Delivery of U.S. Aid to Russia Lags : Diplomacy: Using unspent funds, Clinton can promise Yeltsin faster action.

The United States has delivered less than $120 million of $652 million in direct economic aid promised to the former Soviet Union over the last year, leading many Russians to conclude that the promise of U.S. aid is a hoax, officials said Wednesday.

Ironically, even as the Russians complain that they are seeing little or no aid, many American taxpayers believe that the money already has been spent, polls show.

“We have given ourselves the worst of both worlds,” a U.S. aid official lamented. “We have lost a year and a half spinning our wheels, and we have convinced the Russians that our promises should not be taken seriously.”

Even the top State Department official who has been running the aid program for the past 11 months largely agrees.

“In traditional bureaucratic terms, we’ve been moving at the speed of light,” said Richard L. Armitage, who was named to his position during the George Bush Administration. “But in my view, and the view of most people in government, it has not been fast enough for the task at hand.”

As one result, when President Clinton unveils his own new aid program this weekend at his meeting with Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin in Vancouver, Canada, he will not be asking immediately for any new money from Congress, officials said.

Instead, as a first step, Clinton plans to work with unspent money already in the hands of the State Department, the Pentagon and other federal agencies, they said.

Including Defense Department money intended to pay for the destruction of nuclear weapons in the former Soviet Union, the available funds could exceed $1 billion, some officials estimated.

“All of these programs that (Clinton) will be presenting will be funded with already authorized and appropriated funds, so that we can deliver now on what we are proposing,” a senior official said at a White House briefing.

As a second step, officials said, Clinton plans to ask Congress for a larger amount for the fiscal year beginning in October. He has not decided how much to request.

Clinton is determined to do better than the Bush Administration at actually delivering aid, officials said, describing him as demanding, on program after program: “Is this really doable?”

The President wants to convince Yeltsin that his new aid program will not turn out to be a repeat of past Western promises, they said.

“That’s as big a concern for us as it is for Yeltsin, and we are discussing mechanisms to make sure that this time we get it right,” one aide said.

Clinton plans to direct about 75% of the new aid to non-government organizations to ensure that the money helps reformers no matter what happens in the Russian government, aides said.

Officials who served during the Bush Administration offered several reasons for the slow start of their aid program.

Although Bush and then-Secretary of State James A. Baker III announced their intention to send aid to Russia and its neighbors at the end of 1991, they hesitated to launch any large-scale program, largely because foreign aid was an unpopular idea in the midst of a domestic recession. As a result, the first $235 million in economic aid did not become available until the middle of 1992, officials said.

Then, much of the aid was put in the hands of the Agency for International Development, which has a reputation for slowness.

Even critics of the program give Armitage credit for speeding it up considerably. But in January, with Clinton on his way into the White House, officials decided that it would be prudent to hold back and see what the new Administration wanted to do.

Of a total economic aid fund of $652 million, about $260 million has been “obligated,” or committed to specific projects.

But because of the inevitable delays between designing programs and actually running them, less than $120 million has been spent, officials said.

The direct economic aid program is only one part of the total U.S. aid effort for Russia. But it is the part that is most likely to produce visible results for ordinary Russians.

One early success, for example, is the “farmer-to-farmer” program, which has sent hundreds of American farmers into rural Russia to teach Western methods of growing, storing and marketing crops.

The U.S. aid effort also includes an $800-million Defense Department fund for destroying nuclear weaponry, of which only $303 million has been earmarked for specific programs. Much of the delay in implementing that program, however, is attributable to Ukraine’s refusal to give up its nuclear weapons, officials said.