Clinton Speeds Up Contacts With Russia : Diplomacy: Talks between top aides will include planning for post-inaugural meeting with Yeltsin.

In a new effort to ready his Administration for a quick start, President-elect Bill Clinton ordered top aides Monday to begin consulting with senior Russian officials to avoid any post-inaugural lull in relations between the two nations.

The talks between Secretary of State-designate Warren M. Christopher and Russian Foreign Minister Andrei V. Kozyrev are to include discussion of the timetable for a meeting between Clinton and Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin after the Jan. 20 inauguration.

A top aide said Clinton told Yeltsin by telephone Monday morning of his decision to move now to establish a formal relationship. The President-elect also was said to have assured Yeltsin he would “do everything he could to get early ratification” of the arms reduction agreement that the Russian president signed with President Bush on Sunday.

Clinton previously had said he was willing to meet with Yeltsin early in his presidency. But he and his staff speeded up the schedule on that meeting as they prepared to move into the White House two weeks from tomorrow.

Clinton is scheduled to travel to Austin, Tex., on Friday to meet with Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari. On Monday, as Clinton began his first full day of work after a six-day vacation, aides said Clinton also is weighing whether he should meet with Canadian President Brian Mulroney before the Jan. 20 inauguration.

While advancing his incoming Administration’s contacts with some foreign governments, Clinton, returning to Little Rock on Sunday, said he planned no dramatic changes in U.S. policy toward Russia or toward Somalia, where more than 20,000 American troops are engaged in humanitarian operations.

Clinton aides declined to say how soon the new President might convene his first U.S.-Russia summit. But they said Clinton favors undertaking new obligations, particularly in Russia and Mexico, which he sees as top priorities.

Spokesman George Stephanopoulos cited “issues of urgent concern” when asked why Clinton would devote one of the few remaining days of his transition to meeting with Salinas. Speaking of unresolved issues affecting the North American Free Trade Agreement, he said, “This is something we want to move forward on right away.”

Aides said that the 20-minute exchange between Clinton and Yeltsin was initiated by the Russian leader, who earlier had expressed concern about the danger of a lull in relations between Washington and Moscow.

In other transition developments, Clinton, who spent weeks filling his top Cabinet posts, was said to be tackling questions Monday about the composition and structure of his White House staff, which has many key posts still unfilled.

The President-elect hopes to finish the job “soon,” said Stephanopoulos, who as the transition’s communications director remains among the Clinton advisers whose future remains uncertain. But, he quickly added, “I don’t know exactly when it will be.”

Having pledged quick action on such fronts as health care and campaign-finance reform, Clinton, aides said, is spending long hours reviewing briefing books on those and other subjects. Clinton’s wife, Hillary, and 12-year-old daughter, Chelsea, toured campuses in Washington in hopes of making a final selection of a school the eighth-grader will attend.