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.