Betting on Boris.

• Author: Clark, Bruce
• Position: Political Booknotes

THE RUSSIA HAND: A Memoir of Presidential Diplomacy by Strobe Talbott Random House, $29.95

THE FRIENDSHIP BETWEEN BILL Clinton and Boris Yeltsin was possibly the most important political partnership between two world leaders in modern times. During the seven years following Clinton's inauguration in January 1993, the two presidents met no less than 18 times. In other words, Clinton had nearly as much contact with his opposite number in the Kremlin as his nine predecessors combined.

It was a strange friendship; and regardless of the individuals involved, it would have been a strange diplomatic relationship. Post-Soviet Russia needed America's financial help to reenergize its ruined economy. But that did not give America total leverage over its old enemy. As Russian officials knew, it would not be in Americas interest to see Russia decline uncontrollably. The risks of chaos in a nuclear power were too great, and even a poor country can still be a geopolitical menace (witness North Korea). So Russia's leaders could pressure the West by presenting their own policies as the only alternative to an even worse scenario: either uncontrollable anarchy or a slide towards Pyongyang-style autarky. "You wouldn't want us to implode and make a mess of your nice, peaceful world," was Russia's implied message to the West.

Faced with this challenge, and the inherent risk of any approach that bets heavily on one highly vulnerable and unpredictable person, Clinton took a huge gamble, effectively staking his own career on Yeltsin's survival. He used his extraordinary personal and psychological skills to keep their relationship alive.

Whenever the two men met, back-slapped, and bear-hugged, they would wax sentimental about how much they had in common: Were they not giants surrounded by pygmies, men of vision who could do "great things together" if only their bungling aides would allow them? In reality, of course, vast differences lay between them. Clinton had been to the best schools and could lap up the minutiae of any subject; Yeltsin was poorly educated, inarticulate in his own language, and utterly bored by routine and detail.

Yet the affection they developed for one another as they co-managed the consequences of the Soviet collapse was not entirely feigned. Their fates were strangely intertwined. In a sense, each man had it in his power to make or break the other's political career. Clinton might have failed in his re-election bid if he'd appeared to have...