Strauss to Quit Moscow Post, Says He’ll Lobby for Reforms

Robert S. Strauss, the wily Potomac powerbroker turned U.S. diplomat, said Monday he will resign as ambassador to Russia by the end of the year but will keep lobbying for the cause of Russian reform in Washington.

After meeting with President Boris N. Yeltsin on Monday afternoon, Strauss said he reassured the Russian leader that “instead of losing an ambassador, you’ll pick one up when I go back to the States.”

“I think I can do more good for Russia from an office in Washington than an office in Moscow,” Strauss, a Washington-based lawyer and former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, explained to members of the U.S. press corps who joined him for evening cocktails and an informal question-and-answer session at his official residence, Spaso House.

Much of Strauss’ time has recently been taken up with phone calls to Capitol Hill to endorse massive U.S. financial aid for Russian reform, but, he said, “there is only so much we can do on the telephone.”

Strauss, who will turn 74 next month, said he had promised President Bush and then-Secretary of State James A. Baker III--both fellow Texans--to serve for a “reasonable period of time” when he began as U.S. ambassador here in August of last year. He defined that period as “a year or so.”

Many Russian observers believe that Strauss did a marvelous job, in large part because he has energetically lobbied Congress for huge amounts of U.S. aid for their country.

“We regard Mr. Strauss as one of the most serious and competent ambassadors since the Cold War,” said Victor A. Kremenyuk, deputy director of the U.S.A.-Canada Institute.