U.S.-Russian Relations on Rocky Ground, Nixon Says

Former President Richard Nixon warned Monday that U.S.-Russian relations are “on rocky ground” and urged leaders of both nations to acknowledge and iron out their disputes “rather than drown them in toasts of vodka and champagne.”

“There has been too much of a tendency to assume that everything is going smoothly between our two countries,” Nixon told Russian lawmakers. “That is not true. Because if you look at the situation in Russia and in America, there are some profoundly disturbing developments.”

For more than an hour, the 81-year-old former President stood before the foreign affairs committee of the Duma, the lower house of Parliament, in a tireless personal effort to air issues that have most inflamed conservatives in both countries and to shore up dwindling American support for Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin’s reforms.

He cautioned the Russians, for example, that the exposure of an alleged Russian mole in the CIA has brought “a resurrection of some anti-Russian attitudes” in the United States. He said Americans are worried that ultranationalist gains in Russia’s December parliamentary election are pushing Moscow toward an aggressive foreign policy.

Then he fielded questions from lawmakers that underlined growing suspicion about American aims:

Why is Washington so cool to Moscow’s effort to revive economic ties among former Soviet republics? Why is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a Cold War alliance, trying to expand into the former Soviet bloc? Why won’t the West rule out military force against the Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina? Why did the United States block a sale of Russian rocket engines to India? Why won’t Washington recognize Moscow’s “basic role” as the policeman of its former empire?

Nixon said the questions reflect a “profound change” in Russian attitudes over the past year. “It is not anti-American,” he said. “It is more pro-Russian. I understand this. Russia is a great power, and Russia must chart its own course.

“If I were a Russian politician,” he added, “I would realize that it would not be helpful to go in lockstep with America.”

While praising what he called Moscow’s “great statesmanship” in trying to end Bosnia’s war, Nixon urged Russians not to see NATO as a threat. And while sharing Moscow’s concern for 25 million Russians living in other former Soviet republics, he cautioned Russia to avoid the slightest appearance of imperialist behavior in their defense.

Nixon’s views, though voiced as those of a private citizen, carry weight in both capitals. As President, he was the architect of detente with the Soviet Union two decades ago; this is his 10th visit here in 35 years. He said Clinton asked him to meet with the Duma to broaden bilateral contacts.

Lawmakers across the spectrum applauded Nixon’s personal diplomacy and his assertion that Russia is not a defeated power to be trampled on. “There’s a growing attitude in the United States that Russia must be treated more aggressively, in Cold War style,” said Sergei M. Stankevich, a former Yeltsin adviser now in the Duma. “I hope Mr. Nixon’s visit can help change that attitude.”

Even if it does, the visit will be remembered for an incident that only seemed to highlight the two countries’ misunderstandings. Yeltsin, whose reforms Nixon champions, refused to receive Nixon after the visitor met first with Alexander V. Rutskoi, the former vice president who led armed opposition to Yeltsin last October.

Yeltsin left Monday for a two-week working vacation in the Black Sea port of Sochi but canceled an order barring members of his government from meeting Nixon.