Kentucky Derby, and during the late summer, while air conditioning is being added to Spaso House, he and Helen will make their usual pilgrimage to Del Mar, Calif., for the annual Thoroughbred meeting there.

The ambassador's defense of these trips is that he always combines them with speeches and other public appearances aimed at selling his view of U.S. policy in Russia. During his most recent two-week trip home, for instance, he testified before the Senate and House foreign affairs committees; delivered several speeches, including one to the Council on Foreign Relations in London; and met with, among others, President Bush and Russia's new ambassador to the U.S., Vladimir Lukin. Says Strauss: "It would be a much better use of me if I spent even more of my time in the States, talking to people about what needs to be done here. When the President appointed me, he said, 'Bob, at least half of your job is in Washington and in the States as I see it. And you come and go as you see fit.' "

Not that life in Russia is physically so terrible for the Strausses. Spaso House, despite a roach problem, is a grand mansion, painted bright yellow and designed in the New Empire style. Apart from some interior redecoration ordered by Strauss and paid for by the State Department (on a recommendation, Strauss rather defensively notes, from Barbara Bush), the biggest changes they have wrought involve artwork. Gone are the abstract paintings and sculptures favored by Strauss's predecessor, Jack Matlock. Absolute realism now reigns at Spaso, including a number of landscapes from Strauss's native Southwest and many photographs. Prominent among the latter, of course, is one of the Strausses and the Bushes, taken in the White House at Christmastime. But Strauss wouldn't be Strauss unless surrounded by Democrats, so there are also pictures and mementos of F.D.R., Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, W. Averell Harriman -- even Henry Wallace. "I've given a lot of thought to whether or not, as ambassador, I ought to go to the Democratic Convention this year," Strauss says. "I've decided I ought to go."

Earlier this month Yeltsin and his wife Anastasia came to dinner at Spaso House for the first time. Actually, Yeltsin invited himself, explaining that he wanted "to meet Mrs. Strauss and for you to meet Mrs. Yeltsin and for me to practice some personal diplomacy in the American style." During cocktails in a small sitting room, Strauss served the Tex-Mex nachos he likes to make. "There's no point in serving caviar to the President of Russia," he said. Before the couples adjourned to the family dining room, Strauss offered a toast to "you, your country and to what you've done for the world. It has been," he added, "an inspiration to all of us." Yeltsin smiled and gave a surprising response. The date, he noted, was March 2, which is the birthday of his predecessor, Mikhail Gorbachev. "I think we should drink a toast to Mikhail Sergeyevich," Yeltsin said, "and to everything he accomplished."

For all his activity, Strauss, who has never before lived abroad, is far from happy in Moscow. He and his wife miss their family and friends and the comforts of life in the U.S. Routine diversions are meager: on weekends he might shop for souvenirs or artwork in the Old Arbat near Spaso House, then return home and warm up canned chili for lunch. "Helen and I gave up a life we simply loved to come over here," Strauss says. "We didn't do it because I wanted to add another title to my resume or to be exposed to a Russian winter. We came over here because President Bush said he wanted me to be engaged." For Strauss, the eight-hour time difference with the U.S. makes it difficult for him to keep in touch by phone the way he'd like. Ask him what the worst part of his job is, and he responds, "I'm lonely!" And he says it as if he hopes his voice will carry all the way back to his many friends at home.

Still, Strauss knows the importance of what he's doing. Ask him the best part of his job, and he says, "The challenge. Every now and then, I'll come home and tell Helen, 'Tonight, dammit, honey, I got something done that makes a difference in the world.' "

For some years Bob Strauss nurtured faint dreams of being President of the U.S. From time to time, he still does. Then he thinks twice. And, on second thought, he realizes this may be as close as he will ever get to his dream job -- and that he'd better make the most of it.