| Yeltsin knew I was hurting because he also had recently lost his mother, whom he adored
Whenever we had a chance we took to the streets, shopping for Russian artifacts and buying bread at a small bakeryI lit a candle for Mother at Kazan Cathedral, now fully restored from the ravages of Stalinism, and visited the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church in the hospitalOn January 14, after an impressive welcoming ceremony in the Kremlins StGeorges Hall, a massive white room with high arches and columns with the names of more than two hundred years of Russias war heroes emblazoned in gold, Yeltsin and I signed the nuclear agreement with Ukranian president Kravchuk, and held talks about economic and security initiatives
In the press conference afterward, Yeltsin expressed his appreciation for the American aid package and the one approved at the Tokyo G-7 meeting, for the commitment of $1 billion more in each of the next two years, and for our decision to reduce tariffs on five thousand Russian productsHe gave a qualified endorsement of the Partnership for Peace, on the strength of my commitment to work out a special cooperative agreement between NATO and RussiaI was also pleased that we had agreed, as of May 30, not to target our nuclear missiles against each other or any other country, and that the United States would buy $12 billion worth of highly enriched uranium from Russia over the next twenty years, gradually removing it from any possibility of being used to make weapons
I thought all these actions were good for both the United States and Russia, but not everyone agreedYeltsin was having some problems with his new sale chanel quilted handbag parliament, especially with Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the leader of a sizable bloc of militant nationalists who wanted to return Russia to imperial glory and were convinced I was trying to reduce its power and reachTo push back a bit, I repeated my mantra that the Russian people should define their greatness in terms relevant to the future, not the past
After the press conference, I did a town hall meeting with young people at the Ostankino television stationThey asked questions about all the current issues, but they also wanted to know whether American students could learn anything from Russia, how old I was when I first thought of becoming President, what advice I could give a young Russian who wanted to go into politics, and how I wanted to be rememberedThe students made me hopeful about the future of RussiaThey were intelligent, idealistic, and fiercely committed to democracy
The trip was going well, advancing important American interests in building a safer, freer world, but you would never have known it back home, where the only thing the politicians and press wanted to talk about was WhitewaterI even got questions about it on my trip from the American press accompanying meEven before I left, the Washington Post and the New York Times had joined the Republicans in demanding that Janet Reno appoint an independent counselThe only new development in recent months was that David Hale, a Republican who had been indicted in 1993 for defrauding the Small Business Administration, had said I had asked him to make a loan to Susan McDougal for which she was ineligible
The standard for appointing an independent counsel under both the old law, d |
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