END OF THE YELTSIN ERA?

By Kevin Fedarko

LAST WEDNESDAY MORNING AT THE White House, Bill Clinton and his top national security advisers received a startling assessment from the CIA. After observing Boris Yeltsin's meeting with Clinton in Hyde Park two days before, U.S. intelligence agents thought they had spotted a problem. Something, it seemed, was amiss with the Russian President. His gait looked awkward; he was walking with difficulty and with his legs spread apart. His skin had taken on a disturbing gray patina. And his face appeared strangely bloated--"puffy," in the words of one American official present. In the minds of the CIA analysts, it all pointed to one thing: Yeltsin was poised on the threshold of another bout of heart trouble that could swiftly land him in the hospital, or worse.

One day later back in Russia, Yeltsin, 64, was flown by helicopter from one of his dachas outside Moscow and rushed to intensive care at the Central Clinical Hospital in the city's western outskirts. The Kremlin announced that he was suffering from myocardial ischemia, the same blockage of the blood supply to the heart that early last summer had sent him to the hospital for two weeks and kept him out of work for nearly a month. For the next several days, Yeltsin was in virtual isolation, seeing only his doctors, family and bodyguards. His aides, looking somber, gave assurances that the President was still in charge, but it was unclear how he could be making decisions and reviewing documents when aides were forbidden to see him. Clearly, Yeltsin's condition is serious, and that prompts a serious question: even if he survives physically, can he survive politically? One way or another, the era of Boris Yeltsin seems to be coming to an end.

If Yeltsin were to die, the presidency would pass to Victor Chernomyrdin, Russia's Prime Minister, who more than anyone appears to be Yeltsin's chosen successor. Chernomyrdin would be required to call a presidential election within three months. Matters would be less clear if Yeltsin remained alive but incapacitated. In this case also, Chernomyrdin would become acting President, but the Russian constitution does not spell out clearly when a President may be judged too ill to perform his job. A power struggle among ambitious rivals would almost surely ensue, with the fragile constitution itself only one of the potential casualties.

In fact, extraconstitutional jockeying has already begun, and in connection with the most serious matter--control of Russia's nuclear weapons. Moscow sources told TIME that last Thursday the President's closest advisers convened an urgent meeting in the Kremlin. Among those present was Alexander Korzhakov, the former KGB officer who serves as Yeltsin's top bodyguard and crony. The gist of the meeting was that under no circumstance should the briefcase containing the codes for Russia's nuclear arsenal be transferred to Chernomyrdin. That briefcase is with Yeltsin in his hospital room. Korzhakov is one of the few people who have been allowed to see Yeltsin, so he is in the best position to take control of the codes. At the Kremlin meeting he noted that whoever holds on to the codes holds on to power.

Such an incident provides a chilling reminder that institutions of democracy are very new in Russia and are hardly secure. An authoritarian himself, Yeltsin can take some of the blame for their fragility. Asked how history will judge Yeltsin, Stephen Foye of the Center for Strategic and International Studies says, "On the one hand, Yeltsin will be remembered as the destroyer of communism, an inspirational leader. On the other, as a leader who failed to create the necessary institutions in his new Russian state." Still, Yeltsin's death or his political impotence would create a vacuum that would pose a further threat to Russian democracy.

In seven weeks, Russian voters will elect a new parliament. The last time they did this, in December 1993, they voted strongly for conservative and ultranationalist politicians including Vladimir Zhirinovsky, demagogues who captured the national spotlight by denouncing Yeltsin's half-finished experiment with reform and by promising a return to the stability and prestige Russians enjoyed during the days of the old Soviet Union. In the past two years, Yeltsin has managed to stave off numerous attempts by parliament to derail Russia's halting transition to democratic pluralism. But if the balance tips even further in this next election, it would severely challenge the ability of any President to continue using his office as a protective bulwark against a hostile legislature bent on dismantling reform. For all his flaws, Yeltsin has shown an ability to meet such challenges.

It is certainly premature to write his epitaph. He has survived many bouts of ill health in the past, weathering an apparent nervous breakdown, a kidney disorder and, of course, his chronic problem with alcohol. With each rebound, he has seemed to delight in showing off his vigorous constitution, shaming pundits who were on the verge of announcing his demise.

Recently he has been working to buttress his flagging influence and image: his approval ratings are in the single digits. He has, for example, made a point of treating several of his less popular appointees to highly public rebukes. He has also tried to cultivate the appearance of robust health, even challenging French President Jacques Chirac to a tennis match (Chirac doesn't play tennis and declined). These moves have been taken as early signs that Yeltsin planned to run in the presidential election next June. But with this latest incident, that possibility seems increasingly remote; even if he were able to regain the stamina necessary to endure another campaign, it would be all but impossible to convince Russian voters that he has the staying power to last a second four-year term.

That could leave Clinton in a bind. For years critics have been warning the Administration that it has invested too much in Yeltsin rather than broadening its contacts with Russian politicians. The White House rebuts this argument by declaring it has cultivated other Russians and that the U.S. relationship with Russia "is based on principles of mutual interest, not personalities," as a State Department official puts it.

Observers of the ebullient meeting at Hyde Park could be forgiven if they concluded that the relationship was based largely on personalities, but the State Department has another reading. The Presidents agreed that Russia would participate in some way in the force that implements a peace plan for Bosnia. Whatever Yeltsin's condition, spokesman Nicholas Burns says, this agreement is set. For the next few weeks that may be true. But the hard-liners have won powerful support. If Yeltsin falls, it is not at all clear that whoever succeeds him will so readily accommodate the Americans, either in Bosnia or beyond.

--Reported by James Carney and Ann M. Simmons/Washington, Sally B. Donnelly and Yuri Zarakhovich/Moscow

With reporting by JAMES CARNEY AND ANN M. SIMMONS/WASHINGTON, SALLY B. DONNELLY AND YURI ZARAKHOVICH/MOSCOW