“Clinton’s abdication to Gore of authority over the most important foreign policy opportunity for America since World War II–the rebuilding of Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union–is striking. No other foreign policy development in the second half of the 20th century held as much in the balance as the potential Russian transition from Communism to free enterprise and democracy. By assigning this portfolio of overarching importance to his second-in-command–whose priorities were (and remain) “Reinventing Government,” environmental issues, and technology policy–Clinton guaranteed that Russia policy would receive only desultory attention. By removing the Russia portfolio another layer from the President, the administration also sent a signal that Russia was of secondary importance to the United States.”
