Clinton Replacing Aid Official Armitage : Transition: The coordinator of assistance for the former Soviet states angered the White House by predicting the ouster of Yeltsin.

The Clinton Administration announced Monday that it is replacing Richard L. Armitage, a George Bush Administration holdover who had been serving as coordinator of U.S. aid to the former Soviet Union, after he publicly predicted the ouster of Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin.

State Department spokesman Joseph Snyder announced Armitage’s departure, saying that the views that he expressed during a speech in Nashville a week ago “most emphatically do not represent this Administration’s analysis of the political situation in Russia.”

Although Snyder insisted that the removal of Armitage was not connected to the comments, his remarks were said to have angered Strobe Talbott, a close friend of President Clinton who is now a special adviser on Russia and other former Soviet republics.

The Clinton Administration has been trying to bolster Yeltsin in his battle with hard-liners in the Russian Parliament, for fear that the Russian leader’s downfall might push Moscow toward an anti-Western stance that ultimately could threaten U.S. interests.

Monday’s announcement was viewed as an attempt to signal the Administration’s continued support for the Russian leader. Clinton has agreed to meet with Yeltsin soon to help dramatize that support, but so far the two sides have not set any firm date.

Armitage, a 46-year-old former intelligence officer and Pentagon official who held a number of key posts in the Ronald Reagan and Bush administrations, has been a controversial figure for years, embroiled in everything from prisoner-of-war issues to the Iran-Contra scandal.

He had been expected to leave the State Department post soon to open his own private research firm. He had been asked by the Clinton Administration to remain until a replacement was found.

In a speech last Tuesday to the Vanderbilt Institute for Public Policy Studies in Nashville, Armitage predicted that Yeltsin could be ousted soon as a result of his domestic political difficulties. According to the Associated Press, which obtained a tape-recording of the speech, Armitage called Yeltsin a man of “enormous personal courage,” but added that he lacked any “grand vision” and seemed unable to work well with Russia’s harder-line legislative branch.

“Not unlike (former Soviet President Mikhail S.) Gorbachev, his days are somewhat numbered,” Armitage said of Yeltsin, whose term in office technically does not expire until 1996. He described the Russian leader as “just about at the end of his usefulness.”

Although Armitage later said the statement represented only his personal views and conceded that the speech was “injudicious,” his stance was not substantially out of line with the assessments of key U.S. intelligence officials, who also worry that Yeltsin could be deposed.

In Larnaca, Cyprus, Secretary of State Warren Christopher said he, too, disagreed with Armitage--and confirmed that the aid coordinator was on his way out.

“It is an assessment I do not agree with,” Christopher said of Armitage’s comments. “I think that President Yeltsin is the best opportunity that the people of Russia have at the present time. We strongly support his leadership. . . . “

Armitage will be replaced by Thomas W. Simons Jr., the current U.S. ambassador to Poland, who once directed the State Department’s Office of Soviet Affairs and was a deputy assistant secretary for European affairs, with responsibility for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

The State Department sought Monday to put the best possible face on Monday’s announcement, with Snyder asserting that the Administration had been working for a month on choosing a new coordinator, and praising Armitage for having done “a superb job.”

However, Snyder lost no time in responding to reporters’ questions about the outgoing ambassador’s comments, saying they “emphatically do not represent” the Administration’s own analysis and thinking.

Times staff writer Doyle McManus, traveling with Christopher in Cyprus, contributed to this story.