Clinton Will Bring No Quick Fix to Moscow

White House officials are scrambling to rewrite the script for a problematic summit in Moscow next week, but they made clear Friday that President Clinton will bring little immediate economic assistance to prop up either Russia’s falling ruble or its weakened president, Boris N. Yeltsin.

“The key political and economic choices are up to the Russian people themselves,” National Security Advisor Samuel R. “Sandy” Berger said. “As they do the things necessary to restore stability and progress, we are prepared to support them.”

Deputy Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers said that if Russia undertakes serious economic reforms--such as devising a system for collecting taxes, establishing laws for private property and enacting bankruptcy laws--a new loan from the International Monetary Fund might be negotiated. But officials warned that without the reforms, the next slice of an IMF lending package--a $4.3-billion installment due Sept. 15--could be imperiled.

It is a measure of how huge Russia’s domestic crisis has been over the last few days that several Clinton administration officials have no idea whom they will be meeting with in Russia. Summers, Commerce Secretary Bill Daley and Gene Sperling, the director of the National Economic Council, are scheduled to leave Monday. But their counterparts lost their jobs when Yeltsin fired his Cabinet last weekend, and replacements have not yet been named.

Apart from the turmoil in Russia, the summit also comes at an awkward time for Clinton. Pilloried in editorials for having an affair with a former White House intern, and in polls showing that Americans have little faith in his character, Clinton might ordinarily welcome the distraction of a foreign trip.

But some inside the White House have urged Clinton to cancel the trip, fearful that an unpredictable Yeltsin might use the occasion to win domestic applause by blaming Russia’s problems on the United States.

Observers imagined Yeltsin capable of doing anything--from not showing up to sharply criticizing Clinton in person. On Friday, Berger began deflecting any effort to tag America for Russia’s problems, saying, “I don’t think by any stretch of the imagination one can argue that the current financial situation in Russia is a result of U.S. actions.”

‘I Should Go There,’ Clinton Says

Clinton, in a speech on Martha’s Vineyard to commemorate the 35th anniversary of the historic civil rights march on Washington, defended the decision to keep his appointment in Moscow. Quoting his host at the event, Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), the president said: “I should go to Russia because, as John said, ‘Anybody can come see you when you’re doing well.’ I should go there.”

Administration officials also view the summit as an opportunity to ensure that they have ties to a new generation of Russian leaders. Mindful of the frequent criticism that the United States has been too Yeltsin-centric, Clinton plans to address a group of young business and professional leaders and to meet, as he has in the past, with opposition leaders in the Duma, the lower house of parliament.

The prospect of two beleaguered presidents looking for mutual support could provide incentives for viable agreements between the United States and Russia--or merely add a new dynamic of uncertainty to an already nettlesome relationship and an equally troublesome summit.

“It is clear that both presidents are looking for and need some sign of political strength, but it’s a little difficult to see how two weakened presidents can give that to one another,” said Raymond Garthoff, a Russia specialist from the Washington-based Brookings Institution.

But some officials expressed hope that Clinton can exploit the close relationship he has forged with Yeltsin over the years to persuade the Russian leader to take the tough steps necessary to regain economic stability--such as ensuring that taxes are collected.

‘Direct Impact on Yeltsin’ Foreseen

White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry suggested that Clinton could have a “direct impact on Yeltsin” at a time when the mercurial Russian president appears to be out of touch.

“He is in the best position of anyone in the world--except perhaps German Chancellor Helmut Kohl--to get the right message through to Yeltsin: to stay with the reform program and don’t flinch,” McCurry said.

Clinton seemed to forecast that role Friday, saying he planned to tell Russians that “if they’ll be strong and do the disciplined, hard things they have to do to reform their country, their economy, and get through this dark night, that we’ll stick with them.”

Both U.S. and IMF officials said the West is willing to provide more aid to Russia but that Moscow first must undertake the financial reforms it promised to carry out in exchange for the $22.6-billion lending package that the IMF approved last month.

Summers and Michel Camdessus, the IMF’s managing director, also warned the new Russian government against reverting to “populist” measures, such as reinstating wage-price controls and renationalizing key Russian industries, as was the case during the Soviet era.

“A move back toward centralized planning . . . would be a serious policy error and very unfortunate with respect to Russia’s economic prospects going forward,” Summers said.

In a news conference at the IMF’s headquarters in Washington, Camdessus added that “the world community is anxious to extend to Russia a helping hand.” But, he cautioned, any additional aid will have to wait for both the new government--and the parliament--to approve the needed reforms.

One reason that the ruble has been under attack in the world’s financial markets is that Moscow has failed to make the kinds of reforms that investors believe are essential to their ability to earn a profit there.

Summers also sought to calm the turmoil in global financial markets since the ruble’s fall, saying that countries that have been hit hard should overhaul their economic policies. But he said he saw “no reason why the difficulties in international markets, while significant, should interfere with” the U.S. economy.

U.S. Readying Several Pacts

The White House still hopes for progress at the summit on substantive issues, and officials are crafting bilateral agreements in the areas of arms control, nonproliferation and international terrorism.

“These issues are simply too important to put on hold,” Berger said.

The top priority is forging a direct link between the two nuclear powers’ early warning systems. Thousands of Russian strategic nuclear weapons remain on hair-trigger alert--poised for immediate launch. With the Russian early warning system deteriorating, U.S. nuclear experts fear that it could pass on a false warning of a enemy attack, triggering a strike.

By making progress on bilateral issues, officials hope, Yeltsin and Clinton will demonstrate that they are still in charge despite their respective domestic troubles.

“It’s such an opportunity for both of these men to demonstrate that they have presidential leadership,” said Spurgeon M. Keeny Jr., executive director of the Arms Control Assn. and a senior government official under several former presidents. “People are saying Yeltsin doesn’t have control of the country and that Clinton can’t do anything. There’s a tremendous incentive to come up with something.”

But Russia analysts say that no matter how important issues like nuclear nonproliferation are to the United States, it would be absurd to expect Russian officials to focus on them now.

“Nobody in Moscow can concentrate about anything other than their own crisis situation at home,” said Clifford Gaddy, another Russia specialist at Brookings.

For their part, White House officials did not try to hide the fact that Russia’s fiscal nightmare has made their last-minute planning very difficult and will probably distract them and their hosts in Moscow.

To many Russia hands accustomed to the well-orchestrated summitry of the Cold War, a U.S.-Russia summit in the midst of so much upheaval in both capitals makes for dicey diplomacy.

“The best possible outcome is he gets in and out of there without much hoopla and there is no net negative effect. That’s a pathetic thing to have to say about a summit between two big countries,” Gaddy said.

Condoleezza Rice, Stanford University provost and a senior advisor on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the Bush administration, put it this way: “If I were in a position of trying to plan this summit, I would do everything in erasable ink.”

Times staff writer Art Pine contributed to this story from Martha’s Vineyard.