Gore's Embrace

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Sept 27, 1999 | by J. Michael Waller

Some want to make Gore's Russia debacle a presidential-campaign issue. Bradley, however, has been criticizing the administration's Russia policy for years. Four years ago, in a speech ghostwritten by scholar Greg Guroff, Bradley warned, "Not only do we fail to influence the course of Russian reform, we actually create an Anti-American backlash based on disappointed expectations." His current criticism is little-changed.

Bush's presidential campaign also is critical of the administration's Russian policies. "We need to step back from Russian domestic politics," argues Bush security adviser Rice. "We've made ourselves an actor or actual player in Russian politics, and that's not good. We have a very large agenda with the Russians on things that should be of direct interest to both of us." But she's withholding judgment on how the Clinton administration, and Gore in particular, handled the Russian government's corruption problem: "I hope everybody goes after this very aggressively."

Now, with former secret-police chief Vladimir Putin as prime minister, the administration is faced with a new set of embarrassing issues. KGB veteran Putin is considered an experienced operational hand at moving money and the strongest protector of "the Family" of oligarchs surrounding Yeltsin (see "Yeltsin Keeps It All in `the Family,'" Sept. 6).

So will the administration be more objective in working with the Gore-Putin commission? An intelligence official gives Insight little reason for optimism: "The White House is pressuring the intelligence organizations again. Right now there are tremendous fights within the government that there can be no mention in any Putin biographies or assessments that he has ties to organized crime or corruption. That's gone on all along with each Russian leader, and it's still going on today. They don't want to hear it."