NEWS ANALYSIS : Politics Takes Priority in Russian Aid Package : Diplomacy: Clinton’s approach to economic change centers on stitching together a global coalition.

The aid program that President Clinton outlined to Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin on Saturday wasn’t large in the daunting terms of big-country economics: $1 billion comes to only a little more than $6 for each citizen of Russia.

But the real importance of Clinton’s action was more political than economic, and as such, it represents a major departure from the abortive Western aid efforts of the past.

Instead of seeking to remake Russia’s economy from the top down--as the major industrial powers proposed last year with a $24-billion package that never quite came true--Clinton has begun by focusing on the politics behind the issue, in both Russia and the West.

Indeed, he sees the political dimension as a prerequisite to effective economic change.

In a sense, Clinton--who rose from the Arkansas Statehouse by stitching together a national coalition of disparate constituencies--is now trying the same thing on a global scale.

And in making the aid package the centerpiece of his first summit meeting with Yeltsin, the President has publicly pledged the honor of his Administration--once focused solely on the domestic economy--to the staggering task of helping Russia’s reformers succeed.

“I look at this as a long-term effort,” the President said at the beginning of his meetings here. “I think it would be a mistake to put a short-term dollar figure on it.”

Even some Clinton aides acknowledge that the short-term figure of $1 billion is deceiving.

If Clinton has his way, his grab-bag of programs targeted at farmers, oilmen and Red Army officers will be only the down payment on a much larger package of aid that will emerge over the rest of the year.

To succeed, the President must convince three enormously different audiences:

* In Russia, he hopes to impress Yeltsin’s own constituents, only three weeks before a referendum on their country’s future, that the West will give them real help if they choose the path of real reform. That is why he has targeted specific groups for immediate help.

* At home, the President must sway skeptical taxpayers that helping Russia is worth the money, and, thus, is highlighting the most appealing--and least expensive--parts of his aid program first.

* Abroad, Clinton hopes to prod reluctant Japanese and recession-pinched Europeans to join in, especially when the big-ticket items--billions of dollars in proposed economic stabilization funds--come due.

As Clinton aides had promised, the package he unveiled this weekend concentrated on helping important “sectors” of Russia’s population in tangible ways, in hopes of relieving the hardship that Yeltsin’s first, halting steps toward reform have wrought.

There is housing for the officers of the Red Army, who have resisted coming home from the Baltic states when it means putting their families in Quonset huts and slums.

There is aid for Russian businessmen, including defense-conversion help that might interest some of the powerful industrialists who make up a key swing faction in the Russian Congress.

And there is renewed shipments of food and medicine, to deliver tangible evidence of American concern to ordinary Russians--and, incidentally, to boost the income of Midwestern grain farmers.

Some of those components appear aimed, fortuitously perhaps, at U.S. public opinion, as well.

Polls have shown that, while most Americans oppose foreign aid, in general, they often support aid to Russia when the question is put more concretely--to help Russians get through a difficult winter or avert the possibility of war.

Further, a New York Times poll last week suggested that even broad economic aid can win more support if the President mounts a serious campaign for it. Among all adults, the poll found, only 41% supported aid to help reform Russia’s economy--but among those who had been paying attention to Yeltsin’s travails, a much larger 66% supported aid.

Clinton has stepped up his effort to drum up domestic support for more aid, beginning with a speech in Annapolis, Md., on Thursday and continuing here--with more to come, aides said.

In Vancouver, the President observed, “Historically, in our country, foreign aid has never been popular. And that’s why I have gone out of my way to show that this is the establishment of a partnership that will be mutually beneficial. This is not in any way an act of charity that we are engaged in.”

Asked whether the aid might turn out to be ineffective, Clinton replied mildly: “You could say that about any effort we might make anywhere, including in our own country.

“The way we propose to do it will minimize the chance that the money will be squandered,” he added.

Aides have said most direct American assistance will be targeted at grass-roots, non-government organizations in Russia--a measure intended to ensure that even if Yeltsin is toppled by hard-liners, the United States will have avenues for continuing to aid reformists.

This weekend’s proposals for direct aid, however concrete, are only a prelude to Clinton’s real test: The campaign to put together a large-scale economic support package from the Group of Seven industrialized powers--the United States, Japan, Germany, France, Italy, Britain and Canada--in exchange for more serious reform measures in Moscow.

“The main thing we are trying to do is prime the pump for Tokyo,” a senior Administration official said, referring to a meeting of the seven wealthy countries’ foreign ministers and finance ministers scheduled in two weeks. “If anything big is going to happen, it will be there.”

Clinton telephoned Japanese Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa from Portland on Friday evening, urging him to support a new fund for Russia.

It was the last in a round of conversations with all the other leaders of the G-7 countries. Clinton has asked them to match the U.S. commitment of direct aid programs, which would produce at least $2 billion more. And he is approaching the leaders of other wealthy countries, like Saudi Arabia, officials said.

More important, the Administration has proposed an economic stabilization program for Russia of up to $13.5 billion through the International Monetary Fund, one of the main issues to be discussed at Tokyo.

Will it all work? “We don’t know,” one senior official confessed. “There is no way to know.”

But in the short run, at least, the key political goal--in the words of former Defense Secretary James R. Schlesinger--was that Yeltsin “not be sent home empty-handed.”

“When the Russian people see the package, we believe we will have accomplished that,” a U.S. official said.