America Abroad: For He's a Jolly Fellow

For He's a Jolly Fellow

Lightweight, demagogue, buffoon, windbag. At best naive, at worst dangerous. Those were among the put-downs of the newly elected president of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic that came sluicing anonymously out of the U.S. Government on the eve of last week's summit. The name-calling stemmed in part from memories of Boris Yeltsin's visit to Washington in September.

Yeltsin called on Brent Scowcroft at the White House. "What is the objective of your visit?" asked the National Security Adviser. With no more encouragement than that, Yeltsin launched into a hortatory rhapsody about how U.S. business could "rescue" perestroika by building 1...

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