‘Sharp’ Yeltsin Gives Albright Warm Greeting

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright met Friday with a thin but alert Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin, finding him mentally “sharp” and “very much in charge” but making no progress with him in softening his stand against the eastward expansion of NATO.

Albright--the first American official to visit Yeltsin since his heart surgery in November--received a warm Kremlin welcome from the ailing Russian leader, who wore heavy makeup for their brief appearance before television cameras.

“He was totally engaged,” Albright told reporters after the session. “He was very sharp, knowing exactly what he wanted to achieve.”

During their 50-minute session, Yeltsin and Albright discussed the agenda for a presidential summit scheduled for late March in Helsinki, Finland, as well as the sensitive issue of the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization deeper into Central Europe.

A smiling Yeltsin described Albright’s trip as “a friendly visit to work out certain problems that exist between us.” When his interpreter began to translate, Yeltsin interrupted, nodded toward Albright and joked: “She speaks Russian--she doesn’t need a translation.”

Albright’s two-day stop in Moscow during her round-the-world tour gave senior U.S. officials their first chance to personally assess the health of the Russian president since July, when Vice President Al Gore visited. Yeltsin suffered double pneumonia in January after his heart bypass operation and practically vanished from public view.

Rare appearances on Russian television by the frail president have left many wondering about the true state of his health and who is running the country. Some Russian newspapers have often suggested that the president is not entirely in command of his mental faculties.

Nezavisimaya Gazeta, for example, reported Friday that earlier this week, Yeltsin arrived at the Kremlin, got out of his car, looked around at his assembled aides and asked: “And where is Korzhakov?” His stunned aides didn’t know what to say: Yeltsin had fired Alexander V. Korzhakov, his chief bodyguard, last June in a well-publicized ouster.

The Kremlin quickly denied this newspaper account. “I did not hear about this phrase,” said presidential spokesman Sergei V. Yastrzhembsky, joking that it has become a regular feature of his twice-weekly briefings to deny such reports.

Yeltsin’s doctors say he is regaining strength and predicted that he will recover from the pneumonia in three or four weeks, in time for the summit with President Clinton.

Already this week, Yeltsin’s public presence has increased dramatically. Besides his televised appearance with Albright, he was shown in broadcasts Tuesday meeting with Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat and Monday with Defense Minister Igor N. Rodionov.

Some Russians who have seen Yeltsin’s television appearances said he looked healthier and seemed more alert in his meeting with Albright than at any time since his heart operation.

When he entered the hall to greet her, he walked steadily and quickly and displayed no sign of trembling. His face was animated, and he spoke clearly.

“He didn’t use one note, he was right on point, and I think he’s very much in charge,” Albright said afterward.

But American reporters traveling with Albright who were allowed to witness the first few minutes of the meeting said Yeltsin appeared gaunt despite his makeup; his well-known thundering voice, they said, was replaced by weaker, breathier tones.

As for the negotiations on the Atlantic alliance, U.S. officials believe that a breakthrough at the Helsinki summit is crucial to completing negotiations on an overarching NATO-Russia charter that would set out a new post-Cold War relationship between the two.

Albright, who left Friday for South Korea, spent much of her time in Moscow meeting with her Russian counterpart, Foreign Minister Yevgeny M. Primakov.

U.S. officials described their three meetings and working dinner as the most intensive talks ever conducted on the issue of Russia’s future relationship with the West.

Despite the intensity of the discussions, there was little progress in bridging their differences on the sensitive subject of the expansion of NATO, probably with the addition of Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic as alliance members.

As she has done repeatedly in recent days, Albright tried to press home the point that Russia’s image of the NATO alliance is anchored in the past.

“It’s no longer ‘you’ and ‘us,’ ” she said. “We’re on the same side. NATO and Russia have a mutual interest in preventing security threats in the next century. We want to work together on this.”

She also pointed out that NATO members have cut back their forces since the end of the Cold War. The number of combat aircraft dropped from 6,000 to 3,800 between 1989 and 1995, while the number of U.S. forces shrank from 300,000 to 100,000, she said.

Primakov repeated Moscow’s objection to a larger NATO and said Moscow would like to see the alliance transformed into a mainly political body whose military activities would be reduced to peacekeeping.

“We’re still negatively disposed to the expansion of NATO, but we’re doing everything we can to minimize the negative consequences that might arise if NATO does expand,” he told reporters.